Cristen Walker – Coach and Comeback Queen! – FFYL009

Hi everybody. It’s Angie with flip flop your life. And this is my 9th episode and today I have Kristen Walker with me and she is a friend, a coach, and a mentor. And yes, she’s a coach at CrossFit. And I say it like that because I’ve done nine interviews and probably what more than half of, and have been with people that I’ve met through CrossFit in the community. Right. And people don’t really, people don’t really understand that there are so many different people that are in our community. Absolutely. And everybody is pretty likeminded and I think it takes it takes a person to flip, flip flop to go into a CrossFit gym and yeah, we’ll get into all that too. But and I think I’ve known you for, I’ve known of you for four years. Has it been four years, Blake? I think, was it four years ago that you had a competition?

Oh, when I was Blake’s judge, yes. I remember that.  Yup. I was just into, we had just started CrossFit at CrossFit Newark and Blake had been going for a while and he came to a competition with you at Granville Always Forward CrossFit. And you were his judge. Yeah. And I remember, and I remember saying to Pat after that, Oh my gosh, that was so awesome. And you were so good with them. Not that they needed coached, but because they were athletes already. Right. from sports and stuff through high school. But you were I don’t know, just helpful. Very helpful. They were young and they needed like, in my opinion, like we need to make sure we watch them a little closer, right. Guide them a little bit more and make sure they’re making smart choices even when they get in that room and being competitive.

So, yeah. But it was fun. It was really fun having, you know, being a part of that. And then what now it’s been a year, I think almost a year and a half that I’ve been at torsion. Cause you came over like in, in the summertime. Yeah, I feel like it was August. So, yeah. So then I’ve gotten to know you more as a coach and one of the owners there. So it’s been wonderful. But the reason, and I guess that kind of segues into why I asked you, because to be on here is there, there are things that I know, you know, some things that I know that you’ve been through that you’ve overcome. And then I think a lot of people, whether they’re in CrossFit or not, I mean a lot, a lot of people listening to this, maybe friends and family, I’ll like, Oh my God, not another CrossFit person.

But there are a lot of things that you’ve been through injury-wise that I think and, and just life in general and health and family that a lot of people can relate to that, that aren’t in CrossFit but maybe or are just off an injury and wanting to you know, wanting to get better and get healthy. So I think you can relate to a lot of people and that, that we’ll get into. So if people are listening, stay tuned because it’s a lot of great stuff. So first off, tell us a little bit about you. So I’m a pharmacist by day. I have been married for 16 years. Congratulations. Thank you. We got married when we were babies. So I have a 13-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son.

I’ve lived in the Columbus area my whole life. I actually grew up in Pickerington and then I went to Virginia Tech for my undergrad degree, which is where I met. My husband, kind of brought him back. And then I got my doctor of pharmacy degree from Ohio State. So kind of went away to Virginia then came back home. And then Scott kind of followed me and got married when I was in pharmacy school. And I work at giant Eagle, right. So just in the local community pharmacy. And found CrossFit after my kids were born. And it was just it was a natural fit for me. I think it was that it was something I’d been missing. And a lot of it was the community. I think when you go through that phase of having kids, you get pretty isolated when they’re little going out as hard, right.

Especially going from being in college and that lifestyle. Right. And then you switched to that. Right. And I kind of like sailed straight into all of those things. It was like I was an athlete in high school and then I, you know, it’s expected you go to college and I went to college and I, I kinda, I got my undergrad degree in three years because I didn’t want to be in school forever. So I, I pushed through that. And then the from D program is another four, so seven straight years of college. And then before I even graduated, I was walked across the stage the pharmacy stage to get my, my white coat. I was eight weeks pregnant with Anna and had been married for three years at that point, cause I got married after my undergrad. So I kinda just did all the things like in the right order, right?

Like, you’re supposed to go to college and degree and everybody says, and then, and I was married and we’d been married for three years, which is that magical number when you should have, you know, like all the things and I was pregnant and then I got the good job. And and then I had Anna and in three, two and a half years later, I had Alex and I just kinda did all, all those things. But I think we woke up one day and we were like, Oh my gosh, like what has happened last? How many years of our life? Right. And we stumbled into a CrossFit gym and it was, it was awesome because it was a community and it was an outlet. And it it kind of allowed me to reach back to those days when I was an athlete, when I was younger.

Cause I was kind of just a natural, I just kind of had a natural talent for, I played soccer and I played basketball. But I had three knee surgeries each, 14, 15, and 16. And so I think I probably would have played soccer in college. And so I was pretty competitive, but it was taken away from me at a young age. And I had to kinda figure out what to do with that at age 16 which is challenging. But after having my kids and doing all the things, I always stayed active. But walking into a CrossFit gym kind of felt like coming home cause I was like, Oh that piece of me I lost like I can now I can do this again, I can be competitive and I can, I can have a sport again. And so it kind of felt like after losing myself through all of those little kid years, I was like, Oh there I am.

Which I’m surprised we don’t have more young people like that. And it kind of angers me that so many of them get this idea that it is for crazy people, you know, because I think a lot of them would love it coming from sports that they were very competitive in and most football players and, and we see that when you see that here, and I’m sure you see it at Granville there, they come back and they’re just dreaming and that’s all they do is dream about the old day when, you know, they could come in and they could, all right. How about a piece of it again, right? Yeah. And still have fun, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So, and I, and so we started at CrossFit future. We weren’t living out here back when we first found CrossFit. We were living in Blacklick so we, we had a Groupon and we went in on a Groupon.

We did, chase went in on a buy one get one. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think something like that. Yeah. I think it was Scott’s birthday, like, and I found a Groupon and I bought a Groupon and I was like, let’s go to this. And we went and the very first class was like an endurance class and it was all these rounds of Cindy and running and running in between it. Yeah. I was like, I’ve found my people. I loved it. I thought it was great. But I think the mistake I made was rather than allowing it to, for me to find myself again, I walked in and people were like, huh, who are you? Like you’re pretty fit. Like you’re really good. And I allowed other people to tell me what about it should be important to me. And so on.

I think that’s kind of where I lost my way. But I had no idea with you then went into, right. Well, I mean competition mode, I think within a week or two of being there, they were already like, you know, there’s this thing called the CrossFit games and we send a team to regionals and we need another girl. And I mean, so by the time like the open rolled around, we started in July when the opens what in February or March. Oh, it was, yeah, I think March. Right. I remember them writing down a list and it, and it was like, things you need to know how to do that. I was like, I don’t even know what a, what is a chest to bar, like I didn’t know what the things were, but they were like, we don’t really care how you achieve them.

