My Vision For CrossFit CL

I’d like to talk about how I approach each day as the owner of a CrossFit gym. For those that don’t know my history of how I became a gym owner, I’ll tell you my story, explain my experiences and what makes me tick. Hopefully this will help you understand more about me, why I say/do/act certain ways, and I hope it helps me form stronger relationships with all of our members and coaches.

When I started seeking out an exercise program, it was out of necessity. I was sedentary, obese, and in a comfortable relationship where I hadn’t considered what I looked like or was like to be with. At first, seeking exercise was to satisfy my then-girlfriend and so I started with what she was doing - which was running. After a few months of training I reached my goal of completing a 5km run without stopping, I was content with how far I’d come but I also knew I wouldn’t continue with running as it wasn’t enjoyable enough to keep me going. Then came CrossFit.

I started CrossFit on March 27th of 2009, attending 5am classes regularly, going 5+ times a week. I drank the Kool-Aid like no other, telling friends about it until I no longer had friends that wanted to hear/talk about it. It quite literally changed my life as I started training to compete in both Weightlifting and the sport of CrossFit, which led to me coaching, it’s where I met my future wife, and then I went back to University to receive my BSc. in Kinesiology, and eventually become a full-time CrossFit Coach. Fast forward a few years and I met my life’s first big obstacle - the sudden passing of my dad following my parents’ head-on collision with a drunk driver in 2014. It took me months to realize that I no longer wanted to go with the flow of where my life was taking me and I decided I needed to live my life to the fullest and make every day enjoyable. I sought a stake in the gym I was working at and it was decided that partnering to open a gym was the right path. After less than a year, the gym closed and I was left to make a decision: return to coach at the previous gym or leave my job. At that time, my wife (Sarah <3) and I had just married and we were expecting our first child. In what would become a very messy situation with lots of fallout, I decided to leave coaching and work full-time as a manager of Robins Donuts, a coffee shop that my family had invested into.

I started working, 4:30 am until 10:30pm for weeks, learning the ropes, barely seeing my family unless they came to visit me at work. I slowly transitioned into fewer hours, eventually into more “regular” hours. I loved working with my staff, the customers, but this only further solidified my desire to pursue a career as CrossFit Coach. I envisioned what I wanted my gym to be like, the equipment we had, the programs we’d offer, but most importantly the culture I wanted to establish. While churning out hundreds of cups of coffee through the drive-through, in my head I was already in a new gym, coaching and training as I had before, but better. Now, I just had to put in some work and make it come to fruition.

I was very fortunate because I had the support of many people who also left their gym and the community they were so invested into, to then be thrust into fitness purgatory. Some people worked out at home, others tried other CrossFit gyms. In a bold and incredibly irresponsible move, as a person with lots of debt, low income, and with a now-pregnant wife who was about to be on maternity leave, I maxed out our credit card to purchase $10,000 worth of gym equipment as a way of committing to pursue a new path of sole gym ownership. This was also a time when I made decisions without consulting my newly pregnant wife, but I relied on her forgiveness because I knew permission was not in the cards. This became the start of “CrossFit 6’ & Under” (my garage could not accommodate tall people going overhead with barbells).

I knew I couldn’t do this without help and so I started reaching out to people. I was able to secure personal loans, a business manager (who’s still with us today, <3 Valarie), and we were on our way to being able to secure a space, do the renovations, have enough equipment to get started, and a couple of months of rent to boot. As our opening date got closer, I was able to rely on the amazing staff at Robins to take over more responsibilities to the point where I was spending much less time there, more time with my family, and more time preparing to take on a second job. Within five months of ending my previous gym partnership, I opened StrongFit YXE, with a lot of help along the way of course. In a space of 1911 square feet, we had less than 900 square feet of CrossFit space, a lone airbike, four squat stations, two rowers, and 3 male, 3 female barbells. Our first month we had fewer than 40 members, most of whom I had already coached and were anxiously waiting for the new space to arrive. Here’s where my first real go as a gym owner would be tested, with many hats I’ve never worn before being pulled down to fit my oddly shaped head. I became a plumber, electrician, maintenance guy, cleaner. I programmed workouts, coached the majority of the classes, continued training with the desire to continue competing. I trained other coaches, sought additional coaching credentials for myself, continued learning and growing as a coach. All while trying to grow the gym with Valarie, learn how to manage the back-end, working towards paying back our short-term loans and keep the doors open.

All of what I’ve talked about so far isn’t to complain about what I’ve taken on. I love my job and all that comes with it. I’m grateful, every day, for the people in my life and the opportunities I have to make a difference. I’ve learned so much from so many people over the years and I continue to learn on a daily basis. If not for mistakes I’ve made in my life, I would not have as strong of a desire to become a better person, a better leader, and to want more for our members. This is where my story shifts to what you all came for - what a day in the life of owning a gym is like.

