🧠 Tia’s Secrets to Staying on Top (and Loving It)

October 27th, 2025

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • 📍 Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr opened up, announced the return of the 2026 CrossFit Games, but keeps fans guessing about retirement.

    🤸‍♀️ Stuck on HSPUs? Pamela Gagnon explains why skipping strict work is killing your progress, and how to fix it.

    🍿 What athletes are watching — Lightfoot, Gazan, Turner, and more share their go-to rest day binge lists.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
❝

When we’re in training, four weeks out of competition, it’s not fun. But when we walk outside the gym…we’re laughing, we’re having just such a fun time together.”

Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr on the training culture at PRVN Fitness HQ in Nashville, TN.
PROFILE

​​Tia Opens Up – Motherhood, PRVN Culture, and a Big Prediction

Credit: Scott Freymond

On Wednesday, eight-time CrossFit Games champion Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr appeared as a guest on the Sport of Fitness podcast to give a lengthy interview and to announce that the 2026 CrossFit Games will return to California, this time at the SAP Center in San Jose.

  • Podcast host Chase Ingraham dug into her career and how she has managed to find the right balance in her life to stay at the top of her sport for more than a decade.

The power of becoming a mother: Toomey-Orr admitted there was a time when she lost some of her love for the sport because she was “so focused and tunnel-visioned on the one goal of standing on top of the podium.” 

Becoming a mother in 2023, however, helped ground her and remind her of why she “fell in love with CrossFit in the first place, [which] was the community,” she said, all the while providing her with the perspective that “there’s more to life than just competing.”

  • “We pinch ourselves every single day being able to do what we love to do on a daily basis with our daughter,” she added.

After the jump — how PRVN’s environment keeps Toomey grounded, connected, and performing at her peak, and why a ninth title may be on the horizon.

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SPEED READS

🔥📣 PRVN Fitness Is Growing: The Nashville powerhouse is hiring a Customer Service & Social Marketing Specialist — a fitness-minded creative ready to shape PRVN’s voice and community. Join the team redefining what it means to be PRVN. More details here.

🎯💪 Fix Your Form, Fast: From “reclining your chair” to keeping the bar tight with lat tension, Rebecca Fuselier shows exactly how to hit your hip crease without losing your line — and why it’s the secret to stronger snatches and cleans.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏋️ Jayson Hopper’s Rogue Prep: Follow the 2025 Fittest Man on Earth through a full training day as he prepares for the Rogue Invitational — log lifts, pegboard practice, bench work, and all. Between sessions in his new home gym and candid reflections on staying healthy, it’s a raw look at elite-level focus and consistency.

🏥📈 America’s Obesity Crisis Isn’t Simple: A new analysis shows the U.S. isn’t just facing numbers—it's battling culture, environment, access, and mindset. While some solutions focus on diet and exercise, the root causes are far broader and deeper than one lone habit.

🔥 HWPO Takes Over HYROX Boston: Mat Fraser and the HWPO crew hit the floor—racing doubles, handing out tattoos, and fueling 17,000 fans with nonstop energy. Fraser’s still fierce, the vibes electric, and Matt O’Keefe, HWPO CEO, promises next year will be even bigger.

ICYMI: 👶 How Brianna Battles turned her own pregnancy experience into a movement redefining how women train before and after birth.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

Why You Still Can’t String Together Handstand Push-Ups (and How to Fix It)

Photo Courtesy of Pamela Gagnon

It’s a story I hear almost daily:

  • “I’m stuck at six handstand push-ups in a metcon. I’ve been doing this for years and still can’t build more capacity.”

My follow-up question is simple: “How many strict handstand push-ups can you do?”

That’s when the real answer begins to reveal itself.

Building Strength for Handstand Push-Ups

Consider how we learn Olympic lifts. No coach starts an athlete with a loaded barbell and a push jerk. 

  • You begin with the strict press — the foundation of overhead strength — then build to the push press, then to the push jerk. Each step adds complexity only after the foundation is solid.

Handstand push-ups follow the same progression. The problem isn’t the kip, it’s skipping the strength.

PROFILE

What CrossFit Athletes Are Binge-Watching This Off-Season

Credit: Oscar Nord

Double days, strength sessions, accessory work, recovery routines, and meal prep – it takes a huge amount of time and dedication to compete at an elite level. 

  • While professional CrossFit athletes (and those aspiring to be one day) spend long days in the gym, full rest days are also a vital part of the recipe for success. 

We recently shared an article listing books recommended by bookworm athletes for the upcoming cozy season. This time, we asked around about TV shows worth binge-watching.

Here are some programs that the pros are currently into. Maybe there are a few you’ll want to add to your winter watch-list.

  • From The Chosen to Yellowstone, here’s what the sport’s top names are pressing play on when they finally press pause on training.

HIGHLIGHTS

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