Fitness & family
Q: Where are you from and what’s your athletic background?
I’m originally from the beautiful, and historic, Mad River Valley, Ohio. But, we moved to Lucas County, Ohio when I was nine (which is when I first met my wife), and then moved to Rio Rancho, NM (where Breaking Bad was filmed) when I was a Freshman in High School. I returned to Ohio in 1998 to play soccer at BGSU.
My parents tell me that before I could walk I would plant myself in front of the tv and watch any sports that were on. My family is competitive and athletic, so I never had a hope. I’ve played competitive soccer most of my life. I never played professionally, but my “claim to fame” is that I’ve played in a game against Landon Donavan and Demarcus Beasley, and also came very close to playing for Cruz Azul in Mexico City. After graduating college, before kids, I continued to play soccer locally in leagues (Juan and I played on a team together) and started running more. Then: kids.
For a handful of years, I lost my fitness. I still was running occasionally, but by 2019 had become as unfit as I’d ever been.
Q: What made you get into CrossFit?
My brother, from Colorado had begun CrossFit back in 2012, and immediately was urging me to get involved. We would occasionally work out with him when visiting him, and though I enjoyed it, this was during the ‘Then: Kids’ period of my life, and it just wasn’t a priority. Then, a few years later another brother and sister-in-law got involved in CrossFit; family gatherings began to be more and more oriented towards physical fitness.
In 2019, fed up with being unfit, and inspired by the level of fitness that my family had achieved, I started we invested in our garage gym with some Kettlebells, Dumbbells and a Pullup bar, and I started training for my first Murph. From 2019 through 2022 we worked out in our garage gym, and I ran a lot. However, I wasn’t building strength, so in the Fall 2022 we decided that it was time to commit to joining an actual gym, and learn from people who actually knew what they were doing. So, we signed up for 101 in October and haven’t looked back since. Andee and I both were fit when we started CrossFit, but we were not strong and we had virtually no experience with barbell/Olympic lifting.
Q: As a family, what are some positive effects you’ve seen by doing fitness together? / What kind of changes in your kids/family’s life have you seen (if any)?
Andee and I both come from athletic backgrounds, so to a some degree athletics have always been part of our lives together. In fact, we wouldn’t know each other but for athletics -she was a gymnast teammate of my sister’s in the ‘90s.
I think we’re designed to be physically active as humans. As a father and a husband, I’ve found it important to not neglect my own physical fitness. It helps keep me mentally healthy. In general it just improves quality of life. Making physical fitness a priority in our family has been fun for Andee and I. It’s something we have in common, so that’s healthy for our marriage. It’s made hard physical work normal for our girls growing up, which is just cool in my opinion.
Q: What advice would you give to parents and/or anyone about CrossFit?
One of the really exciting things about CrossFit is that it quickly exposes your weaknesses. I love that; There are too few arenas in life where you can have your weaknesses laid bare. However, that exposure opens the door to growth. I struggle with anything barbell related, and I cannot string more than 10 double-unders together most days, but those are the things that I’m motivated to focus on turning into strengths -no matter how long it takes. So, be patient, be diligent and persistent, and learn from others as much as possible.
To parents/families- do as much as you can together. Our girls get really excited whenever they can work out with us. These years with our kids go by very quickly, so doing things together that are healthy and build a sense of community is time well invested.