Will’s story:

I started lifting weights when I was eight years old.  I did so because my Dad told me that I had to be stronger than him before he would sign my permission slip for me to play high school football.  I bought Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding the next day, and did my first “chesticles” workout that evening.

I vividly remember the first time I bench pressed more than my Dad.  It was September of 1982, and I was 11 years old.  I benched 180.  Being a December baby, I was the youngest in my class at school.  Through some crazy genetic accident, I was also among the biggest.  And with the weightlifting, I was also the strongest.

It kept up through high school.  I played football, did track, always one of the biggest and strongest kids around, and I never thought much of it… it was just my thing.  I lifted weights, I was strong.  I played offensive and defensive line, and I went from 185 as a freshman to 240 pounds as a senior.  On a 6′ 1” frame, I was a big horse.  I wasn’t skinny, but I wasn’t fat.

It turns out that I didn’t suck at football, and ended up playing football for the University of Pennsylvania.  A couple of years went by, I blew out my shoulder, and that was that.  I picked a new sport: Tae Kwon Do, and I threw myself into it, earning a black belt in three years, and dropped the bodyweight from 250 down to 190 in the process.

Then my fitness nightmare began.

My first couple of years after college, I managed to stay reasonably fit by falling back in with my hometown football buddies and still hitting the gym as if we were training for something.  But desk jobs, big dreams and relationships take their tolls, and within 3 years, I was back up over 250, and I had nowhere near the muscle mass I did when I was 250 and playing football.

The slide continued for the next decade.  I watched 250, 260, 270, 280 roll by on the scale.  Then I stopped stepping on the scale, because it was easier to tell people I was “about 265″ than it was to be honest about it (a fact Cindy still brings up constantly).  By the time this millennium rolled around, I was pushing 300 pounds around, and probably more.

I made a lot of attempts over the years to get my ass in gear and lose some weight.  But being a computer nerd and sitting on my butt all day didn’t help.  Nor did the stress from work, or the fact that it was more fun to slam a couple of beers than it was to hit the gym.  And it didn’t help that going to a globogym, hitting the weights and then jumping on some cardio equipment for half an hour was boring as all hell.   Diet-wise, eating a low-fat, high-carb diet was seen as a panacea… one that never worked for me.  Not even meeting Cindy (1999), getting engaged to Cindy (2000), getting married to Cindy (2002), having our son Odin (2004) or our daughter Tallulah (2006) gave the impetus to do something about my fitness.

And then came December 11, 2007.  That picture on the left is what I looked like on December 3, 2007, for reference.  I was fat, and worse, I was in denial about it.

My brother Russ, who had been CrossFitting for about five weeks, called me up and said:

“Come do this workout with me.  It’s right in your wheelhouse!”

I had the gym membership, even though I never used it.  Although I wasn’t overwhelmingly excited about it, I figured what the hell, and I went and did my first WOD:

Push Jerk 3-3-3-3-3-3-3 reps

My brother was right, it was in my wheelhouse, and I was still pretty strong, probably from carrying around 320 pounds more than from actually doing anything.

Russ called me again the next day.  The WOD was Angie (100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats for time, if you’re unfamiliar).  I said sure, what the hell.  Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

40 minutes and 50 seconds after starting (and retrospectively, with some pretty awful form on pretty much everything), I was done with Angie.  In a moment I’ll never forget, I was laying on the floor, gasping, completely slathered in sweat and exhausted, and I was laughing.  I was hooked.  In what was one of the best decisions of my life, I became a CrossFitter.

It was a hard road.  It took a long time to get up to 320, and my body was used to being sedentary.  I suffered through a particularly memorable 400 meter walking lunges WOD when I was less than 3 weeks in, and I had to go up the stairs on my butt and using my triceps because my legs were too destroyed to walk up.  I did my first CrossFit Total.  I suffered through a 5k that was more walking than running.  I had some WODs that were in my wheelhouse, and I had some that were so far from what I thought I was capable of that it made me laugh.  But I showed up every day a WOD was posted, and I ground it out, even if it sucked.

After about 3 months, I was down a solid 20 pounds, and starting to feel like an athlete again.  I was still heavy, but I had the fire in my belly, and I was going for it.  My times were improving.  I was doing a couple of real pullups.  My running times were going down.  My work capacity was increasing.  My pants size was going down. It was awesome.

Russ and I got our CrossFit Level 1 Certifications in June.  At that point, it wasn’t about opening a box; it was about learning.  I was down about 50 pounds, and I was hungry for more.  I learned a lot at the cert, from the basis for the movements to The Zone Diet, it was two intensive days of information, with a couple of WODs thrown in for good measure.

Fast forward to December of 2008.  The picture on the right is me and my son on my 37th birthday.  I’m about 238 pounds in that picture, down 80 pounds from the previous picture.   My waist went from a size 44 being snug on me down to a 35 fitting comfortably.  I look at these two pictures, side by side, and it blows my mind.  I am amazed by my transformation.

Every single aspect of my life has been changed by the simple decision I made to become a CrossFitter.  Cindy and I are closer than we’ve ever been.  We’ve got more common ground; we’re both passionate about fitness.  I’ve got more energy to do things with the kids.   The kids themselves want to work out, because they want to be like me and Cindy.  I’ve got more focus at work, and I’m more productive.  Most importantly, I’ve got my health back, and I’ve got no intention of losing it again.

CrossFit and life both demand that you constantly evaluate yourself.  I’m far from done with CrossFit, and I’m far from done with life.   But life is short, obesity is on the rise, and we as a society are more sedentary than ever.  CrossFit changed that for me.  I’m being honest when I say that outside of marrying Cindy and the days that the kids were born, the day I became a CrossFitter has had the biggest impact on my life.

If you’ve read this far, you’re thinking about it.  Maybe you’re a guy like me: you had your glory days in high school, and maybe in college, and then it slid.  Maybe you’re a Mom who’s trying to get her pre-pregnancy body back.  Maybe you’re a high school or college kid looking for an edge.  It doesn’t matter why you’re here; what is important is that you are here.  And if you’ve read this far, I’m going to tell you a truth.  I’ll tell you something that Cindy and I wrote, from the heart, in our CrossFit Affiliate essay.  I’ll tell you something that could make the biggest difference to you personally, to your family, to your health, and to the people you love.  It’s this simple:

Try CrossFit.  It will change your life.

It doesn’t matter if you train with us (although we’d love it if you did), if you train by yourself, or if you train with another CrossFit Affiliate.  Give it a month, and hit it hard.  Give it everything you have.  You will get out of it what you put into it, and you are capable of greater things than you can imagine.