Who Will Win The "Top Training Camp" Award in 2024?

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Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up.

In today’s edition:

• In his interview with Matt O’Keefe last week, Dave Castro announced the new performance-based “top training camp” award at the CrossFit Games. Today, Mike Halpin from Known & Knowable predicts which camp will win in 2024.

• And, while Castro’s announcement was a bit off the cuff, we took a look back to see how the “top training camp” award would’ve played out last year and what stumbling blocks might show up in the execution this season.

• Over the years, veteran CrossFit journalist Emily Beers has told 100s of CrossFit stories. Today, she tells her own story — from Games athlete to casual fitnesser to postpartum PRs at 40.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Sharing the experience with friends” - Emily Beers on training after her competitive career ended

CROSSFIT GAMES

Who Will Win the Inaugural “Top Training Camp Award” at the 2024 CrossFit Games?

In his recent interview with Matt O’Keefe, CEO of HWPO Training,  Dave Castro announced a preliminary version of his new idea for awarding the training camp whose athletes performed best in the Individual Division at the CrossFit Games this year.

• The initial response to his announcement has been mixed, but most have taken a “wait and see” attitude. 

Some have said that it might take away from the Team Division as it celebrates training camp teams in an individual sport vs. celebrating the affiliates’ teams in a team sport. 

• Others have pointed out that it’s fairly limited in its approach as a camp needs three individual athletes who have qualified for the Games, while many have two or fewer. 

Also, the time an athlete or group of athletes has trained with a given camp is under question. 

In a lot of ways, the training camps function like professional (or college) sports teams. 

Athletes get “traded,” or they follow their coach to a new university or team—there have been some high-profile examples of the latter this season. 

• Pat Vellner is now a HWPO Training athlete because his coach, Michelle Letandre, is an HWPO Training coach. Kyra Milligan is now a PRVN Fitness athlete because her coach, Kiefer Lammi, is now a PRVN Fitness coach. 

Training camps today, like sports teams, have an active roster that changes each season as coaches and athletes change, while some athletes qualify and others do not. 

Worth noting: There isn’t a single training camp that can say their system took someone from their first on-ramp class to the podium at the CrossFit Games. 

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SPEED READS

🏆🚨 Team Rosters Almost Complete for TYR Wodapalooza SoCal: Alexis Raptis and Ricky Garard were announced on Coffee, Pods, and Wods as the final athletes to be invited to the inaugural TYR Cup, a battle between North America and the World. Fans will pick a captain for each team and those captains will then select one man and woman each, bringing the total rosters to eight.

• Team North America: Jeffrey Adler, Danielle Brandon, Justin Medeiros, Arielle Loewen, Patrick Vellner, and Alexis Raptis.

• Team World: Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, Lazar Ðukić, Seher Kaya, Roman Khrennikov, Emma Tall, and Ricky Garard.

🏋️🏋️ 2024 CrossFit Games Event 8: Dave Castro revealed Event 8 for the individuals last Friday as an elimination-style clean ladder. Get the details.

• And, a Literal “Twist”: Over the weekend, Castro posted a video of Demo Team athlete Trista Smith testing “Chad 1000x” with a twist, a literal twist, as she performed several reps of a box step-over.

💪🎒Train Hard in Fort Worth: Headed to the Games in August? Get ready to Train Hard with CrossFit Games champ Jason Khalipa, Gabe Yanez, and their GORUCK partners. Check out the schedule for happy hour meet-and-greets, morning men’s club workouts, and “Murder Yoga” (open mat Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu).

• And watch Khalipa take on Green Beret and UFC fighter Tim Kennedy in a battle of fitness, grappling, and shooting!

🎟️📈 Games Ticket Resale Prices Dropping: The CrossFit Games start in a week and a half, are you still looking for tickets? Mike Halpin, the mind behind Known & Knowable, has been watching the 2024 CrossFit Games ticket resale prices on StubHub, Vivid Seats, and Ticketmaster and they have started to ⬇️. Find the best available deals here.

