Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast · Caffeine and Kilos | Fitness and Coaching Culture w/ Danny Lehr

Is The CF Games Dead? Hyrox, is it taking over the space?

January 30, 2025·46 min·3 clips

Morning chalk up reports CrossFit Open registration is down 40 percent year over year.

1. Not In My Box | The Fitness and Coaching Podcast centers this episode on Wadapalooza, the CrossFit Open, Hyrox, and the CrossFit Games. 2. The hosts are two fitness-industry voices who reference CK, Waterpalooza booths, and their own event history to ground the discussion. 3. The episode asks whether the CrossFit Games are losing relevance while Hyrox pulls athlete attention and Open registration falls 40 percent. 4. They open by comparing Wadapalooza's live stream to the CrossFit Games broadcast and say the production made it hard to tell what was happening. 5. The hosts then talk through why CrossFit competitions are difficult to watch in five-minute chunks and need time to understand the workout, heats, and pacing. 6. They shift to Noah, noting that his latest Waterpalooza win came 10 years after his first first-place finish there. 7. A long stretch of the episode recalls early CK event days, including a 2014 Waterpalooza booth that was sold out on the first day. 8. The hosts describe staying at Noah's house, seeing Sam Dancer before he became widely known, and walking to McDonald's at midnight for 30 nuggets. 9. They also recount an Arnold event where CK sat at a prime booth location by the escalators and sold out of product with a full day left. 10. Another story involves a Cleveland CrossFit event where the venue was downtown near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the crowd never arrived. 11. The hosts say that event had big-name athletes like Amanda Barnhart, Chris DiDaro, Scott Pancheck, Cole Sager, and Fee Saghafi, yet the spectator turnout was still low. 12. They connect that bad weekend to Rogue pulling out as main sponsor after the first two years, leaving vendors and spectators with a very different experience. 13. The hosts say they still kept connections from that event, including people from a local gym and Nicole Acoin from Healthy Steps Nutrition. 14. They return to the present with the Morning Chalk Up report that Open registration is down 40 percent year over year. 15. One explanation offered is that affiliate owners may be nervous to promote the Open because of last year's tragedy and the sport's negative connotation. 16. The other explanation is visible on Instagram, where the hosts say they saw James Sprague and Matt Fraser posting Hyrox training while the Open was happening. 17. Their tone is casual and argumentative, with repeated back-and-forth, interruptions, and a lot of shorthand about training, events, and sponsor behavior. 18. The format mixes office banter, old brand war stories, and current opinion-driven commentary rather than a structured interview. 19. Listeners who follow CrossFit, Hyrox, and affiliate culture will get the most out of this. 20. People wanting a polished event recap or neutral sports coverage may skip it.

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