TYR WZA SoCal Week Is Here, Check Out Our TYR Cup Predictions

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up premium subscriber edition.

In today’s edition:

• The inaugural TYR WZA SoCal kicks off in a few days in Huntington Beach, CA. On top of all the community and team divisions, the TYR Cup will take center stage. Check out our predictions for who will win which events.

• Part two of our series on how an individualized approach to fitness can help gym owners, coaches, and clients drops now featuring the coaches’ perspectives.

• A multi-day CrossFit competition can be tough to power through and recovery and rest protocols play a much bigger role than some athletes realize. Get some rest and recovery advice from experts down below.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“After 17 years…I’ve not seen anything work better for myself, for my family, for my friends and for all the people I’ve trained.” - Miranda Alcaraz, Coach, former CrossFit Seminar Staff Member, and founder of Street Parking via YouTube last week (link to the full video below) on why she still chooses the CrossFit methodology.

COMPETITIONS

TYR WZA SoCal Is Coming — Top Picks for TYR Cup Event Winners, Part 1

Editor’s Note: This is the first part of our two-part analysis of the TYR Cup competition. Check out tomorrow’s newsletter for the second half and our overall conclusions.

The TYR Cup is heading to WZA SoCal, and with it comes a unique competition experience for elite athletes. 

Team World and Team North America are each constructed with four men and four women (eight total members per team), who will face 11 events over the weekend.

The events will differ in style. With six different competition formats, strategy will play a key role in the weekend.

• Individual: All athletes will compete in the event, and the team with the best combined score will win.

• All Hands: All eight athletes work together to complete the event as a team.

• Spotlight: One woman and one man from each team will compete in an event specializing in weightlifting, gymnastics, or monostructural elements.

• Miami Team: Following the format of Wodapalooza, Team World and Team North America will field a trio of men and women who will each complete the event.

• CFG Teams: Two men and two women will represent each team in these events.

• Captains: The captains from Team World and Team North America will go head to head on the competition floor.

With the rosters set and most of the events announced, it seems like a good time to predict some winners.

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SPEED READS

🎙️🙌 “Why I Still Choose the CrossFit Methodology (After 17 Years)”: Miranda Alcaraz, Coach, former CrossFit Seminar Staff Member, and founder of Street Parking, delivered a powerful monologue (and Q&A) via YouTube last week on why she continues to trust and support the CrossFit methodology.

😎🏆 TYR Wodapalooza SoCal x Reps Ahead: The stage will soon be set for athletes across all divisions as well as the TYR Cup teams. But wait, there’s more!

• Announced just last week, Reps Ahead Pro 4 is coming to TYR WZA SoCal and will feature individual throwdowns between James Sprague and Jayson Hopper, Anikha Greer and Kyra Milligan, and Devyn Kim and Lauren Stallwood. Check more details, including the workout sequence here.

🏃 🏃 HYROX ‘24/’25 Rulebook Updates and Pro Doubles Elite 15 World Championships: The World Series of Fitness Racing has updated its rulebook for the ‘24/’25 season. The updates include movement standards, women’s wall ball volume, and the Elite 15 qualification process. Read the rulebook here.

• Last week, HYROX announced a new addition to its Elite competition series with the “Pro Doubles Elite 15 World Championship.” Check out the details and the dates and locations of qualifying races here.

💪📋 Rogue Invitational Update — “The C”: Athletes can compete in this community challenge through the month of September. Registration is open now. Learn more here.

ICYMI: Australian adaptive athlete Jordan Cabrita has competed on some big stages at the Torian Pro and Down Under Championship. Now, he takes on his biggest contest yet at the 2024 Adaptive CrossFit Games. Check out his story.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

From $15 an Hour to Earning $90,000 a Year: How Three Coaches Have Transformed Themselves into Full-Time Professionals

Editor’s Note: Part one of this series looked at how taking a more individualized approach to fitness, even moving away from group classes entirely, has helped three gym owners finally have a profitable business and earn a professional living. Part two focuses on the coach's perspective.

When Weezy Shumaker first started coaching at a CrossFit gym in 2016, she was “happy to make $15 a class to do what I love,” she said. “Even if it meant having to make serious compromises in the type of life I wanted to live.”

This all changed, however, when she became pregnant.

• “Oh no, I’m not even going to be able to pay for a third of what childcare costs based on what I’m making,” Shumaker said. 

She added: “CrossFit is incredible,” she said, but getting paid by the hour to coach group classes makes it “really difficult to make a good living unless you open your own gym."

At the same time, Shumaker didn’t feel that group classes were serving a lot of the people she worked with, such as the guy who shows up on day one and can’t hang onto the bar because of a lingering shoulder issue.

• “After doing CrossFit, yes he’s demonstrably fitter now, we can prove that in a lot of ways. But his shoulder still hurts when he lifts his arm, trims the hedges, or puts the star on top of his Christmas tree,” Shumaker gave Morning Chalk Up as an example. “I started to notice those types of things with more and more frequency. People were getting fitter, but I wasn’t satisfied with how it translated to their actual lives.”

Fast-forward to today: Shumaker still coaches three group classes a week at CrossFit Clintonville in Columbus, OH, but most of her time is spent working with her personal book of clients, some of whom she meets with in person while others she works with remotely.

A MESSAGE FROM SYNERGY

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TRAINING

Experts Weigh in on Competition Recovery, Rest Day Protocol

A multi-day CrossFit competition is not for the faint of heart and a recovery protocol is a key part of an athlete’s success. 

Aerobic Capacity creator Chris Hinshaw and co-founder of Smart Tools Nick Colosi weigh in on ways athletes can recover and prepare for multi-day competitions. 

One of the first and most important recommendations is for athletes to consume carbohydrates immediately after each event to restore muscle glycogen stores, or in other words replenishing the stored form of glucose the body uses for fuel. 

• “Athletes must be aware of their specific carb needs based on the workout intensity and their body requirements,” Hinshaw told Morning Chalk Up in an interview. 

• He adds, in the evening a larger meal with complex carbohydrates “is essential” to further help refuel for the next day’s events. 

If the climate is hot, hydration is also going to be a very critical aspect of recovery. Athletes should be drinking consistently throughout the day, focusing on electrolyte-rich drinks to replace salt loss and prevent dehydration, according to Hinshaw. 

• “Maintaining a balance between water and electrolytes is crucial to ensure peak performance,” he said. 

For athletes post-event, they should hop on a bike for active recovery, such as the Echo Bike or Concept 2 bike, and pedal at a zone 2 or higher intensity. This movement can help engage maximal muscle fibers to accelerate the clearance of lactate and, more importantly, fatigue-causing metabolites, a substance produced during metabolism.

HIGHLIGHTS

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

• 🎂Happy birthday to Alec Smith.

• Happy 16th birthday to teen Games athlete Evelyn Brady from CrossFit Forged Iron in Lynchburg, VA.

• 🦋Check out these butterfly ring muscle-ups from Gui Malheiros. Amazing!