A sense of community and more at CrossFit LBC
BucksLocalSports Editor
Sometimes, making the best of a bad situation can turn into a life-changing event.
That’s the case with Bristol CrossFit trainers Stephanie Pinelli and John Haney.
Two years ago, the Borough residents were a little out of their element living in Bethlehem. But that’s exactly where the soon-to-be married couple latched onto CrossFit training which is now a significant part of their lives – to the point where they’ve established their very own gym right here in Bristol.
It all started with a simple post John saw on his Face- Book feed put there by one of his friends saying how much he enjoyed CrossFit. So he decided to give it a try.
“I ventured in and never looked back,” said Haney. “I haven’t missed a day since.”
Fiancé Stephanie gave it a whirl, too. Living so far away from the place she calls home, she liked the community aspect of the training as well as the variety it offers.
“I got very bored with the day-in-and-day-out of a regular gym,” said Pinelli. “You run on the treadmill, you do some free weights.
“I liked the variety of the CrossFit gym — the community and it’s always something different.
“You’re not coming in everyday and doing the same thing.”
Both now certified in CrossFit training, the couple operates CrossFit LBC on ooute 13 near Bath ooad. Opened in February, CrossFit LBC now has nearly 70 members.
One of the first members to join, Bristol High trainer Nicole Shipos likes the gym – located within the sightlines of the Amtrak and SEPTA rail lines that run through the Borough – so much she comes six to seven times a week.
“It’s hard NOT to do it because you love it so much that when you don’t come, you feel like you are not do- ing anything,” said Shipos.
An avid soccer player – she belongs to two teams – she suffered a knee injury two years ago that sidelined her from the fütball field. Before she discovered CrossFit training, Shipos had been spending three hours a day working out at Planet Fitness trying to get back into playing shape with very little results.
“Here, I’m sweating and out of breath within two minutes of exercising,” said Shipos. “jy other gym, I would do 35, 45 minutes cardio and I would get off the machine and feel like I just did nothing.”
With CrossFit, athletes can get a good workout in 12 minutes, or less.
“You get an extreme workout that you get in the 35 or 45 minutes I was putting in at my old gym,” said Shipos.
“And it works, too. I love it. I’m addicted. I can’t stop.”
At CrossFit LBC, it all starts with warmups in the parking lot between the gym and the train tracks. Then the class – usually 10 members – comes inside and does the workout planned by Pinelli and Haney.
There are three areas CrossFit trainers are looking to touch – metabolic conditioning, gymnastics and weightlifting. Some days, the workout focuses on just one of those areas. On others, the workouts look to combine all three.
Either way, trainers give the members 12 minutes to complete the task at hand as many times as they can.
“Once that timer goes off, it’s game-time,” said Brian Blackshire, a member from Levittown.
Blackshire says the exer-
cises designed by the trainers are intense.
“You have to work out until you pretty much fail,” he said. “If you’re not laying on the ground when you’re done, then you didn’t work hard enough.”
The metabolic training involves running, rowing and body squats to name just a few of the exercises done by CrossFitters. Weightlifting can be anything from playing wall ball with a medicine ball to completing Olympic dead lifts. Pullups, pushups, ring workouts and rope climbing are some of things done to satisfy the gymnastics requirement.
The trainers spend part of the session explaining the workout of the day – or WOD – then all 10 members do as many reps as they can, the results recorded on a giant-size whiteboard pinned to the wall. Because everyone is working out together, members get more of a sense of community working out at CrossFit LBC.
“Everyone is working together pushing themselves through a grueling workout,” said Pinelli. “It’s more of a team atmosphere.”
“We push each other to do our best and work our hardest,” said Shipos. “If we’re at a point where we feel we can’t do it, everybody is there to cheer you on.”
On this day, the members are asked to spend 12 minutes doing one-legged squats, over the [weightlifting] bar Burpees (like down-ups) and Windshield Wipers: holding the barbell in the benchpress position with legs pointed up, the athlete is asked to swipe his or her legs from side to side, like a windshield wiper.
Founded by dreg dlass- man in 2000, the first CrossFit gym opened in Seattle, Washington. While growth of the exercise phenomenon was slow in the first five years, today, there are over 4,300 CrossFit gyms nationwide.
Begun in 2005, the annual CrossFit dames has grown dramatically every year. The $500 prize awarded to each first-place male and female at the inaugural dames has increased to $250,000 today.
“It’s definitely caught on,” said Shipos. “The dames have quadrupled from where they started five years ago.”
“There are CrossFit gyms all over and wherever I go there are at least one or two people I find who CrossFit so it’s definitely something that has caught on.”
For Blackshire, a 28-yearold heavy equipment operator, CrossFit training has been a lifesaver. When he first came to CrossFit LBC, he said he was depressed and wanted to avoid taking medication for the condition so he turned to CrossFit training.
It was the best decision he ever made, he says.
“CrossFit changed my life,” he says. “I’m way more sociable now than when I first got here.”
Haney says the folks at CrossFit LBC picked Blackshire up and held him in its collective hand. Brian admits he wasn’t in good mental shape when he arrived.
“I was beating myself up mentally because I didn’t think I was good enough,” he said.
The physical training has more than boosted the size of his biceps though he’s seen improvement to that end as well He recently competed in a weightlifting competition in South Philadelphia where he set a new personal record of 415 pounds in the dead lift.
“Seeing what I was able to accomplish, I stopped thinking how badly I felt about myself,” he said.
“You start thinking, if I can do this, why do I feel so bad about other things when I shouldn’t.
“I’ve really around.” As has Nicole Shipos. She’s back on the soccer field playing for a co-ed team in Newtown and Phoenix rnited, a women’s team
turned
it based in Feasterville.
“It’s 12 minutes and it puts you on your backside for a moment,” explained Shipos. “But after you’re done, you feel so good.”