Just get done. Like get it done. We just want, you need to be able to clean 130 pounds. Like nobody was really coaching me appropriately at that time because it just wasn’t, it was like we just need to get this done. Like we need you to be on the team. And I kind of let everybody, I got swept up in that, that like competitive spirit that I have and I think I kind of let people tell me what I should care about too much. Yeah. For a really long time. How long were you doing that? I mean, I enjoy team. I went, we did qualify for regionals that year and we went and then we trained really hard the next year as a team. So we had the whole next year and we’re like, we’re going back. And then the open came around again and we, we trained and we, we did qualify a team but I also qualified individually that year cause I was 15th and central East. you were?

And it was kind of like an accident. So I could’ve gone individually, but if I did then my scores would get pulled and their team wouldn’t go and we’d been training as a team the whole year. That’s a hard decision. So I went on team because I think deep down in my heart of hearts, that’s probably one of the best decisions I ever made as I knew that I didn’t really care. Like, not that I didn’t care about qualifying, that was cool. Like it’s really cool to do well at something. But in my heart of hearts, the competition stuff at the end of the day, even the team things, I didn’t love it. Like, still, like it just would make me sick to my stomach and it wasn’t really at the end of the day. And I think what I was starting to figure out by that second year, it was, I don’t know, this is what I love, this is what everyone expects me to do because I can, but do I really want to do that?

Like do I really care enough to do that? And and right about that time we sold our house in Blacklick and we moved out to Granville. And so we, we were, I think like two points away from qualifying a team the third year. And that’s an, and I was, we were already living in Granville and I was going driving back to do the open workouts at future. And I remember talking to Ben Moran, I don’t know if you know Ben, but I heard you talk about, he was just another member at always forward in Granville where we were going. And I remember telling him, gosh, I hope we don’t qualify. Isn’t that terrible? I don’t want to qualify cause I don’t want to go. And I don’t want to feel obligated to go and I don’t, I just, I wanted to, I said, well used to kids were yet, the kids were little.

Speaker 2 (00:11:43):

We were, we were transitioning to this new home and this new place. And I was like, I just want it to be fun again. Cause it had lost that it was all about what was fun in the beginning became not fun because it felt like an obligation and I needed to get better and better and better and I didn’t, it just didn’t feel fun anymore. Yeah. So I was really grateful when we didn’t qualify, which sounds nuts. No, I can’t, I can’t imagine that kind of, I can’t imagine that kind of pressure. Yeah. Cause I just don’t are just on our little Opens we do.

So and then I got out here and then I had to have a knee surgery and other one. So that was my fourth one. That was before your, that was before the injury at Torsion. It was, yeah. So I had a knee surgery. And I re rehabbed from that. And when I, and that was really not, I didn’t really have an injury, it’s just that I hadn’t, I ore ACL and cartilage when I was 14 years old. And so there was just some frayed junk in my knee that needed cleaned out. It was just one of those things. It was inevitable. Yeah. so they went in and cleaned my knee out and I kind of struggle coming back from that. It was really hard recovery. Like you wouldn’t think for this arthroscopic little procedure, it would be a big deal. But it wasn’t like, it just took me a long time to get back from that.

But what I focused on, and that was when I started peeling away the layers and realizing how poor my movement was. And so because of the way that I learned initially, so I kind of started peeling back the layers. I’m like, well, if I’m gonna rebuild, let’s move better. Let’s, let’s focus on squatting properly. Let’s get the mechanics right. Because I knew that a lot of the things I could do just because I was strong, but not because I was moving well. Right. So that’s when I started to like, I almost like started over like let’s just start over. And when you were at Granville, right. Let’s just better, yes. Like right around that time. Yeah. Because I think you were just coming off of the knees Yeah. I think I probably was. Yeah. So I was trying to just like rebuild, rebuild, and move better.

I was trying to make CrossFit fun again. I wanted to let go of all that. I didn’t even sign up for the open that next year after, because I needed to like, disconnect from it. Right. I just needed it to be, I wanted to figure out what was fun for me again. And then I so then in the midst of that, then, then you decide to, to own one, right? Yeah. So then we kind of, and this kind of like flips back to my job, right. As a pharmacist. And so I think I see a lot of really sick people. Right. And I see them I feel a little helpless, I think in my position because by the time you come to my counter, you’re pretty sick probably. Right? You’re probably not even allowed to say, say anything…can you? I can write like they come to me for advice and I can write.

But how much, how much interaction time do you have when there’s three people lined up behind them and not much. So like little, little, it’s little tiny pieces. Little tiny pieces kind of reminds me of coaching, right? Like if I have a class of 12 people, can I make a huge impact with every single one of them every day? No. But I can have a small interaction with that person every single day. And then my hope is at the end of the year we’ve made some progress or there we’ve built some trust. And so the pharmacy’s kind of like that for me. Has it gotten worse in the pharmacy? I mean, do you see way more people now than you did when you first started here? And this is the, the the one that kind of shocks me, right? So when I check a script I, I look at their name and their date of birth.

Yeah. And the part that is upsetting to me is to see that date of birth be so young for all of these type two diabetic patients knew you were going to say it is. And so it used to be, you know, so I’ve been in the working in retail pharmacy for 18 years now cause I started out as a pharmacy technician at Rite aid when I was getting my undergraduate degree at Virginia tech. And I have worked in a retail pharmacy of some sort, whether I worked for Kroger for a while and then now I’m with giant Eagle but I’m for 18 years. And that is the biggest change. Blood pressure medications, diabetes medications, the age. It just keeps dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping that we’re starting people younger and younger and younger and younger. That’s crazy. It’s, it is insane. I mean I have 20 you know, the early twenties on blood pressure meds.

I have early twenties mid-twenties and late twenties on insulin already. Like their pancreas has given up at that point. Like it’s, that part is alarming. And I think that when I, like when I first got into CrossFit, it was very much like a sport for me and it was very competitive. But then when I kind of peel back the layers and I got my level one and I started looking at CrossFit’s like big message and I started thinking about my job and that’s when we started thinking about, gosh, we kind of want to be involved in this. And I was tired of being just in sick care and I wanted to be on the side of wellness. I think that our, I think our healthcare system is just broken. It’s profoundly broken. And so I didn’t want my story to be at the end of the day that I was just a pill person, like a pusher, like putting bandaids on like, you know, wounds that need something bigger than a bandaid.

