No quitting for lone state qualifier
Gym owner fights through injuries
MADISON - Jeb Simmons had a torn rotator cuff, torn labrum and detached biceps tendon. He just couldn’t work through it all anymore.
The first three or four of doctors he went to all asked him the same thing: “You’re over 40. When are you going to realize it’s time to give up CrossFit?”
“‘I can’t,’ ” was always Simmons’ answer.
“I knew I still had more in me. It’s hard for people to understand why we do what we do – unless they do it themselves.”
Then he found a surgeon – Paul Schuppner in Fort Atkinson, also a CrossFit enthusiast – who appreciated Simmons’ love for the sport as well as his desire to continue after the age of 40.
“He asked me, ‘What’s your goal?’ I said I want to get to the CrossFit Games,” said Simmons. “He said, ‘I can get you there.’ ”
So on May 12, 2016, at 41 years old, the father of four had surgery to repair his shoulder at
Memorial Hospital. Schuppner shaved the labrum down so it wouldn’t pinch any more. He stitched up the rotator cuff. He reattached the biceps tendon.
And now Simmons is Wisconsin’s only qualifier for the Reebok CrossFit Games, which run from Thursday to Saturday in Madison. At 42, he will compete in the 40-44 year old master’s division.
To get there, Simmons then spent four insufferable months after his surgery resting and rehabilitating under the watchful eye of his physical therapist. This was especially challenging because Simmons is the owner and trainer of CrossFit Fort Atkinson where he oversees 5-6 classes a day.
“It was very hard – I had to go to the gym and not do anything,” said Simmons. “My PT actually comes to my gym and said, ‘If I catch you doing anything…’
“I had to be patient. They said that because of my age, I was going to heal slowly. But I actually healed a lot faster than they’ve seen for my age. By six months I was doing pull-ups again.”
CrossFit is a fitness regimen that blends Olympicstyle heavy lifting, gymnastics, high intensity cardio,
plyometrics and — unlike most other exercise routines – it requires a lot of upper body and grip strength.
Many of the exercises are all about functional fitness. The work done in a CrossFit gym transitions well in to our every day lives as soldiers, emergency responders, parcel drivers, kindergarten teachers, youth sports coaches, weekend gardeners. It is the antidote to the sedentary and sitting lifestyle. In CrossFit you work on your weaknesses until you call them your strengths.
And the best at CrossFit are incredibly strong, wellrounded Olympic-caliber athletes.
“These guys are Batman,” said Dave Castro, director of the CrossFit Games. “They’re fast. They’re strong. They’re well-rounded and able to bring everything. What they do is create an awesome state of readiness to be prepared for any endeavor.
“CrossFit is for everyone. It’s just that one person is over here trying to improve their fitness, while the other person over there is trying to be one of the fittest in the world.”
CrossFit began in 2000 and Castro discovered it soon after when he was a Navy SEAL from 1998-2010 with multiple deployments.
Today, there are 14,000 CrossFit gyms globally; half are in the U.S. It’s huge in some places – Los Angeles has a couple hundred CrossFit gyms – and Wisconsin is on board with about 17 CrossFit gyms in the MilFort
waukee area and another seven in the Madison area.
Madison outbid hundreds of cities – including serious contenders Jacksonville, Fla., and Chattanooga, Tenn. – with a venue, the Alliant Energy Center, that Castro thought could extend what they started with the original CrossFit Games in Carson, Calif., for the first seven years.
“The venue and facility and the surrounding elements made Madison a nobrainer,” said Castro.
The CrossFit Games in Madison will showcase returning and former champions Mat Fraser, Ben Smith, Katrin Davidsdottir, Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet, Annie Thorisdottir and Sam Briggs. Simmons is proud to be among them.
Simmons has always been an athlete, and his 25 years working in construction kept him in shape.
He tried CrossFit in 2011 with his brother Trent and his first workout was “just” an intense series of pull-ups, pushups and air squats. But when he was done, Simmons was a humbled man.
“It was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life,” said Simmons, a three-sport high school athlete who remained active in power lifting, basketball and softball as an adult.
“To be honest I didn’t want to do it again. But there was something about it ... it drew me in. Why was this so challenging?”
He started entering local competitions – and beating the younger guys. Then Simmons attended his brother’s CrossFit competition
in San Francisco and got inspired. Five years ago, he opened his own CrossFit gym in Fort Atkinson in an old downtown warehouse with 28-foot ceilings.
In March he advanced through the CrossFit Games Open in Madison to become a finalist, and then in April he was chosen as one of the top 20 qualifiers in the world in his age bracket.
To make it to this level, at this age, Simmons concentrated on seven things:
Train smart: Years ago, Simmons was like every other CrossFit die-hard. He worked out a minimum of three to four hours a day, every day. Now it’s an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, broken up into conditioning or lifting segments.
“Just because my body can’t handle it all,” he said.
Rest: The great thing about being in your 40s is that a break is actually good for you – mentally and physically. Simmons teaches 5-6 classes a day, so he takes off Thursdays and Sundays. He doesn’t go to the gym at all and tries to leave the phone off, too.
“You’ve got to be able to re-set,” he said. “You can’t push yourself if you’re not in that right mindset.”
Sleep 8: Someone in their 20s can get away with crashing at midnight. It doesn’t work that way in your 40s. Since Simmons is up at 4 a.m. and to work by 5 to teach class, he’s usually falling asleep on the couch by 8 or 8:30 p.m.
“I try to get at least 7-8 hours sleep every night,” he said.
Stretch: Simmons tries to match his conditioning minutes with stretching minutes. So if he did high intensity cardio for 20 minutes, he’s stretching out for 20.
“That’s been huge. That’s been one of the biggest things that I focus on now that I’ve gotten older,” said Simmons. “No one wants to do it. It’s not fun, it’s not exciting. And a lot of people don’t know how to stretch.”
Dry needling: Like acupuncture, dry needling is a form of therapy some athletes use. Simmons believes it speeds up the recovery process, so he combines it with a deep massage every week.
“If you’re scared of needles it is definitely not something to try. But it is the fastest way to get your muscles back to normal,” said Simmons.
Veggies: Simmons isn’t a big vegetable guy. Thankfully his wife, a nutritionist, hides enough of them in his smoothies.
“I look at food as fuel for my body to do what I do day in and day out,” said Simmons. “And that’s the hardest one. I can always get in to the gym and I have no problem working hard. I’ve always struggled with eating healthy.”
Journal: Simmons has a leather journal and writes his goals in it. He goes back over this material daily. This is the mental work to back up all the physical work.
“I have spent a lot of time getting my mind right,” said Simmons. “I am really in to the, ‘See it, say it, read it, believe it’ kind of thing.”