Tia-Clair Toomey — The Training Style, Competition History, and Biography of CrossFit’s Winningest Individual Athlete
CrossFit isn’t a very old sport. The first CrossFit Games in 2007 had more in common with an athletes’ getaway weekend (complete with a barbeque) than the televised, sponsorship-filled week that it has evolved into. And as the Games have progressed during the past 15 years, nearly half of that time has been dominated by one athlete: Tia-Clair Toomey
The Australia-born phenom swept into the sport with a vengeance at her Games debut in 2015, rising immediately to the second spot on the podium in her rookie year. It only took her one more second-place finish (in 2016) to figure out how to secure the top spot on the podium at the 2017 Games. She didn’t relinquish the title of Fittest Woman on Earth® for the next half-dozen years.
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[Read More: 5 Memorable Moments From the 2023 CrossFit Games]
Though the winningest Individual in CrossFit history took most of the 2023 season off to give birth to her first child, she may not even be done with her competitive career. Read on for everything you need to know about Toomey’s rise to CrossFit stardom and utter dominance of the sport.
Tia-Clair Toomey’s CrossFit Competition History
Toomey’s reign in CrossFit is fairly straightforward, and can largely be described with one word — victory. At the risk of being redundant, here is Toomey’s competition history.
Toomey at the CrossFit Games
- 2015: 2nd place
- 2016: 2nd place
- 2017: 1st place
- 2018: 1st place
- 2019: 1st place
- 2020: 1st place
- 2021: 1st place
- 2022: 1st place
The 30-year-old Australian’s winning streak came to a close in 2023 not because she lost, but because she didn’t compete. Toomey gave birth to her first child, Willow, on May 9, just three months before the 2023 Games.
But Toomey hasn’t just dominated the Games themselves. She’s also crushed two of CrossFit’s biggest off-season competitions, Wodapalooza and the Rogue Invitational. Here’s how she’s fared over the years:
Toomey at Wodapalooza
The one and only year Toomey took part in the fitness fest that is Wodapalooza, she came home with the gold.
- 2019: 1st place
Toomey at the Rogue Invitational
Since its debut year in 2019, Toomey has also dominated the Rogue Invitational. If she’s competed, she’s won. It’s that simple.
- 2019: 1st place
- 2020: 1st place
- 2021: 1st place
Tia-Clair Toomey’s CrossFit Training Style and Workouts
Multiple (and intense) daily training sessions define an elite CrossFitter’s regimen, and Toomey is no exception. A couple of months shy of her sixth CrossFit Games victory in the summer of 2022, Toomey was doing both monostructural (cardio) and weightlifting movements in morning and afternoon sessions.
A June 21, 2022, YouTube video showed Toomey starting her mornings one to two times per week on an outdoor track, tearing away at 4.4 miles within 50 minutes. And that’s before afternoons filled with weightlifting and metcons running the gamut of strength and skills, from snatches and barbell thrusters to pegboard work.
A year later — after tremendous training during her healthy pregnancy — Toomey was still pumping out multiple workouts a day. In her summer 2023 comeback from giving birth, she started off by building back her strength. But that didn’t mean she was holding back. In a video published to her YouTube channel on July 31, 2023, Toomey documented a day’s worth of training, featuring a four-split strength and conditioning workout.
[Read More: The Best CrossFit Workouts for Beginners to Build Strength and Mental Toughness]
Mobility and Form
Toomey knows that CrossFit is not all about strength, nor even about gymnastics, or the size of your engine. Complete with handstand walks, overhead barbell lunges, and a tremendous amount of snatching, CrossFit requires its champions and newbies alike to develop elite mobility. So naturally, Toomey focuses a lot on her ability to move well in her training.
Before her training sessions, the G.O.A.T. spends a lot of time focusing on her ankle mobility and posture, dedicating a lot of time to stretching her lats, front delts, and chest as she prepares to crush muscle-ups and hoist heavy barbells.
[Read More: The 20 Best Mobility Exercises for Better Movement and Performance]
Staring down a whiteboard calling for a squat-filled day? When coach and husband Shane Orr calls for squats, Toomey turns to low dragons, quad leans, lizard stretches, and saddle stretches to get her ankles, hips, knees, and lower back ready for a solid squatting session.
No matter what season of training Toomey is in, she emphasizes practicing each lift with an empty barbell to ensure that her mechanics are on point before loading it up. She also uses plenty of accessory exercises to ensure that no muscle group lags behind during her training.
Tia-Clair Toomey’s Career Outside of CrossFit
Somehow, the CrossFit G.O.A.T. isn’t just incredible at CrossFit. Her championship mindset extends to other sports at the Olympic level. After only dedicating 18 months to weightlifting, Toomey earned a spot at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she took home 14th place in the 58-kilogram weight class. Two years later, during the start of her reign as the Fittest Woman on Earth®, Toomey earned the 58-kilogram gold at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Even the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games weren’t safe from Toomey’s prowess. During what mere mortals consider the CrossFit off-season, the champ helped the Australian Bobsled Team secure a spot at that year’s Olympics. (She did not, however, compete at the Olympics herself.)
[Read More: Tia-Clair Toomey Shares Full Day of Eating During Her Pregnancy]
But it’s not just the world of competitive athletics that Toomey is making her mark on. Based out of Nashville, TN, since 2021, Toomey runs PRVN Fitness alongside Orr. Their training camp produced a team called CrossFit East Nashville PRVN, which earned a second-place finish in its debut year at the 2023 CrossFit Games.
PRVN is also training elite Games athletes from Olivia Kerstetter and Sasha Nievas to twin sisters Sydney and Brooke Wells.
More than just a training camp, PRVN Fitness also sells supplements, apparel, and training programs meant to let the common folk train like the world’s fittest.
Tia-Clair Toomey’s Life Outside of CrossFit
Toomey was born in Nambour, Queensland, Australia, on July 22, 1993. The future star was a runner in high school until she graduated in 2011 and studied nursing for six months at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. After moving to Gladstone, she worked as a dental assistant and lab tech.
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[Read More: Watch Tia-Clair Toomey Practice Snatching for the First Time Post-Pregnancy]
At the highest levels, it’s hard for many elite athletes to separate their personal lives from their sport. True to form, Toomey’s family is intimately involved in her CrossFit career.
Future husband Shane Orr met Toomey when she was in high school, and he later introduced her to CrossFit. The couple was married in 2017 and welcomed their first child into the world in 2023.
Tia-Clair Toomey’s Future in CrossFit
After much will-she-won’t-she speculation, Toomey was going to aim for a seventh consecutive CrossFit Games title in 2023 — but that was before she announced that she was pregnant. But after sitting out most of the 2023 season, Toomey is back and looks ready to rise through the 2024 season.
She’ll undoubtedly have her eye on taking the title of Fittest on Earth® back from 2023 champ Laura Horvath. If Toomey’s past performances are any indication, it’s going to be a fireworks-filled season.
Featured Image: William Johnson (@barbellstories on Instagram)
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