My whole career I wanted to try to at least make an impact on the, on the WellCare side of things. And so talk about that all the time. Yeah. Diabetes stuff. Cause it’s bad. It’s bad on Pat’s side of the family. Yeah. My, yeah, my family too. Well, I would say they are my family too. I sometimes feel like they look at me like I’m crazy half the time. Right. I know absolutely stuff I eat right. Well, yes I am. I am. Right. And so that’s my other, I, you know, I, people will come to me and they’re starting a pill or they’re taking the antibiotic for two weeks and they’re so worried about the side effects of this itty bitty little pill that they’re taking and they might not have any of the side effects. Right. And the benefit far outweighs that. But yet I look in their grocery cart and they’ve got donuts and a two-liter Coke and chips and I’m like, why can we not talk about the side effects of that?

Why is that not significant to you? And this is like, that’s a frustrating thing. So I think that our decision to kind of join forces with Chad really had to do with wanting to feel like we were doing something meaningful. Yeah. Right. Being a part of something that we really believed in and we think can change people’s lives cause it changed our lives for the better in a million different ways. And so, you know, as I was going through these injuries and kind of, you know, finding myself again and do I really want to just be dispensing prescriptions for the rest? Like we just kind of had this moment of like, Hmm, that’s what we want forever. Right. And so we met Chad. We were, we were pretty involved at CrossFit future. I coached there. Scott did member management, so he kind of, he’s our, my husband’s a software engineer, so he did a lot of their member management over there.

So we were kind of, we were also used to being involved in the management of the gym. And so that was something we else we were missing when we came out here. So I think it was just like a natural, it was a natural progression. We saw an opportunity, Chad needed some help and so we kind of approached him. He didn’t know us at all. He didn’t know. I mean, he probably knew of us like through other people, but he didn’t really know us. And he came over to our house and we sat down on our porch or back porch and I was like, I think we want the same things. Like we like, we don’t know you really well and you don’t know us, but I think we can help you. Like I think together we can make this, we had the same vision of what we see, you know, where we see this going.

And so that’s kinda how long has Torsion been around? Yeah. Oh, I hate to look at Scott, but I don’t know. Do you know Scott? It was a couple of years. I want to say it’s been at least five, maybe six now I’m this way. Oh, sorry, sorry, I moved off-camera. I think I want, I want to say five or six years. I don’t know the exact date that they started, but everybody kind of came out of that always forward group. Yeah. So like CrossFit Newark came out of that and so did torsion. Like everybody started there in Granville. So your big injury that actually happened right before I came. It did. Yeah. As everybody can. I mean hopefully, people can hear, you know, she’s had knee, all kinds of knee issues and surgeries and then you’ll explain your next one. You, you can bounce back from that.

You can flip it. It’s not something that limits you. And I think that’s what a lot of people don’t realize is that, you know, you’re not done. No, because you have an injury, you’re done come back from it no matter what it is. Right. That drives me insane. Yes. Totally drives me insane when people say, I mean even my husband’s a Testament to it. He had back surgery, right. He’s running now. Right. Absolutely. Going to CrossFit. So you know, it doesn’t limit, you know, tell everybody about your leg. So we were kind of like, I feel like we were, we were, I was heading on the right path. Like, okay, these are the things that are important to me. This is what I want. Kind of coming back from things. But then I kinda got swept up in the competitive thing again for a second. That might be a little bit in my nature.

But so I think I kind of lost sight for a second. It was like, like I refocused after my knee surgery. Like, this is what I want, this is what makes me happy. These are the things that are important to me. And then I kinda like slid a bit, a little bit again. I qualified. So I became a master, which I think is funny. And CrossFit, and when you’re 30, when you’re 35, you, you enter the masters division. I’m sure you guys hate that, but I think it’s kind of funny. In 51 I like here like, yeah, dare, right? So so I was top 200 in the world. Like, I forget what number I ended up in the open. So then that means you call it once you’re a master, you don’t go to regionals or, well, this all change now, but you have extra workouts that you do that then determines who goes to the games.

So, again, I wasn’t really trying, but I ended up top 200 in the world and I got those extra workouts and and I moved all the way up to like 115 or something at the end of all of that, 115th in the world from like 35 to 39, which is cool. Right? Like that was super fun. Yeah. But then that group, right. But then again in my brain, I was, I kinda like shifted and I was like, Ooh, maybe I should care cause I really cared like next year maybe I could get like higher. Right. Totally see you doing that. Right. But at the same time, like we were trying to grow torsion and we were trying to focus on those things. And I think that I was putting my energy in the wrong spot. Yeah. Again, like I was just kinda like shifting it and letting other people tell me like, because you can, you should, you should do this and you get hurt from those workouts?

So then I was training, so I was training for the next year, right. For the open. And we actually went to CrossFit Newark and we did a competition and I’m sure I was there. Yeah. And it had Fireman’s carries where you had to run with it. Do you remember that? Okay, so in retrospect now I did not know this at the time, so I want to say that I, I didn’t figure this out until I like looked back at the chain of events, but my partner was carrying me and my hip was sitting on top of her shoulder and she was running and I was bouncing on it. And I remember that my hip was like burning, like, like on fire burning. And it was when she put me down, I was like numb and my hip and then down my leg was numb and I was like, gosh, what in the world?

But I didn’t think a whole lot of it. I was like, I probably just have a pinched nerve, somethings, whatever. Couple of weeks later, like that went away. But then I started having trouble like around my side and in my medial glute and all these things were just like lit up surrounding my hip. And I was like, what is going on? But you know, that was like in November, just kept training. Really. I was training probably harder than I’d ever been trained. Probably over-training, to be real honest. I probably wasn’t taking care of my body very well. And the open came, but I was ready for the open, right. Like, cause like I’m gonna do this and, and it was going very, very well. But in the middle of one of the open workouts, there was a max squat clean after a workout. Like you did a workout and then you had to do a max lift.

