CrossFit Open and Quarterfinals Programming: Nailed It?

May 6th, 2024

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • As we leave the online portion of the 2024 Games season behind and gear up for Semis, we took a quick look at the Open and Quarterfinals and asked: Did CrossFit nail it?

  • Greg Everett wants to know if you’re an athlete or an exerciser. His reason why might surprise you.

  • Our May Affiliate of the Month, All Level CrossFit, is doing all the good work in Ontario.

Should your gym be featured as our Affiliate of the Month for June? Please drop us a note to explain why!

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“[E]ven if athletes and exercisers do many of the same things, how and why they do them is often different.” - Greg Everett, Catalyst Athletics, on training priorities

CROSSFIT GAMES

Credit: Victor Freitas (Unsplash)

2024 CrossFit Open and Quarterfinals Programming: Did They Nail It?

In terms of competitions, the 2024 CrossFit season is halfway done for Individuals. 

We leave the online portion behind and move on to in-person competitions from here. No more blind leaderboards, no more entering scores incorrectly, and no more video reviews. 

CrossFit had a monumental task this year. 

With 25 percent of athletes moving on from the Open, the workouts needed to be exceedingly well thought-out to induce a good experience for a wide range of fitness levels. 

So, did they nail it?

We are all entitled to our own opinions about the programming, but let’s first look objectively at what we’ve seen so far.

The numbers: Between the Open and Quarterfinals, we’ve seen the fewest number of scored workouts and movements since the inception of the second online stage of competition in 2021.

  • 2021: 9 scores and 26 movements.

  • 2022: 8 scores and 26 movements.

  • 2023: 9 scores and 28 movements.

  • 2024: 7 scores and 20 movements.

Go deeper: Let’s break it down into categories of movements in 2024:

  • Monostructrual: 3 (15 percent)

  • Gymnastics: 10 (50 percent)

  • Weightlifting: 7 (35 percent)

Even with eight fewer movements, the distribution was very similar to 2023:

  • Monostructrual: 5 (18 percent)

  • Gymnastics: 14 (50 percent)

  • Weightlifting: 9 (32 percent)

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SPEED READS

🚨🚨 2024 Team and Individual Semifinals Workouts: Last week, after two of the workouts were leaked, the CrossFit Games team released all of the workouts for the 2024 Team and Individual Semifinals.

  • Check out the Team and the Indy workouts now.

  • The 2024 CrossFit Games Semifinals are set to take place May 16-June 2. Learn more.

✅ The official 2024 CrossFit Age Group Quarterfinals leaderboard is set. Check out the final standing for all age divisions now.

  • The 2024 Age Group Semifinals will take place online May 8-13 — more details to come.

🏋️‍♀️📋 Training Camp Semifinalists: Several prominent training camps have dropped full rosters of their Semifinal-qualifying athletes. Check out the lists now:

🚨🏋️‍♀️ Team Quarterfinals Penalties: CrossFit released its full list of ineligible teams, penalties, and appeals granted for the 2024 Team Quarterfinals. Check out the full list.

🏆 TYR Wodapalooza Teases TYR Cup: Although it did not provide much in the way of details, the teaser announcement that TYR WZA posted to Instagram said, “It’s time to introduce the inaugural TYR Cup, only at the TYR WZA SoCal.”

  • The post continued: “A new event calls for new & exciting challenges. Along with the most unique format, we promise this will be the comp of the year you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned.”

💪🚨 New CrossFit Sponsors: CrossFit announced two new sponsors for the 2024 season. One is a new partnership, and the other is a returning one:

  • The U.S. Border Patrol, a 2023 CrossFit sponsor, is returning for 2024 as an Official Partner of the CrossFit Games and the presenting sponsor of the Teenage CrossFit Games by PIT Teen Throwdown.

  • Northern Spirit, a functional training and fitness clothing brand, was announced as the Official Sponsor of the CrossFit Games Semifinals and Masters, Teenage, and Adaptive CrossFit Games.

