My wife Carly and I started CrossFit High Voltage in January of 2009 with one main idea…

But, before I get to that story (and I promise I will), I’ve got to begin with how I ‘found’ CrossFit, the ‘before that’ part. It will all make sense in the end, so here goes:

I had retired from the US National Team in Taekwondo which I was fortunate enough to be on for 8 straight years. It was an incredible experience that enabled me to travel the world, compete in nearly 30 countries, and do the sport that I loved for a living alongside my best friends.

I originally learned the value of functional movements and high intensity training first hand when I lived at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs as a Resident Athlete. I immersed myself in this journey and was surrounded by the world’s top athletes day in and day out. This experience solidified the benefits of consistent training with world class coaches in my mind. I was exposed to training concepts and protocols that centered on performance and results. This was only driven home further when I was able to train at the Chinese, Korean, and French Olympic Training Centers with their top teams and coaches.

After the 2008 Olympic Selection was completed and my division wasn’t chosen to compete in Beijing, I decided that it was time to move on….and for the first time in my life I didn’t have to work out to get ready for a competition, but just for fun & health. I was shocked…I didn’t know what to do. I spent one day at a ‘globo gym’ and hated the entire experience. I called up my old roommate from the Olympic Training Center, Antony Graf (who now owns CrossFit Threshold of Miami), and asked him for advice. He mentioned a little website called CrossFit, which these seemingly simple workouts every day that you would try to complete.

Crossfit High Voltage from Epic Junction on Vimeo.

So I checked it out. I saw the Olympic Lifts, box jumps, squats, sprinting, pull-ups, rings…wait a minute…we did Olympic lifts, we jumped on boxes, we squatted, we did pull-ups, we used gymnastics rings, and yeah, we sure did sprint. I was so caught up in my sport specific world that I couldn’t imagine that everyone could benefit from doing these movements. And while my original focus was narrow, CrossFit’s is broad and inclusive. I knew even before I tried it out that they were really on to something.

There was some stuff that I was good at right away…and lots and lots of stuff that I wasn’t. I was challenged to leave my comfort zone almost daily, and after the monotony of my former hyper-periodized routine, it was a breath of fresh air (when I could catch my breath!). Even after thinking my ‘athletic career’ was complete, CrossFit’s training program has helped me set lifetime personal records (PR’s) in nearly every measurable way. I can lift more, run faster, jump higher, and perform better than I could when I was younger and at the top of my game.

But still, something was missing. I was used to training with my best friends. I was used to hanging around the gym, laughing & sweating, and watching the time fly by. I never had ‘separate friends’; you know, different groups of friends I did certain things with. The friends I trained with were the friends that I went hiking with, went to movies with, and shared our journey with. It was this really cool family experience that I missed.

And that is how CrossFit High Voltage finally got started. Carly and I had one main idea in mind when we began, and that is our Community would be a place where everyone is welcome, everyone can fit in, everyone will be able to reach their goals, and everyone will be held accountable. There is no metric to get on this ride…High Voltage is for everyone.

We feel we’ve held pretty true to this original idea even after growing to nearly 300 active CrossFitters currently training with us. This has been, and continues to be, the best thing I’ve ever been a part of. Carly and I are so fortunate to lead an incredible Community of people with different goals and life stories, that come together for some great common causes.

So if you’re finally ready to get fit, if you know you still have more that you know you can do, if performance matters, if results matter, then you’ve found the right place. We know we have.