And my foot kinda caught externally rotated and I caught a barbell, like a 205 pound barbell down in the bottom of the squat. And my leg was out like this. And as soon as I caught it, this popped. Oh. So my quad attachment of my rectus femoris, that quad muscle attachment at my hip tour, like clean off. So, and I knew it like I knew it was whatever it was like was traumatic enough that I called OSU sports medicine standing inside torsion and went straight in. Yeah. So within two weeks I had it reattached, which talk about the state of this just amazing. This state of this country though, the surgeon actually told me that if it were him, he would not reattach it, which makes me real sad. Right? Well, so it’s a pretty rare injury. He’d only fixed it one other time, and then I think he’d seen another patient with it and he was like, here’s the deal.

You have four quadricep muscles, so it’ll just atrophy. You’ll probably lose 30% strength in that leg. But I mean, you can still be on the elliptical machine and do things functionally. Why would anyone in their right mind not want to have a muscle reattached? I don’t know. And I was like, well, first of all, I think I was, what, 37 I was like, I’m 37 years old. I’m not 68 I’m not 72 I’m not. And I was like 30% feels like a significant loss. I was like, Oh really care about my back squat but I’d like to be able to get on and off the toilet when I’m 85 and so, but I was kind of sad in just in general that his blanket recommendation was like, we just won’t fix that. And I was like, if you fix it, what percent recovery am I going to be at?

And he was like, Oh like 98 and he’s like, but it’s a big deal. Like it’s a big surgery you’re going to be out of work for. I was like, okay, like, but you’re telling me I’m going to be loose 30% strength in that leg forever and it’s going to atrophy and not be functional at all or you can reattach it and I’m going to be basically back to normal. And he was like, yeah, pretty much. There’s another problem with our society and that most people would just be like, okay, that’s fine cause I’m not moving anyway. Like to me that didn’t suit my quality of life. I like being active. I didn’t want to take any chance and I was not going to have enough strength to do the things that, and now that I am diving deeper into coaching and all that, thinking about the imbalances I may have created like on the other side of my body or my hip.

Speaker 2 (00:26:37):

Like from losing that amount of strength. Like it’s just nutty to me that they wouldn’t be like immediately like, yes, let’s fix it. It’s crazy. Right. And now you’re probably, you aren’t you stronger than you were before that? Yeah. Which is kind of funny. I’m training way less than before. Right. I do class. Yeah. And I might occasionally, you know, do just a little, I really like, I like, well not, no, I really don’t much like, I like Durante core. Like if you want to know what I do extra, it’s usually some core work. A lot of it’s hip flexor work because when I was recovering from this hip surgery I learned a lot of things to help work on my hip flexors and I’ve never let that go because I want to make sure that I don’t ever forget that this was compromised and that it may need a little extra attention forever.

But again, I took the opportunity to like move better. Right? And so mechanics is so important to me. I don’t ever want anyone to be watching me workout as a coach and be like, Oh my gosh, she doesn’t even do this or open her hip or she tells me to put my feet together when she does her, you know, hollow body on like when she’s doing her pull-ups, but she doesn’t even do it. Like, so it’s made me like hone in on all of that and funny, it’s not funny, but it, I should know I’m getting better.

And so, cause you’re focusing on the right things. Right. But one day when I had the hip surgery, Kim, who has been on your podcast, another coach, she said, it’s funny how the universe works. I love her little like her little talk sometimes she just puts it, cause I was like sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself, this big thing on my leg. And she was like, sometimes the universe will like tap you on the shoulder and you don’t pay attention or you kind of pay attention but not enough. And then it’ll kind of like smack you. Yep. A little bit. And then you might pay attention. But again, maybe you didn’t do it enough. She was like, and then sometimes it just gets tired of you and it pushes you down the stairs. Totally sounds like, and I feel like my hip surgery was sort of like my push down.

Like I, I, that was my push down the stairs. It was like, okay, we’re just gonna, you’re not paying any, you, you’re kind of are like sort of paying attention to us, but not really. So we need you to get it together. We’re gonna push you down the stairs. And so I think it again, it, it had helped me to focus on the right things, but also for Scott and I that was also when we sold our house, our team house that we built downsized. We did. Yeah. So we did like it. It wasn’t just like me at the gym. Right. It kind of started with that where we’re sort of like me looking at my priorities being all in the wrong buckets. Like you just had it all messed up and I was like, gosh, that’s not, this isn’t why I didn’t go into this for this.

Like I went into it because I want to help other people and I want to help people not just get a muscle up, but I want to help get them off their diabetes meds and I want to, I wanted to make Torsion a place where people felt comfortable coming in if they’ve never done anything for 20 years and I’m not sure that we were 100% there. I think we were trying, yeah, that was our vision. Right? But we weren’t quite there and I don’t think I was putting enough time into making it be that. And so I think for me it was that. But then in our own personal life, I think we kind of looked around at what we were doing. And at the time I had taken a promotion that took me out of the pharmacies and I was supporting joining Eagle’s clinical initiatives.

So I was, it was a promotion. And so that’s exciting, right? And you’re supposed that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Like you get what everybody tells you what everybody tells you to do, you should take this job. And so I took like, to do what everybody tells us to do. I know, and that’s what I’m learning. So I took the job, but I looked around the rest of my life. I had a lot of time sitting in a chair with this like ice compression machine on my leg. And I, we kind of took a little critical look at everything. And at the time Scott was working a job he hated and it was consuming him. And when he came home, he had no time for the kids and no time for me and no time for himself. And I was working this promotion that took me away from patient care, so I wasn’t getting to talk to patients anymore and I’m a people person and type a.

So I, I didn’t, I hated it. Like I hate it. I like, and it took me a while. I was supposed to love it and I was supposed to be honored that I got this job. But at the end of the day I was miserable.How long did you do that? Almost a year. I think it was somewhere between like nine months and a year and I tried to give it. So the very first when I first realized I tried to give it back and they wouldn’t let me what? I was like, I really don’t like this, this isn’t for me. And they were like, let me guess. You were too good at it. They didn’t want, yeah. They were like, Oh no, but you’ve made an impact in this store and this store. And I was like, yeah, that’s cool. But I hate it. And so I, you know, they were like, just hang on for a couple more months.

