Category: General Announcements, News and Noteworthy Happenings

General announcements and news about competitive fitness events, happenings in the CrossFit community, and noteworthy advice for competition planning.

Watching the Games? You need to see this.

The Games are finally here, and we can’t wait to watch the action in Madison, WI.

We get it. You also want to watch the Games. But you don’t want to be a slug the whole weekend.

We’ve taken the guesswork out of the equation for you and crafted this one-of-a-kind workout for your Games-viewing shenanigans. Grab some friends and your recovery beverage of choice and get to watching!

  1. Announcer mentions Annie Thorisdottir’s smile – 10 v-ups
  2. A rookie is highlighted for more than 30 seconds – Run/Row 400m
  3. Camera pans to athlete in ice-bath or makeshift ice-bath (i.e. forearms in cooler) – 5 tricep pushups
  4. Camille Leblanc-Bazinet says “Dave” (can be either Dave) – 15 sumo-stance squats (with a kettlebell if you have one handy)
  5. CrossFit Mayhem doesn’t win an event but is still interviewed – 5 inchworms
  6. Dave Castro is awkward (open to interpretation) – 30 second plank hold
  7. Emotional commercial makes you think you might cry – 10 backward-stepping lunges (total)
  8. Josh Bridges yells – 15 jumping squats
  9. Male competitor wears leggings – 100 double unders / 200 single unders
  10. Mention of Mat Fraser’s cardiovascular condition (current or former) – 20 mountain climbers
  11. Noah Ohlsen has perfect hair post-wod (aka every wod) – 30 second handstand hold
  12. “Rich Froning” mentioned during Individual events – 5 burpees
  13. Sara Sigmundsdottir eats or talks about eating (to be clear, she is our spirit animal and we love her) – 20 situps and/or go get a snack
  14. You hear the word “varied”  – 10 forward-stepping lunges (total)

What did we miss? Tag us in your Games Workout videos on Instagram to let us know how you fare.

Six Must-Follow Rules to Keep Your Sanity #intheOpen

The Open is practically here and some at Throwdowns HQ are notorious head cases. We wrote up a few stay-sane rules for surviving the Open. If you are anything like us, maybe you will benefit from this list also.

#intheopen #staysane

1. You can only do what you can do. Do your best. Not *insert name of person you are competitive with’s* best. YOUR best.

2. If it hurts – actually hurts (you know your body), stop. Pain is not weakness leaving the body. It’s the body telling you to stop.

3. No redos. Do your very best and move on with your week.

4. Set a designated amount of time to whine, troll the leaderboard, and strategize; and don’t exceed it. Nonverbal whining still counts as whining, so choose your time wisely. We’ll be #leaderboarding with all our friends and frenemies on a custom Throwdowns.com leaderboard.

5. If your 1 rep is 150 pounds, you probably aren’t going to hit 165 for reps, or if it’s a movement you’re not proficient at or have never done successfully, you probably won’t do 15 in a row. Take a breath and review Rule #1.

6. You are probably not going to Regionals. Take a breath and review Rule #1.

**That said, if you are going to Regionals, shoot us a message – we’d love to help you get there with a fundraiser competition at a highly discounted rate.**

Spotlight On: CrossFit for Carson

Throwdowns.com HQ had the pleasure of working with over 200 competitions all over the world in 2016 alone. Many of the events gave some or all of their proceeds to charity, and we pride ourselves on doing the same. We want to take this opportunity to spotlight one of the events in 2016 that tugged a little harder on our heartstrings.

Daniel from CrossFit QFE in Lumberton, NC reached out to us early last fall about putting on their first ever competition – an event to benefit a 5-year-old boy named Carson. Carson was a constant presence in the gym (whether coming along to class with mom, Jonna, or in CrossFit Kids classes), and was/is a true ray of sunshine. Jonna and her three boys – Austin, Jackson, and Carson – were all presences at the box for several years. In a small town like Lumberton, the QFE community is really more like a family. When Carson was diagnosed with TALL leukemia on September 6, 2016, the community was quickly abuzz with the news. They knew they needed to come together to help raise money and support for Carson and his family.

Carson 2

The event, titled “CrossFit for Carson,” was set for October 22 – only 2 weeks after Hurricane Matthew hit the Atlantic coast. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the coast in almost a decade, and even though it had demoted its category by the time it hit Lumberton, the damage was catastrophic. Half of Lumberton was still underwater at the time of the event. They honestly weren’t sure that the competition would be a go until the 16th, when running water came back to the gym. It was no longer a safety hazard to hold the event, but the main road to Lumberton was still underwater. On October 20, just two days before the competition, Highway 95 reopened after being closed for several weeks due to flooding. Daniel described that feeling as “…a Hail Mary that we caught, because it enabled people from either side of Lumberton to get to town.” With just two days until the event, they decided it was a clear “Go!”

CrossFit for Carson itself couldn’t have gone any better. The timing was right, there were minimal glitches, and the turnout both for competitors and community support was incredible. People who knew Jonna and Carson from all walks of life pitched in – not just the CrossFit community. Daniel expressed so much gratitude for all who had a hand in making the day what it was under extreme circumstances.

Carson 3

The silver lining on an already amazing event was that two days before (the same day that the highway opened up), Carson’s bone marrow scans came back clear. He is still in for three years of treatments and the road is long, but this was a huge win for Team Carson.

The CrossFit QFE team rallied and was able to pull off a successful event despite huge obstacles, and we were honored to be a part of it.

If you’d like to donate to Carson’s care, please get in touch with the CrossFit QFE team here.

Carson 4

Best in Class Registration for Everyone

Our mission at Throwdowns.com is to equip community leaders and coaches at CrossFit affiliates with powerful tools to save time, increase impact, and build reputation. Our comprehensive registration and scoring system carefully considers the needs of everyone involved and provides a seamless and well-integrated solution. Whether it’s the event staff (organizers, judges, volunteers, sponsors), the athletes, or the spectators, we’ve got them covered.

Event organizers can get up and running with our turn-key registration system in minutes to create a professional landing page that communicates a clear call to action for athletes to register and submit payment, resulting in funds being available for organizers as early as one week from when registration commences. Although the default registration template is adequate for most needs, it can trivially be customized to capture custom data fields, additional donations and gratuities supporting a charity component, or even the sale of limited quantities of pre-paid merchandise such as t-shirts, meals at the event venue, etc.

Here’s a view of a sample registration form featuring some of these bells and whistles from Heroes for Haiti, an online virtual competition supporting children in Haiti that we’re proud to sponsor again this year. This registration form is functional, elegant, and works just as well on a phone as it does a desktop computer.

screencapture-leaderboard-lite-throwdowns-com-registration-haiti-2015

Sample registration form with opt-in for purchase of additional “merchandise” at checkout. (Click to view full size image in a new browser window.)

The estimated burden to signup for a competition with our registration system is 90 seconds or less, and we’ve carefully designed it to work on a variety of mobile devices so that event participants will register early and help spread the word. It can even be used for special no-fee staff positions (judges, volunteers, etc.), for collecting funds from sponsors, or even for registering spectators if there is limited crowd capacity available due to fire codes or other constraints.

Using one best in class registration system for everyone maximizes the amount of time saved so that it can be spent on more valuable efforts that will inevitably increase the impact of the event and build valuable brand equity for your box.

For more information on our best of class all-in-one registration and scoring system, request a free trial.