11 years ago, I started CrossFit.
I was already a fitness professional.
I was a personal trainer, a group fitness instructor, and a trainer for the group fitness company Les Mills. And I was good at it.
But I had a problem.
I’d overdone it.
My own fault I must admit.
At one stage of my career, I was teaching 35 classes per week. If you know how group fitness works, that’s essentially five hours of activity per day, seven days per week. Squats. Star jumps. Running. Lunges. Grapevines. Burpees. More squats.
Repeat.
At the time I wore it as a badge of honour.
But by the age of 27, my body was starting to tell a different story.
I was constantly sore.
Constantly tired.
Always needing treatment.
And eventually I was told by a physiotherapist that I’d likely need a hip replacement before I turned 30.
I’m 38 now, and there are absolutely no signs of a hip replacement anywhere on the horizon.
Sure, I’m older; some call it masters now.
I have the occasional niggle like everyone else. But the catastrophic future I was warned about never came.
Why?
Because I changed the way I trained.
And, more importantly, I changed the way I thought about fitness.
At that stage of my life, I wasn’t thriving.
I was surviving.
I was working 50-plus hours per week as a personal trainer.
I was still teaching around a dozen classes every week.
I was exercising constantly.
And despite all of that, I wasn’t getting healthier.
I wasn’t getting fitter.
I wasn’t getting better.
I was burnt out (God, I hate that term!).
Today people use the word “burnout” all the time.
Back then I probably wouldn’t have called it that.
I’m not sure I want to call it that now.
But I was physically exhausted, mentally flat, carrying more body fat than I should have been, and constantly chasing results that never seemed to come.
The worst part is…I knew a lot about fitness.
Not by my standards today, but enough to get people results.
Enough to build programs.
Enough to help others improve.
But there was still something missing.
What I eventually discovered was that I had been treating exercise like sport.
Every workout needed to be hard.
Every session needed to hurt.
Every day needed to be a competition.
I was trying to perform above my limits.
I was hard-charging and chasing an all-out war with myself.
And eventually the bill arrived.
Then I found CrossFit.
Now before the keyboard warriors get excited, I’m not saying CrossFit invented fitness.
I’m saying it changed the conversation across the industry.
CrossFit brought something back that the fitness industry had largely forgotten.
It brought strength training back.
It brought weightlifting back.
It brought gymnastics back.
It brought conditioning back.
It reminded people that fitness wasn’t about specialising in one thing.
It was about becoming capable across many things.
And perhaps most importantly, it brought performance back into the conversation.
For years I had focused on body weight.
Body fat.
Calories.
Carbohydrates, or getting rid of them.
How much weight was on the bar.
How many reps I’d completed.
What CrossFit taught me was to focus on movement quality, range of motion, strength, capacity, skill acquisition, recovery and performance.
Fitness became something I could build rather than something I constantly chased.
The methodology itself is incredibly simple:
Fitness is increased work capacity across broad time and modal domains.
Be good at lots of things. Train lots of things. Specifically, not random, but do it all.
Be prepared for the unknown and the unknowable.
Move well.
Get stronger.
Build an engine.
Learn new skills.
Stay healthy enough to do it for a long time.
What really resonated with me, though, was CrossFit’s continuum of sickness, wellness and fitness.
Because so many people skip that conversation.
They want fitness.
But they’re not well.
They’re tired.
Stressed.
Inflamed.
Overweight.
Under-muscled.
Running on empty.
And then they wonder why another six-week challenge didn’t fix everything.
CrossFit done properly takes you from sickness to wellness first.
Then from wellness to fitness.
That’s exactly what it did for me.
And maybe that’s exactly what it can do for you.
Because if you’re reading this and you feel stuck…
If you’re training but not progressing…
If you’re constantly tired…
If you feel like you’re putting in effort without getting much back…
I understand.
I’ve been there.
11 years ago, I was sitting in that exact position, wondering what came next.
The answer wasn’t another miracle program.
It wasn’t another supplement.
It wasn’t another quick fix.
It was finding a methodology that worked, committing to it, and staying the course long enough to let it do its thing.
Have I been injured in the last 11 years?
Absolutely.
I’ve had three significant injuries.
I’ve had periods where I’ve had to step back.
I’ve been fitter than I am today.
I’ve also been less fit than I am today.
Life changes.
Business changes.
Marriage changes.
Kids arrive.
Priorities shift.
But through all of it, CrossFit has remained the constant.
Not because it’s perfect.
But because it works.
Most importantly, it helped me become well.
And that’s something people don’t talk about enough.
Everyone wants to be fit.
But if you’ve ever been in a place where you genuinely weren’t well and then found your way back, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.
Being fit is cool.
Being well is life-changing.
So why have I been doing CrossFit for 11 years?
Because it works.
Because at 38 I move better than the 27-year-old who was told he needed a hip replacement.
Because it has taught me patience.
Because it has taught me consistency.
Because it has taught me that fitness isn’t about anything more than preparation.
Fitness isn’t something you achieve.
It’s something you practise.
A long-term practice of becoming more than ordinary.
And because every single day I walk into VSC, I see people experiencing the same transformation I experienced 11 years ago.
From sickness to wellness.
From wellness to fitness.
And if you’re willing to trust the process, maybe your story starts there too.