And then when I had my surgery then I really was like I’m not doing it. Like, and we’ll probably have more time now for your kids too. Right? Absolutely. And so, and, and at the same time, kind of a job came a spot came open at the giant Eagle right out here in Heath cause I really didn’t want to have to drive and there’s only one giant Eagle anywhere close. Where were you? I was driving. Well I worked at Pickerington for five years. I was at Stelzer road, so driving over to Easton for a while, but then I was supporting all of the stores with that one job and when this job came open and Heath, I was like, listen, I know you told me I can’t give it back. But now there’s an opening like where I live and I need, this is what I need for my life until I like finally stood up for myself and gave away that job.

And Scott Scott quit his job. He hated and took a job paying less because it made him happy and he loves what he’s doing. And we both were like, we built this beautiful home. Right. It was my dream. It was our dream home. We custom build it. Oh geez. We’d lived in it for three years, but the market was booming and we were driving home from Florida that June right after, sorry, I had just had surgery in March and the whole way home we were just chatting about all these things and Oh we’re so glad we changed our jobs and we’re getting this right. And I was like, do you ever think about selling the house? Cause it had been like in the back of my brain and he was like all the time and the market was booming. And so we got home and we probably within, it was pretty quick, wasn’t it Scott?

I mean within two days we’re like, we’ll just put it on the market. We didn’t have photos up for it yet. And then we ended up selling it in 48 hours for $9,000 over asking price. Got rid of it. Got a smaller, more affordable home, closer to the gym so that we could be there to support some of the things there that we wanted. We wanted to be able to travel more and spend more times with the kids. We don’t want to spend money on things. We wanted to spend money on experiences. And to me, even though the house was not, we weren’t like in over our heads or anything, but we were like, imagine what we could do, the vacations we could take if we just unloaded it. Yeah. Like why, why spend money on things? And so that’s what people tell us.

Exactly. And so I have the brand new beautiful cars. We need to have the big old house in the neighborhood. Right. And so we did all the things, like we checked all the boxes and then we woke up one day and we’re like, eh, what does this not feel? Right. Right. So kind of, that was a big, that was a big, people thought we were lovable. Don’t do that. People thought we were a little crazy. Did they really? Oh my gosh. 100% yes. I think people still think we’re crazy. They’re like, that house was so beautiful. Yeah, it was beautiful. But you know what I I learned is that I didn’t care that much. Yeah. Like I got in it and I was like, yeah, it’s beautiful. I’m happier now. It gets, I’m telling you, it gets worse. As you get older, you get to that point I’m wearing like, you don’t care.

Right. You give a crap what people think. Do what’s right. Makes you feel good and makes you feel happy. It makes people around you happy. Exactly. That’s what we try to focus on is really, you know, trying to have that positive feeling. Not, you know, at home with our kids and we have our kids work with us. So it’s a little bit different of a situation than most people. But we chose the job that we chose so we could be in our kids’ lives. Right. We didn’t have, I mean we don’t have the big huge house that, you know, a lot of our friends and, and people we know have, we don’t have, you know, two or three cars in the driveway that are our own. We didn’t have that. We chose not to so we can raise the kids and do what we want in there.

That was the coach and, and people that understand, I mean I could make more money if I worked in the pharmacy more hours. I’m not full time in the pharmacy on purpose because one, I want to be present as, as a wife. I want to make sure that my marriage comes first. I want to make sure my kids come first and because I feel like the work that we’re doing at torsion is what brings like actual, meaningful joy into my life. And so now I do have to, you know, I, I do, I am not saying that I don’t like the pharmacy job cause I do, cause I definitely get the opportunity to make an impact in people’s lives. It’s just on the, the side of healthcare. I, I’m frustrated with right now. Healthcare, food and you know, that whole industry. I mean, I know you guys try to eat good too.

Like yeah, it’s actually part of the, it’s actually how we found CrossFit. Oh, it was. So we changed our diet first cause we were just trying to get healthier. And so we found paleo and so we started eating paleo and if you follow any food bloggers, didn’t we do that first? Did we do paleo first? We’ve done it. We’ve done them all too. But like that was the first time that I like, I was like, wow, like this has made such an impact in my life. And I think it was just getting all the processed foods out of our diet. And that was really the, I’m not on like camp paleo or whatever. I don’t care. I just think that what it did for us was got the processed food away and we felt so good and we were really healthy. But when you follow these food blogs, like we want to do recipes, everybody was talking about CrossFit.

I’m like, what is the CrossFit we were doing? I was doing P90X in my basement. Like Tony Horton was my best friend. You know, like it’s kinda sad that you know, you need to have new friends when you talk about Tony, like he’s your friend cause you work out with them and your basement community. I needed a community. So we kind of found it through like food came first and then we were like, what’s CrossFit? We didn’t that that way. Well our first experience with CrossFit was at hockey. Actually one of our old co, one of the old coaches with with my husband. He, he started messing with it or did you he’s outside of the screen here. Yeah. yeah, the, the husbands are sitting off screen. You messed with it. I remember. I

And I mean we were, we were looking at that website years ago when it was owed and yeah, 10 years ago and a coach at hockey, he used a lot of the same principles that most people thought he was crazy. Well and I think there is still a lot. Pat and I kind of, I mean he, he also again has that same mentality that we all have of you know, jumping into things and starting things and, and not being afraid and being, he was, Scott was the same way and he just used a lot of that stuff when we connected with him. Yeah. We started doing that too, but the boys were the ones that got into it for it was for us. And then of course, you know, chase would drag on down come down while down here. It was more of back then it was for hockey and so we had hockey nets up and stuff, but then we had some weights down here and I remember him coming home, chase coming home here, try this.

Right. Yeah. So that’s how, that’s how we get started. But yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. I think I have I think I have this vision that someday, so, and this is something that we talk about Derek all the time, I’m sure. I, I’ve always had it. And when we sat down the very first time with Chad and we said, we wanted to be a part of this, I was like, this is gonna sound nuts, but I’m just gonna throw it out, throw it out there. I was like, what? I would really like to see some days an integrated wellness facility that has the CrossFit gym, your primary care doctor, you know, your chiropractor and massage therapist, a dietician, physical therapy, like occupy all onsite, right? Like I would love nothing more than you to be able to see your primary care doctor and then to be able to plug you into the things that will actually make you well as opposed to waiting to see you when you’re sick. Right. And handing you a pill. Right. I’m like, the pharmacist, like Derek laughs at me all the time. He’s like pharmacist that talks people out of their medicine.