Programming: I have been deeply inspired by Ben Bergeron and his Chasing Excellent podcast, which has encouraged me to do more personal development (more on that in the future). Through that, I found his program (Comptrain) and it saves me a lot of time and energy to use for our gym’s CrossFit programming. I love the variety in their workouts, the thoughtfulness in planning for phases of the sport’s competitive season, but also the practicality and functionality in exercise selection. All that’s left to do is upload their program onto our website (with a few tweaks for our membership) and our WOD tracker, Beyond The White Board. I program for our Weightlifters and Meranda programs for the kids but realistically, we program for individuals every workout. We have a “Workout Of the Day” but it’s just a general template of what movements we want people to perform. From there, our coaches help decide the “how” for our members.

It takes a lot to coach someone. We all want our members to be healthy and improve, so when we offer feedback please be assured it’s so that you are not working towards an injury or that you can get more out of your workouts by following our suggested strategies.

Maintenance: I’m incredibly grateful to Randy Hills, who from day one has helped maintain our facility, equipment, and whatever else has been needed. He’s been available to help move equipment, maintain the rowers, fix equipment, as well as keep the space clean. We also have a cleaner and between them and our resident Champion Record Holder Powerlifter Janet Hills, there are 10+ hours of cleaning done every week. This is where having members help avoid any extra messes makes a huge difference, such as: keeping indoor shoes indoors and outdoor shoes outdoors, cleaning up any messes left behind from spilled drinks or chalk, or even just tidying up equipment when workouts are over. It’s a team effort and we’ll always have to do some extra work from time-to-time but the more our members can do to take care of the space the less we have to rely on these three (and our coaches) to do the heavy lifting. Thanks for taking pride in our space.

Training vs. Competing: Every day is an opportunity to maintain our fitness or improve it. If your goal is to stay in the gym, improve skills, or get better at the physical side of what we do, then we have to manage our intensity (read: go slower and focus on technique more often). Exercise is an excellent way to manage stress. It’s a break from the stuff we have going on outside of the gym and it’s a big part of our social life as well. That said, exercise can be addictive, and like all things, too much volume or intensity or not enough rest can lead to overuse injuries and increased stress. By managing intensity levels and making sure we get our rest days, we can keep going to the gym, keep the social aspect, and keep the gains going. “Pushing through pain” is NOT what we want! Tell us when things are hurting (we want you to get uncomfortable but we don’t want you to experience pain in movements) and we can select exercises that will help keep you fit without causing more pain. “Check your ego at the door” is an old CrossFit phrase which carries a lot of meaning: don’t let the search for PRs dictate your workout. Let our passionate and caring coaches help you (read: be open to being coached), don’t push through pain, etc… There will be times where you can push through extreme discomfort or shoot for a PR but it should not be a regular occurrence. There are also some people who are training to compete and so their movements, volume and intensity will take more out of them. They may be at their threshold more often as their goal is to maximize their adaptations but they’re also (hopefully) maximizing their recovery by dialing in their nutrition, sleep, and active recovery days. For most people, if you go to the gym 10 times in a month; 1 day should be practice (low intensity, high skill work), 1 day can be “competing” where you’re going to do your best to max out your performance, the remaining 8 days you have the ability to push harder to end the workout (think 80% of max maintainable effort for 80% of the workout, 100% for the rest if it feels good). Trust that by doing less you can still reach your goals, especially if it means you aren’t forced to take breaks due to feeling burnt out or have to deal with an injury. Which brings me to my next point…

Be Kind To Yourself: Gym culture comes from the top-down and is worked on every day, with every conversation and decision affecting the outcome. I rely heavily on having Humble, Hungry, and Smart Coaches (taken from Patrick Lencioni’s “The Ideal Team Player”) and most days it’s a huge task to do a good job. We understand that everyone’s reason for going to the gym can vary day-to-day; where some days a push will do you good, other days requires more patience, fewer cues and more encouragement. If those other days are happening more frequently, where the “just let me go hard and bury myself in sweat” type of day turns into weeks and months, then the gym that makes us healthier and feel better becomes the thing that we are forced to take a break from. This is when we are aching, we’re constantly stiff and sore, we feel stressed out all of the time, sleep is poor, and all of the benefits we were seeking through exercise are no longer benefitting us. Like with anything, moderation is key and understanding that using exercise as “medicine” or “therapy” comes with limitations. So, when your coach is providing cues of sitting further back on your heels, slowing down your movements, keeping your shoulders down, back flat, knees out, take some weight off, etc… it’s not to sabotage your gains. Every cue, suggestion, and “lecture” is to help you recover in the workout, from the workout, and potentially from whatever else is ailing you. If you’ve never experienced an injury that required extended time off from the gym, then you may not realize just how emotionally, physically, and mentally draining a chronic injury can be.

