"I was looking to join a gym because of my mobility and strength and especially because I have a two year old and I was finding I was a bit breathless at times, running round with her at the park and carrying her up the stairs to put her to sleep.
The reviews of CrossFit 249 are actually what made me join 249. I read about that community feeling and the fact that, you know, there's a lot of attention given to how you work out. They tailor to you rather than, you know, taking a generic approach so that was what made me come on board.
I think my first achievement was the deadlift of around 70/75kg and I was super happy because prior to that, I had never deadlifted in my life, and the fact that I could lift my body weight or my wife's body weight, I was like "woah man! I can carry people around now!"
The most recent one I'd like to consider my best was when I did 14 double unders and I was just like, over the moon. I think I actually jumped on Bernie during the workout! That was great.
The people keep me coming back. The coaches, Bernie and Courtney, and then I would say the workouts because every day when you come, and it's something different, it's at your level and your pace, so people push you to do better, but not to the extent where you don't want to come back again.
Fitness is very easy to give up on, but when you have people around you who are working towards different goals, they celebrate your achievements, but at the same time, when you don't do so well, they say "it's ok. We can try again but what's important is to keep moving forward."
I use this term 'marginal gains.' Just a little bit of improvement every day or every week; it's your pace. It's how fast you want to move or how slow you want to move but the most important thing is moving forward and for me, that community is what 249 gives me"