But I would love to see nothing more than to be so bored at the pharmacy and see everyone at the gym. Like that would be amazing. But, so Derek, Derek’s a big thinker too. So we we kind of come together sometimes talking about what we talked about, dream about in the future. We’ve talked about that. And the funny thing is is we kind of add, we’re like and put a brewery on there too.

Mm. It wouldn’t be fun to have a CrossFit gym and Derek in there and then brewery and maybe a coffee shop. A coffee shop. Yes. Oh my gosh. I think sometimes about how coffee Shacks right next to the old tours and location. Can you imagine how much coffee we would have consumed? Actually he would do really well because every single person would be in there. I know, but we would probably all need blood pressure medications cause we’d been drinking way too much coffee.

Yeah, we would. We definitely would. Well what terrible. What would you say

I guess in terms of coaching, what has been your most memorable thing that you’ve done? Your, your most memorable flip for somebody else? I mean, Scott and I were talking about that and I don’t know that I have one. And this is kind of a common theme in both of my jobs cause I feel like coaching is about not necessarily these big glamorous wins, right? It’s about the day to day little itty bitty things. It’s about the consistency. It’s about, you know, over the course of a year seeing somebody go from here to here. Right. So I don’t know that I had this one big like overriding answer and in, in the pharmacy it’s kind of the same thing. It’s, it is hard to get people to trust you, right. To, to understand that you are there for them. And a lot of what we do in pharmacy, people don’t even see, right.

Like your prescription might have been called in by the doctor and before you ever come to get it, I know that it interacted with something or the dose didn’t make any sense at all for you and I call happen a lot. You’d be shocked. I call, I intervene. I get it changed all before. I mean a lot of times people don’t even know that interaction is happening. And I guess that’s kind of like, you know, that’s our fault as pharmacist that we don’t maybe, but I don’t want to, I don’t want to undermine a physician either. So when those errors are happening, I’m not going to be like, well, you know what your doctor did. Right, right. But I think the fact that people don’t see that clinical side of what we do. Yeah, I think they kind of, and they don’t realize how much education we actually have.

You know, that I have a doctoral level degree, like a doctor of pharmacy. I think it takes a long time to earn someone’s trust and it takes a couple of situations or instances where you kind of go above and beyond to help them with something, even if it’s small, where those little things add up over time and coaching. To me, I feel that find a lot of parallels that I bet it’s really hard. It’s hard to get somebody to trust you if they’ve been told something else their whole life. And it’s hard to get somebody to move a different way if they’ve been taught or shown to do something differently or it’s uncomfortable or it’s hard. Nobody ever, no, people don’t want to work on hard things. Yeah. And pharmacy’s the same way. If, you know, if I talk to somebody, they’re like, you really don’t want to be on this blood pressure medicine or I really want to reduce my insulin intake.

Like it’s about making small little itty bitty changes. Well, how about you don’t drink your calories? Like let’s not drink any one small thing and then let’s talk about it. Or I have somebody coming in getting a medication for smoking cessation and I used to I, I’ve, I’ve like training in smoking cessation, so I used to run classes at giant Eagle for the employees who wanted to quit. And so I would sit down with them and I would run these classes as a group. But, so it, but it’s about behavior changes and about like itty bitty ones. Isn’t that what you find in CrossFit too? It’s exactly the same. And so I feel like I don’t have this one big, like this is my most memorable thing. I think it’s the little, it’s the day to day things. It’s the anything is your pharmacy part of it. You see and can talk to us about this as you see what happens when you don’t do right.

The CrossFit or whatever, whatever. Exactly. Or what it is either. And that’s what I always tell people. They’re like, Oh, CrossFit, I could never do that. So dangerous. Like I don’t care what you do but move your body. Oh, I know. Well I guess it’s some gyms and lately there’ve been masters on the crossfit. Do you follow the CrossFit masters? Yeah, I mean there’ve been people talking about that. There was just one recently of a guy that he went into one and it was dangerous. I think there’s just a lack of coaching and a lot of places. I mean if you travel and drop in there’s, we all, we’ve, we used to go to Hilton head every year and we would drop into this one gym and there were seminar staff that owned and ran this gym. And it was unbelievable that it was great.

It was wonderful. But I think it was one of the best experiences we ever had cause we were like, that’s what it’s supposed to be. Yeah. That’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s about the coaching. That’s what you pay people pay us for. Yeah. If you don’t want to be coached, then, you know, pay for street parking and do it in your garage. Like if coaching, if you don’t find the coaching valuable, that’s fine. Go, go do it somewhere else. Like we’re, nobody’s gonna right. Going to watch, watch you. But that’s what people are like, why is this so expensive? Because we take the time to actually like to coach you to make you better. So it’s all relative. It, it cracks me up when people, but yeah, I mean people are, there’s actually, so Julie Fucher has that. Yeah. So the one that came out, I want to say today on pursuing health, she’s talking to like a functional med.

Speaker 2 (00:44:52):

It’s almost like a physical therapist. I forget the name of, of what it is, but she, she was talking about that, that whole concept of it’s dangerous. Yeah. She’s like, it’s not dangerous. She was like, if you really look, it’s functional and it’s about reframing people’s, you know, there’s some bad gyms that have given us a bad rap and I think it’s about teaching people that that’s not the case. And I think there’s also, yeah, there’s going to be injuries. Yes, I had it, I had it injury back like this. So in this podcast today with Julie Foucher what the doctor said, I would rather treat, you know, an injury from exercise then treat you for, for your diabetes or your like, I’ll just like worth, you’re not going to die from an orthopedic injury, but you are going to die from heart disease and diabetes and strokes.

So I think people are missing the boat when they’re like, Oh, it’s so dangerous and no sitting on now how much is more dangerous? And they talk about the cost and it’s like, okay, but you’re going to spend all that money on that medicine, right? Or you know, you go, let’s say, you know, maybe cut out, going out to eat twice a week. It’s priorities, right? You just have to budget and you choose the things that are important to you and you prioritize the things that are important to you. There’s always a way. I mean, it is a, I will be the first to say that it is expensive to eat healthy, which a hundred percent fortunate. I mean it should be, it should be easy. It should be the other way around. You have only, we all could just have our own farm and I talked to, everybody, always asked me, my family, well, why don’t you, you have a great big backyard.

