Cindy and Will Malz are co-owners of CrossFit Playground.
We both had successful athletic careers when we were younger – Cindy in softball, field hockey, and basketball, and Will in football, track and field, and Tae Kwon Do.
We’ve had different paths to becoming CrossFit coaches. Cindy continued to pursue fitness after college through running, light weight lifting, and some cross training. Will had a different experience after college, going through yo-yo cycles of hitting the gym hard and being “chained to the desk” and making other excuses for the slide in his fitness.
We’ve been CrossFitting for over a year, and the changes we’ve seen through CrossFit aren’t limited to our fitness. CrossFit has literally changed our lives. Aside from the obvious benefits to our physical health, we both have more energy, we have more focus in other areas of our lives, and we’ve never been closer as a couple than we now are. As an added benefit, the transformation we’ve both undergone as a result of CrossFit has inspired many friends and family members to begin CrossFitting. Ranging from Tallulah at 2 years old to Cindy’s Mom at 59 and Will’s Dad at 70, we have had a fantastic time helping people change their lives, get ranges of motion and strength they never thought the would have, and get excited about fitness.
We had so much fun introducing friends and family to CrossFit that we decided to rig up “the garage gym” at our house to make it easier to do workouts that traditional gyms frown upon. Over the course of a couple of months, we bought bumper plates, installed a pullup bar, bought kettlebells, and even got a glute-ham developer. During this time, we also got our CrossFit Level 1 Certifications. At the time, we didn’t think that we were going to open a CrossFit Affiliate. We did it so that we would better understand the movements, the theory, and the magic that is CrossFit.
Will picking up some heavy weight.
As our garage gym progressed and we came to realize and appreciate the changes that CrossFit had brought to our lives, we started talking about opening an Affiliate. Over the course of a couple of months, our discussions progressed from “wouldn’t it be cool if…” to “we should do [something] to the garage” to “I really think [insert name here] would get into this if we could get them to try it out.” We talked to family and friends about the idea. We permanently moved the pickup out of the garage. We kept helping our friends and family with their fitness. Eventually, we came to the realization that there was something very gratifying about helping people change their lives. Because of our experiences, the experiences of our friends and families, and the feelings we were getting when we shared the exuberant “WHOOHOO!” of someone’s first pullup or PR (Personal Record) in a heavy lift, we decided we wanted to make CrossFit more than something we did; we decided we wanted to invest ourselves in helping people change their lives.
After going through the Affiliation paperwork, writing a very heartfelt essay and buying a whole bunch of insurance, we were filling out the final paperwork, and we got really stuck on what the name of our CrossFit Affiliate should be. We sat down with a pad of paper and a thesaurus and got to work. After about 90 minutes of playing with ideas, we took a break and talked about what the gym should be all about. The thing that kept coming up was “Fun.” We played with that for a bit longer, and CrossFit Playground was born. Making Fitness Fun Again is our tagline, and it’s what we’re about.
So back to us as coaches, it’s a funny thing. We both have things we’re good at, and most of what we are good at is based on the things that were important to the sports we played. But because of CrossFit, neither of us is as specialized as we once were.
Cindy has always had outstanding endurance, a fantastic grasp on diet and how it relates to performance, and abs of steel, but strength and power were never her favorite things. When she started CrossFitting, Cindy could barely do two pullups, and she was ecstatic the first time she deadlifted her bodyweight. After nearly a year of CrossFit only training, she now can do more than 30 consecutive pullups, is deadlifting nearly two times her bodyweight, and has gained mastery over movements that once seemed outrageous, if not impossible. More impressively, she’s done all of this while not gaining a pound. Her entire body composition has changed from being a skinny woman who was in good shape to being a downright ripped athlete. What used to be fat is now muscle. Aside from being a CrossFit Level I Trainer, Cindy also holds the CrossFit Basic Barbell Certification and the CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Certification.
On the other hand, Will has always been all about strength and power. His first CrossFit Total was 1,005 pounds. And being the opposite of Cindy, Will’s weakness has always been endurance. His first CrossFit 5k was more walking than running, and took well over 40 minutes to complete. Through CrossFit, Will has dropped his bodyweight from 325 pounds to 235 pounds, has dropped his 5k time from 40+ minutes down to a sub 24 minute time, and has literally changed his life. And as an upside, the strength and power hasn’t gone away either: his CrossFit Total now stands at 1,275 pounds, including a 560 pound deadlift. In addition to is CrossFit Level I Certification, Will holds the CrossFit Basic Barbell Certification and the CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Certification.
If you come to CrossFit Playground, odds are that you will train with one or the other of us, and if you’re particularly lucky, you may catch both of us. We’ve got different strengths and we’ve got different weaknesses. The thing we’re both passionate about is helping our customers meet and exceed their fitness goals.