🧑‍⚖️👩‍⚖️ Association of Fitness Judges Statement: The Association of Fitness Judges released a statement in the aftermath of the Individual Quarterfinal Workout 1 score adjustments. Many of the athletes who were heavily penalized had utilized judges from the organization.

  • From the statement: “This Quarterfinals, the AFJ was brought in to help a number of Training Camps and Individual athletes with their workouts. We had their trust, their faith, and their confidence.”

  • “The CrossFit Video Review Team was looking for very exacting standards that we didn’t manage to produce every time. Since the first wave of penalties has gone out, we have been in communication with the various athletes and training camps that have been affected to advise and consult with how to move forward.”

ICYMI: Now that the dust has settled on the leaderboard, we ask, who owns CrossFit Quarterfinals?

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

Credit: @catalystathletics / Instagram

Are You an Athlete or an Exerciser?

Before you even say it, no, the title isn’t a jab at CrossFitters. 

This has nothing to do with what sport or activity you choose to pursue, only how you pursue it. 

It could be CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, or golf.

  • With the proliferation of information and exposure to advanced athletic training methodologies that we’re exposed to today, the distinctions between athletes and exercisers are often blurred or forgotten (or not even understood to exist).

So what makes you an athlete, and what makes you an exerciser? 

If you compete, you must be an athlete, right? 

But what if you train twice weekly and do a local weightlifting meet, a CrossFit competition in your gym, or a half-marathon once a year? 

I don’t think competing is an athlete's defining characteristic; we can be athletes without ever competing. 

  • What matters is your mindset and intentions and how you manage training within your life.

Why does it matter where you fall on this spectrum? 

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COMMUNITY

Credit: @alllevelcrossfit / Instagram

Affiliate of the Month: All Level CrossFit Doing All the Good Deeds in Ontario

For John Mack, the owner of All Level CrossFit in Windsor, Ontario, a focus on inclusivity has led his community to offer fitness to those who really need it while raising thousands of dollars for charity in the process.

  • “At our core, we believe that what we do here can be super powerful and can change lives, and shouldn't be restricted to certain demographics,” said Mack, who opened All Level CrossFit in 2013.

The details: Mack and his community have focused on two specific demographics in the last decade — youth and also adults with intellectual disabilities.

All Level CrossFit has a thriving kids and teen program — more than 300 kids have come through the program in the last decade — that caters to youth who don’t necessarily identify as athletes.

  • “The kids and teens that come in are usually not looking to use CrossFit as a way to get better at their chosen sport. They’re mostly kids that haven’t found something that resonates with them in terms of sports or athletics, and they don’t have an outlet for physical activity,” Mack said.

Mack finds nothing more rewarding as a coach than watching them “latch onto CrossFit” and seeing fitness and healthy living slowly become an important part of their lives.

  • “Normalizing fitness, normalizing being in shape, normalizing eating well, normalizing moving your body with intent, I think, that’s probably the most important thing, so that working out is not this foreign thing or this thing that’s not fun. They come in here and work hard and see the benefits of that,” Mack said.

Further, All Level CrossFit has been offering three classes a week for the last six years for those with intellectual disabilities, namely Down syndrome. 

Today, there are 18 people in the program between the ages of 18 and 35.

HIGHLIGHTS

Celebrating a PR, hosting a fundraiser, this, that, or otherwise? Send us a tip.

  • 🎂Happy birthday to Alexandr Ilin and Matt Shaver.

  • Congratulations to Ricky Garard on the 156-kilo/343-pound power clean PR.

  • Happy belated affiliate anniversary to Blackbird CrossFit in Eldersburg, MD.

  • Check out Olympic weightlifter Aaron Williams lift 200 kilos/440 pounds for the Rogue Rocket Challenge.

  • 👏Congratulations to Beau of Verdant CrossFit in Boise, ID, on qualifying for Semifinals in the 35-39 Age Group Division.