You could have a garden with what time? Right? With what time? All your time to garden someday. I’m not sure what day of the week it is. You’ve never seen me try to keep a plant alive. It’s not your specialty? No, no I did not. My mom is very good at that. My sisters, all of them, they’re all good at it. I got none of it. None of it. Yeah. I can keep a tree, a Christmas tree at live. Well that’s good. But that’s about it. And that’s a short, I don’t think I’m pretty good with like the outdoor plants with indoor plants. I would have to agree. I’ve never really had successful indoor plant experience unless they’re plastic. I can say, well, what are your, what are your guys’s longterm goals? So what are your long term and long, short and long.

Okay. So I think from a, from a family perspective, just like Scott and I and our family, I think it’s just to have more experiences. As many as we can cram in while we have the kids have started going, out west and stuff. Yeah. We’re, well, we’re going to grand Cayman for spring break. We have, Scott and I have been, but we’ve never had had the kids with us, so we’re going to take them. We’re going to the grand Tetons and Yellowstone and June. And then I like, I’m in the middle of scheduling vacations. As a pharmacist, you have to pick your vacations like a year and a half in advance. It’s ridiculous. So I’m working on that right now. I don’t know where we’re going to go next, but our goal as a family is to not go to the same place twice so that we’re always seeing something new and different. So I think that’s kind of see you Blake.

We find it. So that’s what we used to do is go to Florida every year, not every year. And I finally told my parents, I was like, Nope, we’re going to, we’re going to have experiences. We’re gonna go different places. We’re gonna do different things and make new memories and Blake, I’m going to go watch you in July, so it’ll be out. So I think from a family perspective, that’s my goal. I think from, from the gym and professionally, I really hope that we can somehow continue to merge services with Derek and provide more wellness care. I think he shares that same like grand vision of what we can achieve. If we can kind of like bring the right medical staff together with the right mindset to really just try to flip this healthcare system on its head because I think it’s going to take the people standing up and being like, this isn’t okay.

Right? Like, this is, this is, I demand better care, right? I demand more and standing up for themselves. And so I, I would like to see us be able to continue to have those talks and go somewhere with that. And I would really love us to have like a really robust nutrition program at the gym. It’s just something I physically don’t have time to run without sacrificing even more, even more. And I can’t, and I hard lines with my husband and my kids. And so I, as much as I would love to run that, and I think I could very well run that, I, yeah, I need more time and more hours. It’s great that we have some new coaches coming on board because there’s always the possibility if I’m coaching less that that you can do that. I can do more of that. But I also don’t want to coach too much less because I like that. I like you coach. And I don’t want to pull away too far from that and feel like I’m disconnecting from the community to do something else. So it’s this big balancing act of figuring out, you know, and maybe I’ll pull, give up 9:00 AM yeah. Oh, it’s be there. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’ll be carrying about five.

Kim and I, we have a fun thing going at the time. I think it is really, we have all the time to go to all the different classes and I work out early sometimes. So I get, I get the boys, I get Craig and I get Scott will coach me sometimes. Yeah, that’s fun. I listen now. I probably used to not listen as well, but now I’m a very way. I know and I definitely used to get mad at us. I cannot mad, but now I’m like, I’m, I’m very good about it because I mechanics, right. Mechanics first and I don’t, and I’m always asking Kim like, am I shifting? I don’t want to have any compensation from this hip or this knee, Oh, I want to say glad than you were in last week and help me with the squat. Yeah. What I was just sitting there watching creepily taking a video of you being like, all right, I liked it. Yeah, no I did. It helped. Well I want to make sure that people keep forties. Yes, I did. Right. Okay. I got done. I’m like, I looked at Hannah, Denise is still going like why is she saying?

And you know, I was already at that point of I already thought I was done. I cannot get back up and do more. I’m just done with it. I was, that’s still a pretty good workout. So I want to worry about, I did better because of the stuff that you helped me with. So thank you. You’re very welcome. So just figuring out how to, you know, fit stuff in the day. But I think just driving that wellness initiative and really I want to find more ways for us to find the people who are not comfortable being uncomfortable. Like I think the barrier is still too great for starting CrossFit. I think people are still too intimidated by it and they shouldn’t be. And so any, you know, any creative way that we can dream up to get people in the doors doing it because really like back in the day when it started, it was just where the fit people went to get fitter, right?

Like it was just the next thing. And that’s cool. But I think where the impact really is and where my heart is from my medical background is seeing the people who are sick who really need it. Yeah. But it’s the hard part is how do you get them in the door and then how do you keep them right inside the walls without them feeling too self conscious or feeling like take it in or intimidated. And so, and I don’t know that we all have, we have all the answers for that by any stretch of the imagination. But so I think longterm goals would be how do we, how do we lower that barrier even more so that we get people comfortable coming through the doors. There are ways we know of ways. So we already talked about podcasts. You like Julie, who else do you like?

I listened to Ben Berge. Ron’s chasing excellence. I like some of it and some of it I’m like so I’ve kind of like a mixed bag on that. So, but I do like, I do like a lot of the principles of that. I like street parking, the podcast when Miranda comes on and she’ll talk about things, but she, I love how she, the whole more than nothing concept. I think we get caught up too much and I have to do all of the things and then we do none of the things because that’s overwhelming versus maybe today all I can do is this, but that’s better than nothing. And then if I do that and then I do it again the next day and then the next day and the next day, that’s what creates change. And so I love her podcast because she talks about those kinds of concepts.

And then when I don’t want to think about fitness and health and the gym or business I listened to radio lab because there are phenomenal storytellers and sometimes I just want to turn my brain off. And they, the topics are all over the place. Have you heard of them? Pat, radio lab. Huh. Fantastic little podcasts. Good little storytellers. Just, I mean the topics are everywhere but sometimes I just need to turn my brain off and not, I get that not be thinking about business and come wakes any of things. Sometimes I just need that that wakes me up at like four o’clock in the morning. And they, so radio lab did a six part five part series on Dolly Parton and it was called Dolly Parton in America. It was phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yeah. Listen to it. Interviewing people. Oh yeah. Like diving into her life, like, like talk about going down rabbit holes, but all these really interesting things that I definitely didn’t know about.