ICYMI: Have you noticed that some Games athletes always seem to be at the top of the leaderboard with particular programming and toward the middle or bottom of the pack with different programming? Check out part two of our series on athlete superpowers and kryptonite.

MEMBER EXCLUSIVE

“Top Training Camp Award”: Good in Theory, Tough to Pull Off?

Last week, in an interview with HWPO Training CEO, Matt O’Keefe, Dave Castro, the GM of Sport for CrossFit announced that there will be a new “Top Training Camp” award at the CrossFit Games this year.

Details are still to be determined, but Castro was clear that it will be performance-based. 

• While we wait for the full details, let’s look back at 2023 to see who would have or could have won the award and what sorts of hiccups might occur in 2024?

Remind me: Here is a quick look back at the 2023 CrossFit Games top-10 athletes and their associated training camps from last year.

Men

1. Jeffrey Adler (Independent)

2. Patrick Vellner (Deka Comp)

3. Roman Khrennikov (Mayhem Athlete)

4. Brent Fikowski (Only Training)

5. Dallin Pepper (Brute Strength)

6. Jonne Koski (The Training Plan)

7. Chandler Smith (Invictus)

8. Jay Crouch (PRVN Fitness)

9. Lazar Dukic (Mayhem Athlete)

10. Jelle Hoste (No Shortcuts)

Women

1. Laura Horvath (Krypton Athletics)

2. Emma Lawson (Mammoth Training)

3. Arielle Loewen (Independent, “Her Garage”)

4. Gabriela Migala (Krypton Athletics)

5. Alex Gazan (Underdogs Athletics)

6. Alexis Raptis (Training Think Tank)

7. Katrin Davidsdottir (HWPO Training)

8. Emma Cary (Brute Strength)

9. Danielle Brandon (Brute Strength)

10. Paige Powers (Mayhem Athlete)

As the leaderboard shows, only three training camps placed multiple athletes in the top 10. 

COMMUNITY

From a CrossFit Games Qualification to Postpartum PRs: How One MCU Writer's Fitness Journey Came Full Circle After Giving Birth

Observable, measurable, and repeatable. 

• It’s at the foundation of the CrossFit methodology and one of the reasons we fall in love with it, as it leads us to feel like rock stars in our first few years as PRs come flooding in and we become fitter than we ever imagined we would be.

But eventually, like with anything else, we plateau, we get a little bored, and maybe even a little scared because we know how much it’s going to hurt. 

• And, if we continue long enough, we age to a place where our bodies just don’t want to do what they did in our 20s or 30s.

And then what?

The honeymoon stage of CrossFit has long worn off, the PRs have slowed or stopped, we’re no longer treating CrossFit as a sport, and the questioning begins:

• Where does CrossFit fit into my life now? Does it even fit into my life? Is it even still serving me? Or is it hurting me? Is it even a smart way to train anymore?

At least, those were the questions that circled in my head and led me to eventually abandon what I call “real CrossFit” for a number of years because I was burned out and tired of the pressure of trying to hit new PRs all the time.

Here’s How It Went Down

I was on the rowing team at university when I first found CrossFit, accidentally, in 2009.

My teammate, Jen Broxterman, and I found ourselves locked out of our boathouse in London, Ontario, unable to do our erg session.

She had just started dating a guy who owned “some weird gym” in the city, and she was pretty sure he had mentioned that his gym had Concept 2 rowing machines.

HIGHLIGHTS

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

• 🎂Happy birthday to Aaron Hinde and Thuri Helgadottir.

• Nice work to Scott Panchik on the two snatches at 124 kilos/275 pounds.

• Check out Tola Morakinyo building up on this clean and jerk ladder, ending at 172 kilos/380 pounds.

• Congratulations to 10-year-old Jarell from Core City CrossFit in Detroit, MI, on qualifying for the Olympic Weightlifting State Championships.

• 🙌Ricky Garard is on the ladder as well; check out his split jerks, ending in 120 kilos/265 pounds.