Central Florida athlete aiming to show fitness

Shortly after putting down a barbell, the one with three heavy rubber plates on both sides, Cassidy Lance’s strength was obvious.

Her sacrifice is below the surface.

“You don’t get to go out to dinner with friends because you can’t eat that type of food,’’ said Lance, an elite CrossFit athlete. “You have to stick to your diet. You can’t drink alcohol if you’re working out the next day. I’m in the gym until 3 o’clock on a Saturday. My friends won’t call me up and say, ‘Hey, let’s go to the beach,’ or ‘Hey, let’s go do this.’

“Or even family. ‘We’ll see you after the gym.’ You have to wait until August.”

After the first week of August, that is. Lance, 29, is far too focused on her fourth trip to the 11th annual CrossFit Games, beginning today in Madison, Wis. The Central Florida resident is among 40 individual women with a chance to win the $285,000 first-place prize.

Lance discovered CrossFit, an intense combination of functional and full-body exercises, in 2009 — not long after her gymnastics career at the University of Washington ended because of chronic knee problems.

“[CrossFit] really saved her,’’ her mother, Kelly Lance, said by phone from Salt Lake City.

Sometimes people make sacrifices. In other instances, they are forced upon them. Such was the case with Cassidy, the youngest of three children. She began gymnastics when she was 4 and ultimately overcame several knee surgeries to emerge as a threat on the vault at Washington.

As a freshman, Lance scored a 9.9 out of 10 in the event at the 2007 Pac-10 Championships. She tore the ACL in her right knee again during a meet at Oregon State the next year, short-circuiting her life as a gymnast.

“It’s hard [to] dedicate your life to a sport like we did [and] have it taken away from you when you’ve kind of reached your goal and not get to fulfill it,’’ said Raimey Iselin, one of Lance’s teammates at Washington. “It’s crushing to have something like that taken away from you.’’

Lance helped out around the Huskies’ program after her career-ending injury, but she was looking for more. She tried a football league, and after graduating she moved to Texas and coached gymnastics.

All the while, she was improving at CrossFit. Lance has lived in Central Florida for four years and opened a CrossFit gym in Orlando in January.

“You can always get better,’’ Lance said. “There’s always something to work for. It’s human nature to try to get better and work hard, and I want to compete and have something to work toward.’’

Lance wears a knee brace when she skis, both on water and snow, but doesn’t while competing in CrossFit. She qualified for the games from 2013-2015, with her top showing an eighth-place finish in her age group in 2014.

“In so many aspects, this sport is about repetition and challenging yourself and going outside your comfort zone,’’ said Lance’s wife, Alyson McWherter, a former national champion as a softball player at Washington. “She has found a way to be more comfortable with the uncomfortable.’’

The 5-foot-3 Lance is as prepared as possible, considering the unknown is a big part of the CrossFit Games, which will conclude Sunday. Competitors don’t know which events are included until shortly before they are staged.

“I’ve had the top-10 expectations, and I’ve come up short of that,’’ Lance said. “If I put those expectations aside and just go out and have fun and do what I can do, then I will be happy in the end.’’

And content with the sacrifices she has made.