For the first 21 years of my life, my sports and fitness background looked a little something like this:

• Ages 5-13: In-town soccer league
• Ages 14-21: Competitive Doritos and Fried Chicken Eating

My weight gain was pretty gradual in high school, but really got out of control in college. By the time I graduated, I tipped the scales at well over 200 pounds at the towering height of 5 feet 5 inches. My absolute highest weight was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 220, but I stopped getting on the scale around the 210 mark for fear of what I’d find. Shortly after starting my first full-time job, I finally had my “ah-ha!” moment and realized it was time to get my health in order. I changed the way I ate and starting jogging daily (which later turned into running). In one year, I got down to a fighting weight of 143 pounds!

Here I was, 140ish pounds of skin and bones. And by “skin”, I really mean skin. I was pretty stretched out all over the place, with extra skin mostly in my midsection and arms. I realized that if I ever wanted to look like the healthy person I had become, I needed to do some weight training. The only problem is that I really loved running. I was easily covering 5 miles a day by this point and didn’t want to lose that endurance. That’s when I found CrossFit. It was exactly what I was looking for at the time: a perfect blend of cardio and strength training. Perfect!

I started CrossFitting just over 4 years ago. During that time, I’ve gained some pretty good knowledge about lifting and found out that I’m a fairly decent mover. I got CrossFit Barbell (back when Rip was still buddy-buddy with Greg Glassman) and Level 1 certified. I’ve had a few injuries that have put me out of action for anywhere from 3-6 months at a time and I’ve learned as much from my injury time as when I’m healthy. It was right around this time last year that I realized that CrossFit was exactly what I needed when I first started and very likely will be what I’m looking for next year, but if I ever want to move big weight and add some serious size to my body, I need to get stronger. Enter Starting Strength…