Wednesday 1.4.2023

“Atomic MOM”
20 Minute EMOM:
Minute 1 – 1 Clean & Jerk
Minute 2 – 15/12 Calorie Row

Box Brief:
Congrats to Justin for being the January Member of the Month at Apollo! Scroll down to learn more about Justin.

First of all, you are my poster child for taking the time to prioritize learning the skills before racing off for that big score in the beginning of your CrossFit journey. You slowed your workouts down and worked on technique. You were unwilling to turn up the intensity until you had a confident muscle memory for every movement. Now you just go around crushing everything.

I know you’re competitive. What thought process did you have that allowed you that kind of patience?
I always appreciated how proud you are of how I approached CrossFit by taking it slow for the first 6 months to a year. You were never pushy when I wasn’t going full throttle. Which is good for anyone thinking they would want to try CrossFit but are afraid of not being able to do the workouts as prescribed.

Well before I walked into Apollo, I had been thinking about doing CrossFit for a couple years actually. The reasons I didn’t start sooner were all the bad things you hear about CrossFit especially the horror stories of “people getting injured from the intense workouts” but now I wish I had started sooner. Getting injured scared me since I had already had a little history with tweaking my back from working out. So going into Apollo I wanted to start slow, work hard in the movements I was familiar with and be careful with movements I haven’t done before. What helped me a lot was how helpful and consistent the coaches were. I could always count on having Monica as my coach in the evening class I frequented. I don’t go to the evening classes as much anymore because of work but she was always happy and helped a lot with lifting cues and strategies for workouts. I often find myself repeating to myself cues she has told me during a workout. Another reason it was easy for me to take it slow was I’ve never been a particularly strong person so I knew the key to me getting good at CrossFit was learning how to move well and that meant maybe doing much less weight than everyone else in a workout. Maybe secretly I’m a really lazy person so I really like to do everything as “efficient” as possible aka as little wasted movements/effort as possible. There are still lots I have to learn but I have definitely grown to be more comfortable with lifting heavier weight faster. The key for me is to always listen to what my body was telling me and keep my ego outside in the parking lot, where it belongs!

I know you love CrossFit and I know you do at least one archery competition every year.
What’s that competition like and tell us the story about what made your dad start CrossFit at 60 years old.
One thing about me is I find weird enjoyment out of doing things I am not good at; I enjoy the learning process then hopefully maybe getting better someday. I picked up archery so I could learn to hunt, then I convinced my dad to learn with me, it wasn’t hard, he is always game for outdoorsy stuff. I found out there are competitions (most are pretty friendly) where you hike up and down ski resorts shooting at foam 3D targets of animals. There will usually be a course set up and a group of people will hike the course with your bow. Along the way you’ll find the 3D targets and shoot one or two arrows at them and record your score. It’s kind of like golf but with a bow. It’s a fun reason to get outside and I’ll take any excuse to shoot my bow. Well, I told my dad about this competition and that we should both enter it just for fun. This was before my parents started at Apollo. Well to say that I left out the fact that we would be doing a substantial amount of hiking would not go unnoticed by my dad. He was hurting pretty bad that year getting winded from the hike. It wasn’t long after that my parents started at Apollo. It was great to see them in the gym getting after it! The next year we did the same archery competition and I can’t tell you the number of times I heard my dad telling me how he “wasn’t even tired” when we were hiking up and down the mountain, it was truly a perfect example of how Apollo’s coaches and programming can help anyone.

You’re an mechanical engineer. If money were not an issue what would be your dream job?
If money wasn’t an issue, I think I would have so much fun traveling the world working with outdoor companies testing new outdoor equipment. Everything from deep sea fishing to enduro mountain biking to bow hunting I’m a huge fan of, I could break it and help them make it better!

You’re going to be taken to a group of uninhabited islands and left there forever. You can take 6 things. List them in order of priority.
I feel like there are so many ways to interpret this. Like things that I can’t just live without or things I would need to survive. But the survival side of me says I would need
A Ferro rod
My Leatherman I always carry
A hatchet
A rain coat
Maybe a pair of diving goggles
Then some wire

For your future children. If you could only be assured they would heed 1 piece of advice from you, what advice would that be?
I would hope that I could instill in them that no matter how bad they might be at something, if it’s a goal they really want, to never give up attempting to achieve it.

If you could be a real-life version of any movie character, who would you be?
Mmm shoot I’d have to say Indiana Jones. The dude is smart, thinks fast on his feet, is virtually unkillable, goes on wild adventures, and he always gets the girl.