A person asked me last week how I came to be a CrossFit trainer and then gym owner, and I enjoyed remembering the road I travelled.
My story is all over my blog, in our pamphlet, on our Facebook page, on our web site (www.fireofthegodsfitness.com), and still it doesn't really tell the tale. So here's a bit of self indulgence. I found CrossFit in 2006 just after my martial arts instructor and dear friend died. A soldier I worked with suggested that I look at cross fit.com after he heard about some of the body weight workouts I was doing. I tracked the WODs over time and marveled at how crazy they were - deadlifts and running, in the same workout, with no rest? That's crazy. But after a while I began to see what they were going for - so I decided to try it.
After my first workout of the day (WOD), I was hooked. I was training hard at that time, lifting heavy weights, running sprints and longer runs, and doing body weight work (squats and handstand pushups). Still, CrossFit humbled me, wrecked me. It was clear I huge holes in work capacity.
So I trained as hard as I could and I went to a Level I certificate course. Then I was invited to come to the Level II course. Somewhere in there, I was doing PT with the Navy, and hated it. It hurt my knee, it was not of high enough intensity to make anyone much more fit, and it was boring stuff. I made a comment to the instructor about how to make it better and he gave me the gift of suggesting that I take the lead role for a class (he thought he was daring me, and I was in fact being a bit rude). He never coached again while I was there. I had the double bonus of not having to go through his class and instead being able to practice being a coach, learning every day.
With that group, I had no barbells, no pullup bars and only the gear I could pack in my truck and bring with me. Still, we made CrossFit style WODs with what we had and they all noted the positive impacts from the workouts. They approached the Navy fitness test with confidence, some noted huge improvements with just a couple of months of "low tech" CrossFit. It was satisfying. That period of time earned me the moniker "The Punisher" from some, but I alway laughed at that. No CrossFit workout is hard - unless you work hard enough to make it hard. It is all "self punishment".
About that time I had my first paying clients. That was huge fun, and the clients made rapid progress. I had a small framed former runner, who was an incredible athlete, who went from no deadlift experience to a 315 pound deadlift (double his body weight) in just a couple of months. I was lucky to find Chad because he was so easy to coach - anything I asked him to do, he did. No muss, no fuss, no real work on my part. I wish I could work with Chad now, he'd become a monster.
Along the way I began to attend more training seminars - CrossFit Kids, CrossFit Olympic Lifting, CrossFit Coach's Prep Course - and then was able to apply what I learned with clients. I started a CrossFit group on base that ran for about 18 months. Again, the chance to work with real folks regularly was incredibly fun and satisfying - the successes were huge - fat loss, performance gains, friends made. That group wound down in 2009 or 2010, but I am still in contact with several of them - and to Star, Angela and the gang, thank you!
In 2010 we bought a CrossFit Affiliate and started CrossFit Fire of the Gods in our garage. We made enough money to get more CrossFit gear for our clients and pay for more training. Janet was able to go to (and easily passed) a Level I Certificate course, and she trained friends (and their friends) in our garage. To Laura and Paul and Jo Anne - thank you! We miss you but are grateful for your trust and the lessons you taught us about how to work with athletes.
All this happened as I was winding down a career as a naval officer. I put hours and hours, week after week, into reading and blogging about nutrition and fitness, watching training videos, and of course practicing what I learned on myself and then our clients. I spent a lot of time exploring various avenues for how to switch from employee to business owner - all seemed prohibitively expensive. Then a few things happened in our favor and here we are - owners of a CrossFit affiliate as our full time life.
Why? We love to learn and teach. Teaching about health and fitness lets us create: Impact. Results. Change. Transformation. Athletes exceeding perceived limits. Chasing performance.
We see the impact of improved physical capacity when applied to the rest of life. That's what we do every day, every workout, every client interaction, every SM post, most things we read, and a large part of what we talk about. How can we help? How can we make more impact faster? How can we reach every client? How can we make these painful workouts seem desirable to the uninitiated?
So, come see us and help us make our dreams come true by chasing a better you through CrossFit. Call 207-449-8996 or email us (cffotg at gmail dot com) and let's get started today making 2014 the year you made the big change in your health and physical capacity!
