🔥 Ty Jenkins and Janie Cheverie Sweep ATHX Houston

October 20th, 2026

POWERED BY

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • 🏆 Ty Jenkins and Janie Cheverie swept the Pro Mixed Pairs division at ATHX Houston. The win puts them second worldwide, just behind Jessi and Chandler Smith.

  • 🎒 Carrying, squatting, and lifting an awkward load challenges your body in ways perfectly balanced equipment doesn't. Check out three GORUCK sandbags we love for CrossFit, HYROX, and everyday life.

  • 🥵 Early wake-ups, 15-hour days, and up to six workouts a day were all part of the job in San Jose. Go BTS with the 2026 CrossFit Games Demo Team.

From Thursday through the end of the year, we'll host weekly giveaways for all our premium subscribers, featuring some of our favorite brands like O2, Podium, INOV8, LSKD, and more. Each week, we'll post what the giveaway is, so make sure you're signed up for our premium newsletter for a chance to win.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
❝

CrossFit has done a really good job making the Demo Team a special thing…it was really fun to be able to experience behind the scenes of a massive operation.”

Bill Leahy, 2026 CrossFit Games Demo Team member.
COMPETITION

Ty Jenkins and Janie Cheverie Sweep ATHX Houston, Sit in Second Place Worldwide

Credit: Courtesy of Celsius

CELSIUS-partnered athletes have now won two straight United States-based ATHX events on back-to-back weekends. 

Ty Jenkins and Janie Cheverie competed in the Mixed Team division for the first time together and won, following Jessi and Chandler Smith’s first-place finish at ATHX in Miami Beach, Florida. Jenkins and Cheverie now sit second on the worldwide leaderboard, one place above the Smiths.

This was Jenkins’s third time competing at an ATHX, but his first with Cheverie. Leading up to the competition, he shared on social media: 

  • “This weekend I step back into the ATHX Games arena for the third time. (Janie) and I will be taking on the mixed pairs division in Houston. It’s almost one year to the day from my ATHX debut with (James Sprague) over in Berlin. Safe to say I’ve been enjoying these events, and this won’t be the last one I do.”

Taking the win in Houston: This wasn't just a win for Jenkins and Cheverie; it was a clean sweep. They finished first in Strength (832 kg), Endurance (10.999 km), and MetCon X (11:45), earning the Pro Mixed Pairs title with a perfect three-point event score.

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SPEED READS

🤖📱 AI Can Make Content. But Can It Build a Brand? As AI and creator tools make producing content faster and cheaper than ever, fitness brands face a new challenge: standing out in an increasingly crowded market. The takeaway: Success isn’t about creating more content — it’s about knowing when to prioritize speed, authenticity, and creative quality to build lasting trust.

👟🏃 Run Walk Train: Save big on fall fitness essentials during Reebok's Run Walk Train Event. Some items are already heavily discounted, like Nano X4s for $79.99. Use code RWT40 at checkout to take 40% off other items. Promotion ends tomorrow (10/21) at 9:59 AM ET, so get on there and cook.

📅🔥 The Countdown Is On: CrossFit has announced the dates for the 2027 Open, giving athletes a target as the road to next season begins.

🏋️‍♀️💪 Menopause Isn’t a Reason to Stop Lifting Heavy: New research challenges the idea that women should dial back intensity as they age, finding that strength training, aerobic conditioning, and appropriate impact exercise can help preserve muscle, bone density, and cardiovascular health.

ICYMI: Life After Winning the CrossFit Games: Aimee Cringle Launches Granola Company (Rx article)

INDUSTRY

Want to Build Strength That Translates to Real Life? Try These Three GORUCK Sandbags

Credit: Ralph Steele

From handstand push-ups to ring muscle-ups to toes-to-bar and double-unders, CrossFit calls them “functional movements.”

On the one hand, I understand why. Handstand push-ups are a vertical press, and ring muscle-ups combine upper-body pulling and pushing strength and require shoulder mobility and joint strength, not to mention a healthy dose of coordination. 

  • The point is, while upper-body pulling and pushing matter in life, you can have the requisite strength for these movements and still never need to kick into a handstand, pull yourself through rings, or rock out double-unders.

However, life also requires the ability to lug heavy stuff (which has become all the more obvious to me as I became a mother and found myself packing a 40-pound 3-year-old up four flights of stairs). 

This brings me to the most underrated piece of equipment in our space. They might not be sexy, but damn, are they useful for fitness.

Sandbags.

Barbell squats and deadlifts build strength, but carrying a heavy sandbag creates a different stimulus. It builds not only strength but also resilience, the kind that helps you keep going when you’re uncomfortable, when your body tells you to rest, but your mind knows you can continue. 

When it comes to sandbags, all roads lead to GORUCK.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

Behind the Scenes with the 2026 CrossFit Games Demo Team

Credit: @graciewaltonn_ / Instagram

A “cool experience” filled with long days and little sleep, one he doesn’t want to repeat – that’s how Chris Ibarra described his time on the demo team at the 2026 CrossFit Games in San Jose, CA.

Remind me: Every year, Dave Castro assembles a Demo Team of elite athletes — some with prior Games experience, others without — to test workouts and showcase each event before and during the CrossFit Games. 

Being asked is an honor, and the list of accomplished athletes invited to the Demo Team over the past decade is a testament to that.

The San Jose experience: The Demo Team flew into San Jose the Thursday before the 2026 Games began to spend a handful of days testing both individual and team workouts.

Wake-up time was 4:45 am “pretty much every day” for a 5 or 5:30 am hotel departure from their “way too nice hotel,” Ibarra said

Leading up to the Games, the Demo Team hosted early-morning workouts for affiliate owners, judges, and volunteers, then headed to the various competition sites to test the workouts and their different versions. 

  • One thing that surprised Ibarra was that “so many of the workouts hadn’t been finalized yet,” he said. “There were only a couple workouts that were official.”

HIGHLIGHTS

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

  • 🐺Happy affiliate anniversary (10/20) to Red Wolf CrossFit in Huntington Beach, CA.

  • Happy affiliate anniversary (10/21) to CrossFit Unstoppable in Jefferson City, MO.

  • 😮‍💨How fast can you rep out 20 bar muscle-ups? Watch Kamil of UAE knock them out in 48 seconds! Well done, Kamil.

  • Matt of CrossFit 1827 in Canada put up some huge numbers last week - a 136-kilo/300-pound snatch and a 165-kilo/365 clean and jerk. Congrats, Matt!

  • 🔥Check out this 82.5-kilo/182-pound sntach from Guðbjörg of CrossFit Reykjavik in Iceland.