We had a great time and made a lot of friends at the 2009 CrossFit Games. We want to send out a special thanks to Siobhain C. (@tdot_sio) and Leah G. of Crossfit Toronto for the kind words and awesome video:

What started out as a call from Mike at CrossFit Gotham asking if we wanted to sponsor the 2009 CrossFit Games, despite giving us about 24 hrs to make up our minds, ended up being one of the best decisions we’ve made recently.  To compound an already tight schedule, Jimi Letchford called asking if we could supply the competition kettlebells-60 of them.  With 6 business days left (before they needed to ship) that was basically impossible as our kettlebells are made one at a time.  Well Odis Meredith, founder and lead engineer at Torque Athletic, doesn’t know the word impossible.  I’ll say this, I’m glad I live in SoCal.  He and the crew out in Indiana busted out 22 hour work days for several days in a row to get them done, and they did (even added a custom metallic silver handle color).  So no problem, right?  Wrong.

Loaded on pallets, shipping time calculated to get them there the day before the competition begins, and the Bells are off for Aromas, CA.  Oops, forgot about the 4^th of July. Relax said the shipping company, they’ll be there by Thursday, noon.  Flash forward to Thursday night, 7 PM (competition begins 9 AM Friday morning) still no sign of our shipment.  The shipping company called and said, “New arrival time-noon Friday”. As the panic set in I did what any responsible Brand Manager would do-I cracked open a Bud Light and let Odis handle it.  And handle it he did. He found some Special Forces style company who ended up intercepting our shipment at around 2 AM, off-loading it to their trucks, and getting it to Aromas before the competition started Friday morning.

It was all uphill from there-Jimi, Dave, Kenny, Angie, Mike, Chuck, Hailey and the whole rest of the CrossFit crew kicked-butt for Torque Athletic.  Our booth was a focal point throughout the weekend for some fun Strongman style competitions, and we met a lot of great people.  We want to thank everyone who came by and used our products, the competitors who left nothing behind and I’d like to personally thank Rory Mckernan and Ange Worthington for basically telling me, “Torque Athletic has to be there.”  They were right.  See you next year,

Ian, Odis, Beau and Jacob

Last week, the crew over at CrossFit asked us to supply them with 60 kettlebells for the annual CrossFit games. We worked overtime bending steel, powder coating, and molding kettlebells this week to make the Thursday pick-up deadline for UPS. They are now on a truck headed to the Games.

Torque Athletic is a proud sponsor (and now equipment supplier) of the 2009 CrossFit Games in Aromas, Ca from July 10-12. We look forward to seeing you there.

(This is a recent article passed on to us by Coach Jamie Hale . . ..)

“Coach Hale why are you so skeptical?” “Why do you have such a negative view of the fitness industry?” “You are so cynical.” I hear these types of questions and statements on a weekly basis.  The people that approach me with these statements are almost always supplement salesman, homeopathy practitioners, equipment salesman etc..  Generally, people that do not like to have their authority questioned.

Skeptic or Cynic

Some people believe that skepticism is the rejection of new ideas. Often people confuse   “skeptic” with “cynic.” The Fitness Skeptic (Skeptic is derived from the Greek skeptikos, which means “inquiring” or “to look around) applies reason to any and all ideas promoted by the fitness industry or ideas promoted by anyone making fitness claims.  The Fitness skeptic (the term Fitness skeptic applies to health, nutrition and supplement claims as well) requires evidence before claims are accepted as fact.  It is important to consider who are making the claims, but no matter who makes the claim evidence is required.  In reality, the person’s reputation, authority or credentials do not make the claim correct.  The evidence determines whether the claim is correct.  Skepticism is a method used to question the validity of a particular claim.  In it’s simplest form skepticism requires evidence for a claim to be accepted as fact (valid evidence = Primary Research Data, valid evidence doesn’t include “they say” “my instructor says” “the gym staff says” “I have always heard”..).

There are many different aspects of fitness so it becomes obvious that science has not investigated every topic.  Many claims are so outlandish and unjustifiable (according to already established scientific facts) they do not warrant scientific investigation.  These are the type of claims that violate basic laws of biochemistry, kinesiology, endocrinology and so on. The people that promote these claims generally make up their own terminology and attempt to impress people with fancy words (in many cases words that do not exist or words they cannot accurately define). read more »