My story is all over my blog, in our pamphlet, on our Facebook page, on our web site (www.fireofthegodsfitness.com), and still it doesn't really tell the tale. So here's a bit of self indulgence. I found CrossFit in 2006 just after my martial arts instructor and dear friend died. A soldier I worked with suggested that I look at cross fit.com after he heard about some of the body weight workouts I was doing. I tracked the WODs over time and marveled at how crazy they were - deadlifts and running, in the same workout, with no rest? That's crazy. But after a while I began to see what they were going for - so I decided to try it.
After my first workout of the day (WOD), I was hooked. I was training hard at that time, lifting heavy weights, running sprints and longer runs, and doing body weight work (squats and handstand pushups). Still, CrossFit humbled me, wrecked me. It was clear I huge holes in work capacity.
So I trained as hard as I could and I went to a Level I certificate course. Then I was invited to come to the Level II course. Somewhere in there, I was doing PT with the Navy, and hated it. It hurt my knee, it was not of high enough intensity to make anyone much more fit, and it was boring stuff. I made a comment to the instructor about how to make it better and he gave me the gift of suggesting that I take the lead role for a class (he thought he was daring me, and I was in fact being a bit rude). He never coached again while I was there. I had the double bonus of not having to go through his class and instead being able to practice being a coach, learning every day.
With that group, I had no barbells, no pullup bars and only the gear I could pack in my truck and bring with me. Still, we made CrossFit style WODs with what we had and they all noted the positive impacts from the workouts. They approached the Navy fitness test with confidence, some noted huge improvements with just a couple of months of "low tech" CrossFit. It was satisfying. That period of time earned me the moniker "The Punisher" from some, but I alway laughed at that. No CrossFit workout is hard - unless you work hard enough to make it hard. It is all "self punishment".
About that time I had my first paying clients. That was huge fun, and the clients made rapid progress. I had a small framed former runner, who was an incredible athlete, who went from no deadlift experience to a 315 pound deadlift (double his body weight) in just a couple of months. I was lucky to find Chad because he was so easy to coach - anything I asked him to do, he did. No muss, no fuss, no real work on my part. I wish I could work with Chad now, he'd become a monster.
Along the way I began to attend more training seminars - CrossFit Kids, CrossFit Olympic Lifting, CrossFit Coach's Prep Course - and then was able to apply what I learned with clients. I started a CrossFit group on base that ran for about 18 months. Again, the chance to work with real folks regularly was incredibly fun and satisfying - the successes were huge - fat loss, performance gains, friends made. That group wound down in 2009 or 2010, but I am still in contact with several of them - and to Star, Angela and the gang, thank you!
In 2010 we bought a CrossFit Affiliate and started CrossFit Fire of the Gods in our garage. We made enough money to get more CrossFit gear for our clients and pay for more training. Janet was able to go to (and easily passed) a Level I Certificate course, and she trained friends (and their friends) in our garage. To Laura and Paul and Jo Anne - thank you! We miss you but are grateful for your trust and the lessons you taught us about how to work with athletes.
All this happened as I was winding down a career as a naval officer. I put hours and hours, week after week, into reading and blogging about nutrition and fitness, watching training videos, and of course practicing what I learned on myself and then our clients. I spent a lot of time exploring various avenues for how to switch from employee to business owner - all seemed prohibitively expensive. Then a few things happened in our favor and here we are - owners of a CrossFit affiliate as our full time life.
Why? We love to learn and teach. Teaching about health and fitness lets us create: Impact. Results. Change. Transformation. Athletes exceeding perceived limits. Chasing performance.
We see the impact of improved physical capacity when applied to the rest of life. That's what we do every day, every workout, every client interaction, every SM post, most things we read, and a large part of what we talk about. How can we help? How can we make more impact faster? How can we reach every client? How can we make these painful workouts seem desirable to the uninitiated?
So, come see us and help us make our dreams come true by chasing a better you through CrossFit. Call 207-449-8996 or email us (cffotg at gmail dot com) and let's get started today making 2014 the year you made the big change in your health and physical capacity!
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