Mike Eckrich

My athletic background growing up was a diverse one. My first love was baseball, but at any point during my childhood you could catch me playing football with friends, swimming at the beach, or playing basketball alone in my driveway for hours on end. In high school I started weight training for baseball and from that point on I fell in love with fitness and started to live by some of the principles of CrossFit without knowing it. I taught myself how to do basic barbell movements, the Olympic Lifts, basic gymnastic skills on rings, kettlebell training, and conditioning that was hard and fast. This carried through my college years when I stopped playing baseball and started to take an interest in nutrition and bodybuilding. After I finished graduate school for Physical Therapy, I was looking for a new friend group and something to fill the competitive void that I missed after I stopped playing sports. A friend
introduced me to CrossFit in the spring of 2019.  As a Physical Therapist, my job is to help athletes recover from injury not only in the physical sense, but in an emotional one as well. I invest a great deal of time and energy into my patients and in their recovery. With that, to say that I was cautious to start CrossFit is an understatement. I under the impression that it was an injurious sport, and directly at odds with what did as a Physical Therapist. It took me a few months to realize that it was the perfect community for me. People say that the magic of CrossFit is in the community, and that couldn’t be truer in my case. Some of my closest friends I’ve
met in this gym. I like data almost as much as a like fitness and ironically, the data says that CrossFit is no more injurious than other recreational sport and has similar (very low) injury rates to bodybuilding and powerlifting.  I started coaching in 2021 because I want to share my experience with this community and hopefully change lives in the same way that mine has been changed by CrossFit. I love any workout with a heavy barbell or machine, but I can be convinced to do just about any workout. When I’m not coaching,
working, or CrossFit-ing I love to travel, hike, listen to live music, and spend time with friends. If you see
me at the gym, come say hi and let’s get a WOD in!

Categorised in: