For John, “working out” has taken many different forms over the years. He first began hitting the gym while in his teens at a boarding school in CT. He spent 100% of his time in the gym performing dumbbell bench press, bicep curls, tricep extensions, and crunches, though there are numerous shirtless photos of a pastey toothpick that serve to remind him that his time would have been better spent elsewhere. In college, John was told to focus his academic pursuits and choose a major, so, he took this advice to heart and specialized his weightlifting movements as well, dropping the beach body exercises and spending four years honing the art of the dumb bell bench press. Over time, he worked his way through the weight rack and was able to throw up the heaviest dumbbells in the gym (120#). Feeling unfulfilled, John did what any liberal arts college intellectual would do, questioned if there was more to life than having a decent dumbbell bench press. In his mind, the answer was unequivocally “No” but it took working 80-100 hour weeks as an investment banker in NYC to change his mind. After sitting all day long, day after day, his lower body simply couldn’t stomach the neglect any longer. He decided radical change was needed and he began doing…. machine leg presses (gasp!). Soon enough, leg presses turned into hamstring curls and quad raises, which turned into weighted lunges, which turned into back squats. Not only was John experiencing the benefit of full body workouts for the first time, he was having much more fun in the gym. When he and his wife moved from NYC to Conshohocken last April, John knew that he was ready to take his fitness to the next level. They dropped in for a week at Thermal and the rest is history. Though highly immobile at first (one could argue this is still the case…), John has improved both his range of motion and his general strength over the past twelve months and loves nothing more than setting a new PR!

John is very thankful that he has found such a warm and welcoming community at Crossfit Thermal and looks forward to continuing his fitness evolution over the coming months.