THE SMITH FAMILY

We joined the gym spring of 2022 and to be honest neither of us thought we’d ever be doing CrossFit. We have family members who for the last 10 years have owned their own CrossFit gyms and it just wasn’t something we could see ourselves getting into. It seemed way too intense. But once we found out that our neighbors (fellow parents of young kids) were doing CrossFit we felt like we could give it a try.

Jenn: The biggest thing for me prior to joining the gym was how limited I felt by my body at that time. I had gone through a rough pregnancy with our fourth child and felt like my body took a real set back. My muscle tone was low, I didn’t feel like I could safely run around and play with my kids without my ankles or hips hurting. And I just felt overall weak. The feeling of not being able to live the active life I was used to, or had envisioned for myself was a real wake up call.

Kimball: I sprained my knee in a pickup basketball game and it was a wake up call about my weight. I knew I had gotten out of shape during the pandemic, but that was the last straw.

A year and a half in and we are so grateful for all the hard work and progress we see in ourselves and each other. We have both decreased our body fat percentage and increased quite a bit in muscle mass.

Jenn: I can say that I am stronger now than ever before. The pains I had earlier while doing mild activity are completely gone and my mental resistance has increased through powering through some hard workouts and pushing myself past my limits. I am now able to live that active life that I used to and longed for.

Kimball: I have dropped 20lbs and I’m told by my wife that I look good.

Some of the mental and emotional benefits we’ve both seen is how our endurance and resilience has increased. Showing up doing workouts that are harder than what you’ve been doing for the past 15 years and pushing yourself past your limits multiple times a week, has had a very positive effect on what we each feel like we can take on and manage in other areas of our lives.

Joining CrossFit together as a couple has been so rewarding and inspiring for us. It was fun to be total beginners together. It is fun to come back from a workout and go over what was hard for each of us. It’s fun to wake up the next morning to see who’s the most sore and where. And it helps us both to stay accountable and push us to get out of bed in the morning and make it to our 6 am class. There is also value in kids seeing parents do hard things. It’s important for us that they see that we take our health and well being seriously. We have more energy throughout the day, and our minds can focus better. Cheers to another year of pushing past our limits and welcoming baby #5 into the Smith Family. We can do hard things!

CrossFit is challenging every time we go. But we continue to see results. That’s what keeps us coming back. The community is also really great. We love that we run into our CrossFit friends in the neighborhood, at our kid’s schools and in our local Austin area. The gym up here on Burnet Road is a very true representation of our neighborhood. We love that.