When Annette joined SONA, she had never heard of CrossFit. She had brought her kids to a kids’ class we were offering and met a member there who tried to explain the concept and told her to join. Annette was a full-time working mom and wife looking for something new to try and a new way to move her body.
She walked into her first Foundations class “totally unaware of what I was getting into.” Today she’s a 5 a.m. regular who doesn’t like to miss a workout.
“I was once you”
Ask Annette what she’d tell someone on the fence about walking through the door, and she starts there: “I was once you.” She was scared of how she’d look next to people who had been coming for a long time. Scared she couldn’t do the hard things. Scared she’d be embarrassed.
“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” she says. “Just try it, you won’t be disappointed. This is the most welcoming, encouraging, uplifting gym environment I’ve ever been a part of.” The people, she says, have been welcoming and accepting since day one, “and that has never wavered.” Anything can be scaled to fit what you need.
Coaches who never made her feel “less than”
Coach Amy started Annette’s Foundations and taught her proper technique “so I felt comfortable walking into my first real class.” She also has “great enthusiasm,” Annette says, “and it’s such a fun way to start my day.”
Coach Trish pushes her in good ways. She tells Annette when her lifts look too easy and to put more on the bar, and she “continues to believe in my abilities when I don’t.”
Coach Tim runs “a very down to earth class with a lot of laughs.” Coach Kerry is upbeat and works with any limitations Annette has to make the workout a success. Between Amy, Trish, Tim and Kerry, Annette says, the 5 a.m. classes are always “fun and informative.”
Annette mostly trains in the mornings, but when she crashes an evening class with Coach Joelle, Joelle is “always so happy” to see her. It’s a laid-back, fun class, and Joelle is encouraging and able to correct her form and teach her.
“None of the coaches ever made me feel ‘less than’ for being unable to perform a skill,” Annette says, “and that is a big part of why I come back.”
Wins that don’t look like a pull-up
Her strength has “grown exponentially,” and her cardio endurance has “skyrocketed” since she walked in. Pull-ups are the one that still gets her. “I still can’t do a pull up and I may never be able,” she says, “but SONA has given me the confidence to continue to at least try to progress towards it.” She keeps attempting jumping pull-ups, and the progress hasn’t shown up yet. It’s frustrating, and she keeps going anyway.
Her own definition of a win is wider than that. A win, she says, is “anytime I do something I couldn’t do before,” even if that’s lifting half a pound more. “The biggest win of all is that I WANT to be here. I don’t like missing a workout.”
The 5 a.m. back corner
A typical week for Annette starts with bootcamp on Monday, then CrossFit as many days as her schedule allows. She’s a self-described “5am gym girl,” and says it’s her “absolute favorite.” She works out much better and more efficiently in a class than on her own.
She likes working out with everyone, but her people are Kathy, Sue and whoever else is in the back corner of the room with her. They are “the unexpected friends I’ve made along the way and now can’t picture my mornings without them.”
More than a workout
Outside SONA, Annette is a wife, a mother of two and a nurse. She was all of those things before she joined, she says, but SONA “has definitely made me better at these things.”
Starting her day with a 5 a.m. class “has pretty much made all mental fog disappear,” and SONA “has given me the tools to be more active in all aspects of my life.”
A few years ago, she had to force herself to keep coming back. Now, if she misses a normal workout day, “my day feels off and incomplete.” She thinks it’s a mix of her body craving movement and the people: “the social aspect of seeing all the wonderful people that help me start my day off on the right foot.”
She also sees it as a long game. “CrossFit is functional movement for life,” she says. “I want to be able to participate fully for as long as I can.”
That’s Annette’s story: a mom who came in for her kids’ class, a pull-up that’s still a work in progress, and a 5 a.m. habit she wouldn’t give up. We’ll be sharing a member story like hers here every month.