Every repetition is like a drop in the bucket and are three buckets: the first is your current movement pattern, the second is movement that is closer to ideal, and the third moves you closer to injury. Treat each rep as though it is the one you want to have for the rest of your life and you’ll magically find that your joints hurt less, your movements feel stronger, and your flexibility is improving. Lose focus or focus on the wrong things (counting reps vs making reps count, beating the person beside you or a past PR) and now things are tighter, you’ve hit a plateau despite training more, you need more warm-up to feel better, or you have to modify what you’re doing because certain movements cause pain. Be kind to your body and your body will respond in kind.

Words Matter: This is easily the most difficult part to explain and to navigate. It’s everywhere, all of the time. The language (words) you use, the tone in which you say them, the perspective that you’re sharing, they all greatly impact the way the message is received. This goes for what you say out loud AND the unspoken words. Like every repetition in a workout, the buckets here are tied to your identity: who you are, who you want to be, who you don’t want to be. Would you want your child or best friend to talk to themselves the way you are to yourself? Would you want someone talking about you the way you’re talking about them? Is what you’re about to say really important or are you just trying to find something exciting to talk about? As leaders in our community, our Coaches have a lot on their plate. It’s more than just fitness, it’s keeping the gym a safe and inclusive space. If I walk into a gym where I hear people complaining about their spouses, or about someone from another class, or about some person at the grocery store because of a minor incident, I would not feel safe or comfortable around them because I would constantly be worried they’d be talking about me/or judging me for doing something unintentional. A safe and inclusive space should be welcoming, supportive, and without judgement of ourselves or others. Of course, I don’t believe we have members that are intentionally mean or are trying to be hurtful. Often times it’s just a joke that’s gone too far, or a routine that’s getting tired. We don’t know what kind of day a person is having and sometimes a joke that’s well received one day may take more out of us than other days. So when I personally try to shift conversations and bring people back to fitness, it’s to help keep things on track for sure, but it’s also to keep the main thing the main thing - we’re here to exercise and socialize in ways that are healthy for us in the long run.

We all need help: Without the help and support I’d received from before I’d even left my previous coaching job, I would not be speaking to you all about running a gym today. I’ve received personal and business loans to continue to build our gym. From hosting events to helping out with cleaning, you’ve helped put thousands of volunteer hours in. Planning, coordinating, operating, and maintaining all require hours that I just would not be able to do on my own and so having people that share the same vision and philosophies as me have. Everyone has contributed their own personal time, money, and emotional currency to help me work towards a happy, healthy, humble community that’s safe and inclusive. I know I’ve made many mistakes in every role I’ve held; as a coach, business owner, employer, husband, father, and athlete. I’m grateful for those that have continued to support me despite those lessons and poor decisions. I’m grateful for being given the opportunities to lead our Coaches and Community where I can and that you all believe in what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m also always receiving help and asking for help. My decisions/actions are always being checked and I’m thankful for honest and vocal members of the community that ensure my actions line up with who I want to be. And now, as our Community grows, its especially important for me to know who I am, where I’m coming from, and where I want us to go. I’ve had the pleasure of watching and learning from so many people; embedded in the lessons and stories of parenthood, relationship building, networking, and leadership. I’m thankful for their guidance which has greatly shaped the gym’s culture. I’ve been inspired and motivated to continue seeking the tools and resources needed to keep pursuing excellence for our members. Even when I’ve hit a wall or am met with resistance, I am able to maintain the faith that at the end of the day, committing to our mission and being diligent in it’s pursuit makes a difference in the long run.

During the pandemic I realized I needed help and I’ve been working with my doctor, more recently a counsellor, and I’ve leaned heavily into personal development resources. I want to keep investing in myself, my mental health, my physical health, my emotional health because I hope others see it as a worthwhile investment worth pursuing.

EAT. SLEEP. MOVE. THINK. CONNECT.

What this means on day-to-day basis is that I want to do everything I can in order to keep people active, social, and healthy in mind and body. I also want to keep the gym a safe space for myself, in my pursuit of creating a life where I seek challenges, experience joy regularly, and have a fulfilling career. This means I will do everything I can to focus on our five factors: Eat, Sleep, Think, Move, Connect, because these are things we have control over that will really move the needle forward in how we can be healthy and happy people. This means I’ll ask questions about what you ate that morning, if you had a big weekend of party or stress, whether you’ve been travelling a lot and everything is tight, if you’ve had a stretch of less sleep than usual, or if today’s a “sweat to forget” day or a training day. Every day I am here to do what I can to help people realize their potential but it’s a two-way street and you also have to want the same things. This is also where I realize this gym and this Community is not for everyone and I have to be okay with that. I can try to help the people that are in front of me and I’m grateful for everyone that is here. Thank you for taking the time to understand me and my vision for CrossFit CL <3