Emily did not grow up considering herself an athletic person. As someone who is secretly very competitive and does not like to let others down, Emily quickly felt discouraged from team sports in grade school. Emily did discover both yoga and horseback riding when she was 14 years old and continued to practice in both of those sports throughout the remainder of her life. Horseback riding became Emily’s first love and outlet to a healthy lifestyle. Spending any waking moment on the farm and doing hours of manual labor to ride any horse provided to her. During her senior year of college, Emily had a horseback riding accident that herniated a disc in her back. Emily was told by doctors that running would likely be out of the question due to pain and danger of re-injury among other activities. After rehabbing, Emily continued to ride off and on but often found herself experiencing a great deal of pain. Emily increased her yoga practice and obtained her teaching certification but continued to have back and leg pain sporadically. Fast forward to 2015 when Emily met her now husband Nick, who is also a Thermal member. Nick introduced Emily to CrossFit, a sport that Emily was convinced would be the worst thing for a lower back injury. Emily watched her first open in the Fall of 2015 and thought endlessly about how intimidating it looked. With Nick’s encouragement Emily started at Thermal in the Spring of 2016 and one class at a time all of the misconceptions Emily had toward CrossFit changed. Emily’s back has never felt better and Emily has finally discovered that athletes come in all forms. Emily completed her first Open last fall and recently hit a overhead squat PR of 75 pounds (a year ago 45 pounds was exciting). With the help of the Thermal community and as always her husband, Emily has discovered strength she never knew she had.

“Emily”

AMRAP in 20 Minutes

3 Barbell Complex (135/95)
(Squat Clean + 2 Front Squat + 3 Push Jerk)

16 Air Squats
7 Handstand Push-ups