Dolly Parton and I certainly didn’t think I would enjoy it. But we were driving home from somewhere. We love listening to podcast and we, and it was like, and we like radio lab and they’re like, we’re going to have this new Dolly Parton series. And so the very first episode was open. So we listened to it and I was hooked. And then every Tuesday I was really excited cause I knew it will come out. It’s the time to listen about Dolly. We are completely out of character but rich Froning Oh I, you know what, I don’t listen to that. What’s his podcast called? Okay, off to dive into that. We used to love listening to that. Yeah, that one was funny. Scott makes me listen to more intellectual podcasts sometimes that I, sometimes I’m like, sometimes I love and sometimes I’m like, Ugh.

There’s a really good relationship one called where should we begin? And it’s a relationship therapist and she takes couples who are having relationship problems and they kind of like, she kind of picks them apart and talks about it. And it’s so intriguing because you’ll read the title and you’ll be like, well, there’s nothing about that that I will relate to. And then you listen and you’re like, there’s always some little tidbit of something that you can take away. Really. and so that’s one that we, we listened to. Hidden brain is another really good one that kinda dives into and more intellectual stuff. Scott stuff. Ah, he’s too smart for me.

Pat listens to more so business things like that and all that. Yeah, way more than what I do. I mean, what I like is screw the nine to five. So that tells you anything about me. That’s fantastic. All right, the question, the last question that I always ask everybody is if you could be in your flip flops and yet, you know, click, click. Yeah. Just like in the little, the magic slippers. Yeah. Where would you go and why? That’s a great question. So as much as I love to explore and travel and go places, there’s no place like home, which I know sounds crazy, but like I really like being at home and like so I want to go and do the things, but I’m always just as excited to come home. So I’m not sure that there’s any one particular place. Scott and I definitely definitely want to have some kind of home, whether it’s a tiny home or a little log cabin or something.

I’m in a mountain near water somewhere. I’m more of a mountain girl than a beach girl. So where I can like hike and bike and swim and kayak and look at, look at the boys, you the thing and we know we talk about like we want to have a tiny home like mobile tiny home so that I can put it somewhere, hang out there for a while and then move it someplace. I don’t know. Tommy had it tiny home. Did you know they were on a TV show? Are you kidding? I’m not kidding. I didn’t even know that. Totally missed it. But we talk about that like I think with kids. No, like not, not now, but yeah, I mean they are going to grow up and move out of my house at some point. And so I think now would it be our primary residence?

I don’t know. But I would like to have a place, the cool ones they really do. And so I think we just want to make sure we, we do explore this world, but I need my home to be there. That would be good. I really like my house, so, but, but definitely a mountain girl. So like there are definitely if I had to choose, I liked the beach to beach is great, but I would like to have a beach home and then I’d like to have a mountain home. Yeah. I get tired of the beach. I don’t, there’s not enough to do like for a week it’s fine, but then I’m like, okay, good. That’s fine. Yeah, go home now. I know that’s crazy. But I think when we went to the Lake last summer though, that to me was busier. Like there was more to do.

And we loved that. We got up every morning super early and we hopped in the kayaks before anybody else was awake and there was nobody on the Lake. And we would just kind of like explore and it was so fun. I was like, this is how we need to retire. Yeah, I definitely want to travel. Yeah. A lot of places we want to go a lot of places. That was a part, a huge part of the selling of the house and here and just the United States. There’s so much. Well that was one of the gifts I got Scott for Christmas this year was this huge United States map and it has a spot for a photo and there’s an app that you send that cuts it to be this, the shape of the state. Oh cool. So then everywhere we go together as a family at all, we’ll go have that photo cut and then put it onto the map so that, that’s cool.

So it gives us kind of goals. So once we start to fill the map up, yeah. Then we’re like, Oh, we haven’t been there. We going to find something cool to do. Yeah, I’d love to do in that state. Yes. Yeah. Rocky mountain national park was one. Scott and I did a year and a half ago. He stayed in Estes park right outside the Gates. Oh my gosh. Did you do glaciers? That amazing. Amazing. And that’s what it, wasn’t that your favorite chase? Yeah. Glacier. I’d like to see, Oh yeah, definitely. We have a list. We have a list, but we’re kind of checking them off. We’re doing grand Tetons and Yellowstone in June. That’s what that will be. That’ll be something we want to take the kids rafting on the snake river rafting. Yes. I don’t know. That’s one of those things. I don’t know if I could do, I don’t know, but they, but here’s the thing. You don’t have to get into these crazy Rapids. They have like ones that are like, the ones we’ll take the kids on are probably, they’re kid friendly, like class two and three Rapids. They’re not going to have the big ones like Scott got on the new river and with Virginia like that can get really rough sometimes. He lost his keys to a car in the river.

So how did you, what’d you do? And it was before, like all these cell phones and we had just started dating and I thought he died because he was just missing like poof, like nowhere to be found and like they were supposed to have been back and I didn’t hear anything from them. I didn’t hear anything. They just lost their keys in the river, you know? Hmm. Nice. Well, is there anything else that I don’t think so. I think it, well, how do people, you know, if people are interested in CrossFit or just even wanting to find out more, I mean, they know that you have health and wellness background. And how can people get in touch with you? Our website CrossFittorsion.com is the best way. And we have a, if you just click the get started link, fill that out, it actually sends an email directly to Chad and I and I usually follow up on the female leads and Chad follows up on the male leads and that’s simply so that we don’t have to talk about who’s following up on cause it used to be like, it’s a good idea.

You have this one. Do I have like, and it was this coordination thing. And so we kind of just made it be that way. And I think also just because sometimes when we sit down, we do what we call a no sweat intro where we sit down with people and we talk, I just wanna we talk to them about what their goals are. We talk to them about why they contacted us. We talked to them. And I don’t even like the term goals so much where you’re listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago where they said, don’t ask people what their goals are, ask them what problem they’re trying to solve. And I loved that. But that conversation really is just kind of diving into the why they walked through the door. And so and I think that’s important because if, if I know the answer to that, it makes me easier to coach. Yeah. Right. And I think and I think that’s the thing that’s really unique about torsion is that everybody’s there for a different reason. And that’s fantastic. And I think that we can support all of the reasons, right. It’s just about teasing out what that is. Yep. Sounds you’re good at that. You’re good at that. Well, thanks so much for being on episode nine. Thank you for having me. It was fun.

I think so. I already thought about that. Derek, you’re next. Yep, absolutely. All right, well thank you very much. Thank you. And we’ll see you later. Bye.

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Listen to our previous episode at Trek Brewery in Newark Ohio!