🤰 The GOAT Drops Big News — Baby #2 Is on the Way.

November 18th, 2025

In partnership with

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • 📈 WFP unveils its full 2026 payout list. $1.26M in guaranteed salaries.

  • 🚧 Most affiliates hit two invisible walls, and they don’t see them coming.

  • 👑 Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr named TFAP’s Athlete of the Year; makes big announcement.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
❝

“As I get older, and now that I have a daughter, I’m trying to slow down, stop and smell the roses.”

Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr on her current mindset.
COMPETITIONS

2026 World Fitness Project  Pro Card Payouts Revealed — Top Contract Hits $80K

Credit: World Fitness Project

Although the 2025 World Fitness Project (WFP) season is still underway, with the Finals in Copenhagen, Denmark, scheduled for December 18-21 – just over a month away – a major announcement has been made about the structure of the 2026 season. 

Remind me: The new league introduced a unique payout system for our sport. The WFP provided twenty men and twenty women with “Pro Card” status, meaning they would receive a guaranteed salary. 

  • This salary is the minimum that athletes can earn. Additional prize money from events is paid out once the minimum is reached. 

Although the prize purses for the 2025 season were announced early, salaries for Pro Card holders were not. 

  • For the 2026 season, the WFP team has issued a press release outlining its payout schedule for Pro Card holders and providing additional details.

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SPEED READS

🔥📉 Late-Stage CrossFitism?: In a sharp, tongue-in-cheek breakdown, Mason Startup argues CrossFit has entered its “late-stage” era — where training chases competition trends, athletes feel like distant royalty, media eats itself, HQ feels corporate, and every corner of the ecosystem is selling something.

🏋️‍♂️🧠 Mat Fraser’s Pro Tips, Part 2: The five-time Games champ is back on the floor, breaking down deadlifts, wall balls, and SkiErg technique, plus how to actually think in tough training moments. From when to touch-and-go vs reset, to controversial “cheek-to-cheek” SkiErg pacing and dealing with fear on game day, it’s practical, no-BS coaching you can plug into your next session.

🧱💪 Improve Your Front Rack Mobility with Sonny Webster: Olympian and weightlifting coach Sonny Webster walks you through how to solidify your front rack — perfect hand placement, elbows up, and how to handle the barbell so it stays where it belongs. Nail this and your cleans, thrusters, and barbell-cycling transitions will start to feel smooth.

☠️😤 Why You Should Do “Death-By” Interval Workouts: Most CrossFitters live in AMRAPs and “for time,” but Max El-Hag from Training Think Tank revives a forgotten weapon: beep-test / death-by intervals that drag you deeper into the pain cave, round after round. He shows how they drive true Zone 5, train you to “move fast when tired,” and when to slot them in so you peak for the Open and quarterfinals

ICYMI: 🧠 From a converted horse stable to the CrossFit Games, Harry Lightfoot’s journey with coach Mike Allen and AOD Fitness is a study in science-meets-grit.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

The Two Walls That Kill Affiliate Growth (And How to See Them Coming)

Credit: @besthouroftheirday / Instagram

Most affiliate owners hit the same two walls. They just don't realize they're coming.

The first wall shows up around 225 members. The second shows up somewhere between $400K and $600K in annual revenue.

  • Both are predictable. Both can be avoided. And both can cause setbacks if you're unprepared.

Here's what you need to know.

The Math That Changes Everything at 225 Members

Let's talk about the wall nobody warns you about.

At 225 members, even with killer retention – we're talking 3% monthly churn, which is about as good as it gets – you're losing 12 people every single month.

  • That's not because you're doing anything wrong. That's just math. People move. Jobs change. Life happens.

But here's where it gets tricky.

If you want to grow – even just three net new members per month – you need to convert 15 new memberships every single month. No exceptions. No months off.

TRIVIA

🐐 How many times has the G.O.A.T., Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr won the CrossFit Open?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Last week, we asked: 🪜 At the 2024 CrossFit Games, Emily Rolfe won "Chad1000X" in the women’s division with a time of 47:01. How many of the 32 men who competed in the event did she also beat?

  • 31 (16.2%)

  • 15 (38.76%)

  • 20 (20.9%)

  • 28 ✅ (19.3%)

  • None (4.6%)

Rolfe’s time was good enough for fifth overall, after James Sprague, Austin Hatfield, Roman Khrennikov, and Pat Vellner. Gabi Migala finished just after Rolfe at 47:15.

PROFILE

Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr Named The Female Athlete Project’s “Athlete of the Year,” Announces Second Pregnancy

Credit: Credit: @evillmediasports / Instagram

The eight-time CrossFit Games Fittest Woman on Earth, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, can add another award to her collection. The Female Athlete Project (TFAP) recently selected Toomey-Orr from five candidates as their Athlete of the Year. 

TFAP is a media platform founded by Australian Olympian Chloe Dalton. Its focus is on women in sports at all levels and features a weekly podcast, The Wrap, that highlights women’s sports news. 

The organization announced the awards earlier this month in a video shared on the TFAP YouTube channel.

  • For those who lost count, Toomey-Orr won her eighth CrossFit Games title at the 2025 CrossFit Games. She is one, if not the most, dominant athlete in the sport, and her record proves that. 

While there has been considerable speculation about whether Toomey-Orr is ready to retire from the CrossFit Games, her announcement that she is pregnant with her second child likely means we will not see her on the competition floor for the Games in 2026.

HIGHLIGHTS

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

  • 🎂Happy birthday to Harriet Roberts.

  • Congratulations to Sophie Shaft on these PRs — a hip clean at 137 kilos/302 pounds and a hang snatch at 105 kilos/231 pounds.

  • Check out this progression from Jack Farlow — adding an average of .085 pounds a day to his clean over a decade took him from 38 kilos/85 pounds to 184 kilos/407 pounds.

  • 😳Watch Pame Gutierrez knock out this cluster at 97 kilos/215 pounds.

  • 👟Congratulations to Willy Georges for PRing his 10k with a time of 37:12.