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Will This Be the Final Year for the Team Division at the CrossFit Games?

July 9th, 2024

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

  • Will the Team Division be split off into its own event, similar to the Masters, Teen, and Adaptive Games this year? Mike Halpin, from Known and Knowable, digs into the evidence.

  • History loves patterns, and today, we are looking at three historical trends to shed some light on who might win the 2024 CrossFit Games.

  • A new study explores the long-term benefits of strength training for older adults. We break it down below.

Do you think your affiliate should be featured as our Affiliate of the Month for August? Send us a quick note explaining why.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Would you ever consider doing teams in the off-season and letting individual [athletes] make their own teams, and do both?” - Saxon Panchik to Dave Castro in his athlete interview last week

CROSSFIT GAMES

Credit: @ironandcastle / Instagram

Is This the Final Year for Teams at the CrossFit Games?

The first year of team competition at the CrossFit Games was in 2009 at The Ranch in Aromas, CA. 

There was no Open and no qualification stage back then, so in the inaugural Affiliate Cup, 96 teams registered and competed at the Games. 

  • After the first two events, the field was cut to the top 70 teams and then down to the top six. (And we thought the current cut system was a bit much. Imagine going from 96 to six in three events!)

NorthWest CrossFit won the first Affiliate Cup, but it was CrossFit Invictus who won the final event in 2009. 

Will Invictus win the final event this year? 

  • It could be a fitting bookend for what may be the final year of the Affiliate Cup as we know it. 

Wait, what?

Let’s take a few steps back.

Dave Castro’s 2024 Games Athlete Interviews

Over the last few weeks, Dave Castro, General Manager of Sport and Education at CrossFit, has started a series on his YouTube channel in which he interviews the individual athletes who qualified for the 2024 CrossFit Games.

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SPEED READS

🔥💪 2024 CrossFit Games Demo Team Announced: Each year in the lead-up to the Games, an elite team of athletes is selected to demonstrate (and test) the events for the field, during Games week. Yesterday, CrossFit announced the 2024 Demo Team.

  • This year the team includes Scott Tetlow, Tudor Magda, Colten Mertens, Sydney Wells, Trista Smith, and Anikha Greer.

🕵️🤫 Dave Castro Hints: As Castro works his way through interviewing all 80 athletes who qualified for the 2024 CrossFit Games, he’s dropped a few hints about what to expect in Fort Worth.

🥇🚨 TYR Wodapalooza SoCal Update: The TYR WZA SoCal team recently announced that all community division winners will automatically earn an invitation to compete at the TYR Wodapalooza Miami 2025. Get more details and sign up now as the final wave of athlete registration opened yesterday.

ICYMI: How much is too much for a gym membership? For some people, the answer might be surprising. Emily Beers spoke with three gym owners who are making high-ticket memberships work.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

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What History Tells Us About Who Will Win the Games this Summer

In some ways, it’s a bit of a time-waster to predict who will win the CrossFit Games. 

  • On the one hand, sports are unpredictable. On the other, Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr exists.  

But it’s also a lot of fun to make Games predictions, as it helps build anticipation and excitement. 

While the most reliable way to predict this summer’s winners might be to generate a complex data set that takes a deep dive into Games programming, past performances, and leaderboard results, there might also be a simpler way to predict who will come out on top: by taking a look at historical trends.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it loves patterns, so let’s look at some. 

Specifically, we’re looking at three consistent trends in the last 13 years to predict this summer’s ultimate winners. (We’re starting with 2011, as that year is commonly looked at as the beginning of the “modern era.”)

But first, let’s consider this year’s contenders:

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RESEARCH

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To the 65-Plus Crew: Lift Now, Reap the Benefits for Years, New Study Suggests

We often understand fitness as a “use it or lose it” thing. 

If you stop doing it, it doesn’t really stay with you, meaning it’s a lifelong pursuit, something you can’t ever stop doing.

  • But a new Danish study out of the University of Copenhagen, published in June in the journal BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, suggests that lifting weights today might provide benefits for years to come, even if you cease training at some point.

The details: The study’s researchers looked at 451 older, healthy adults (369 of whom finished the four-year study) between the ages of 64 and 75. At this age, you’d expect it to be difficult to not only make strength gains but also maintain strength. That’s because muscle strength in older adults usually experiences a natural decline, commonly known as sarcopenia.

  • The participants were split into three groups: The first group lifted weights three times a week, the second group did moderate-intensity training with their body weight and resistance bands, and the third group was a non-exercising control group.

  • Those part of the heavy lifting group generally performed three sets of six to 12 repetitions between 70 and 85 percent of their one-rep max.

HIGHLIGHTS

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

  • 💪Great work to Masters CrossFit Games athlete Jennifer Dieter on this clean complex at 88 kilos/195 pounds.

  • Amazing job to Craig Richey on his performance at the British Championships last weekend.

  • 🤸‍♀️Take a look at this new aerial movement added into upcoming Grid League competitions.

  • Congratulations to LSKD’s Bree Masters, who qualified for the Olympics in the 100-meter sprint and the 4×100 relay.

  • 🔥Check out this move from Larissa of CrossFit Criciuma in Brazil. Can you do it?