The Downtown ChuckTown Throwdown guarantees to convey some positivity to the CrossFit scene.
Final up to date on March eleventh, 2025
Alan Shaw, co-owner of Rhapsody Health in downtown Charleston, SC, has began a brand new CrossFit Open custom. The custom brings collectively gyms within the space for a Friday Evening Lights occasion, which is a staple within the CrossFit neighborhood.
Rhapsody Health and a few different gyms within the surrounding space launched the Downtown ChuckTown Throwdown final 12 months and introduced it again for the 2025 Open.
- This 12 months, Rhapsody Health, Holy Metropolis CrossFit, and Pale Horse CrossFit are all taking part within the throwdown. Every Friday, they take turns internet hosting athletes.
The CrossFit neighborhood across the globe has been at a crossroads in the case of dealing with the 2025 CrossFit Games season. The demise of Lazar Ðukić on the 2024 CrossFit Video games introduced everybody to a halt, and because of this, some athletes and associates have chosen not to participate this 12 months.
For Rhapsody Health, Shaw noticed it as a chance to come back collectively and give attention to CrossFit on the neighborhood stage.
- “I feel with all of the noise that’s taking place proper now with all the pieces […] what’s taking place day in and time out in our associates is what CrossFit really is,” Shaw instructed the Morning Chalk Up in an interview.
Shaw and his husband based Rhapsody Health in 2018 after transferring down from New York Metropolis. They’ve slightly over 200 members and pleasure themselves on being a health club for anybody and everybody.
- “We reside in a tremendous metropolis — we’re by the seaside, and we now have heat climate for a lot of the 12 months, and folks prefer to reside that seaside life right here. Having the ability to type of stability that right here is de facto vital to me,” Shaw mentioned.
The vast majority of Shaw’s members are there to get a fast exercise in and return to their every day lives. His members love the CrossFit methodology and with the ability to come collectively for health.
Shaw says he didn’t inform his members to join the Open — as an alternative, he left it as much as them to determine.
- “I’ve been telling folks whether or not you signed up for the Open otherwise you haven’t signed up for the Open, so long as you’re displaying up and and and committing to the exercise, I feel that’s a very powerful factor,” he mentioned.
As a seven-year affiliate proprietor, Shaw has seen the adjustments and important occasions within the CrossFit house, together with all the pieces that went on with Ðukić and the impact it’s had on the neighborhood as an entire.
- “We’re at a turning level proper now with CrossFit on the whole and understanding what actually issues is the day-in and day-out dedication that affiliate house owners give to their gyms pulling 12-to-16-hour days for a technique that everyone knows that works and that we’ve seen folks’s lives be modified, together with our personal,” Shaw mentioned.
No matter occurs with CrossFit and the Open in future years, Shaw plans to proceed internet hosting the Downtown ChuckTown Throwdown. Whereas he hopes it should stay tied to the CrossFit season, he’s inquisitive about the place the game is headed and the way associates will contribute to that narrative.
“We’ll see what occurs within the subsequent couple of years,” he mentioned. “However for me, it’s a kind of issues the place it’s going to stay round for positive.”
One final thing: It’s the final week of the 2025 CrossFit Open, and the 25.3 announcement can be made on Thursday at CrossFit Spur in Glenmont, NY.
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Featured Picture: Peyton Raybon, @peyray.pictures / Instagram