CrossFit trainer pushes limits.
Crossfit trainer set for Canada West games
“I like challenging myself to do those things that I’m afraid of and that are out of my comfort zone.
Angie McNally
Angie McNally decided when she was 16 that she wanted to be strong. She can’t explain why exactly. She wasn’t really athletic. She made the rugby team in high school, but everybody made the rugby team, she jokes, because it requires so many players.
“I just think it was my calling.”
She started lifting weights and reading bodybuilding magazines and books.
Fifteen years later she’s still pumping iron and she is strong. She can overhead squat 155 pounds, push press 160 pounds, back squat 235 pounds, and deadlift 335 pounds.
McNally’s strength is perfect for her sport, CrossFit, which combines weightlifting, sprinting and gymnastics. Her power will be on display during the Canada West Regional CrossFit Games, June 7-9 at the Richmond Olympic Oval in Richmond, B.C. There she will have to complete seven different workouts over the three days.
One workout, for example, will require her to do 100 wall balls (toss a 14-pound medicine ball, starting from a squat, at a target 10 feet up a wall), 100 chest-to-bar pull-ups, 100 one-legged squats, and 100 one-arm dumbbell snatches using a 50-pound weight, within 25 minutes.
Her most satisfying moment happened during last year’s regionals when she was able to do 40 one-arm dumbbell snatches with a 70-pound weight.
She had only had a 50-pound weight to train with, and she couldn’t do 40 reps with the 70-pound dumbbell when she tried in the days leading up to the final competition, McNally explains. But she nailed every lift when it really counted and won her heat; her technique was even featured in the CrossFit Journal.
Feeling strong is very empowering, says McNally, who has always been attracted to physical sports that the average person can’t do, doesn’t want to do, or is too intimidated to try.
“I like challenging myself to do those things that I’m afraid of and that are out of my comfort zone to see what I’m capable of. I want to master them and I want to get good at them. I want to be uncomfortable, I guess.”
That approach to life has pushed her to do kick-boxing, extreme hiking, and long-distance running, along with half marathons, marathons and triathlons.
“Running long distances through the mountains, or when you’re in the bush all by yourself, and it’s pitch black, those types of things are scary, but fun.”
Her love of the outdoors keeps her active year-round, including snowboarding and snowshoeing in winter. She is a wonder to her friends.
“I’ve pretty much done everything that I’ve wanted to do,” says McNally, who is thinking of trying mixed martial arts.
She also wants to climb into a boxing ring again.
Her first kick-boxing fight in Spruce Grove when she was 18 was a terrible experience, she says. Although she and another woman trained long and hard with padded targets and shadow boxed, the gym they trained in, and the coach they worked with, wouldn’t allow actual contact.
“When we got into the ring for our first fight, neither of us had ever been punched in the head or received a full-blown kick, so it was a huge shock. We both lost our fights and we were both devastated.
“We were tough girls, but that doesn’t mean you can get into a ring and take a blow and then still continue to hit hard, if you’ve never done that before.”
Both women stopped working with their coach. McNally learned to box at a couple of city boxing gyms and has sparred with former Canadian superfeatherweight boxing champ, Jelena Mrdjenovich.
“I definitely think I would like to get back in the ring and have some kind of redemption,” she says.
The way McNally pushes her own limits inspires the men and women she trains at CrossFit Machine Shop in Sherwood Park, which she runs with boyfriend, Dean Eckel.
She wants them to face their fears and feel the power that comes with that, she says. She wants them to be strong too.