An Olympian for An Hour

Small But Tough Gyms Offer High Intensity Workouts

Story and photos by  Janis Carrasquel Hernández

This is not your typical gym crammed with machines with people sweating it alone over an elliptical.

It’s a repurposed car shop filled with weights of different shapes and sizes, a workout space in the middle, with massive old truck tires scattered in the front of the building.

A couple of women and one man listen attentively to instructions from their coach. They are getting ready to lift weights like Olympians. They are not professional athletes. They are just regular people with regular jobs. But for an hour they are training, in small groups, as though they are working to win the gold.

Call it CrossFit, boot camps or high intensity interval training – but across the nation, these small but tough gyms offering intense, extreme workouts are popping up everywhere. Park Hill is no exception.

With variations in style, extreme workouts have one thing in common: they comprise sets of high intensity movements that are varied constantly. Those movements are to be functional and done in a short period of time.

The best you can be

Monica Ward, owner and CrossFit coach at CrossFit 1098, says the point of these trainings is to use the entire body, with gross motor movements to stabilize the weight. The training allows people to utilize their body weight while jumping over a truck tire, or while lifting a bar with a pair of 10-pound weights.

“[It teaches people] how to use their bodies in a better way than machines,” Ward says. “You have to actually stabilize and use all of your musculature to do most of the [exercises].”

Jeffrey McMillan, owner and head trainer of Urban Survival Fitness, has his own variation of high intensity interval training, or HIIT. It’s basically a circuit-training workout.

He says the workout gives people stronger bodies, improves their posture and the functional movements help people improve their everyday movements.

“A lot of seniors that I have [in my class], want to improve their balance because they are scared of falling,” says McMillan. “They want to get their core strengthen up. That is your foundation for everything.”

Intense workouts might have grown popular, McMillan says, because the public has more exposure to professional athletes, who share what he calls “snippets of their trainings” through social media. He says this encourages people to train like elite athletes.

“They say, ‘I might not be a professional athlete but I want to be the best that I can be,’” he said.

“What CrossFit did was bring these complicated Olympic lifts to the masses,” says Ward. “We’ve learned from Olympians that these are things that keep them strong so we implemented that into CrossFit because it actually works.”

Camaraderie in the gym

But there is something other than wanting to feel like an elite athlete that attracts people to these small gyms. It’s the social aspect.

Sometimes is hard to make friends between commutes when everyone is rushing, plugging their ears with isolating earplugs. Finding a space where people interact and encourage each other to accomplish their goals can be refreshing.

“I have a smaller gym on purpose,” says McMillan. “And I try to keep it almost like a small extended family, where they push each other. No one is looking down at each other.”

And according to Ward, traditional gyms have a high dropout rate precisely because of a lack of social interaction.

“We are human beings,” Ward says. “We are social. We like camaraderie. [Here] you know that you are going to get to see your friends when you come to class,”

She says she’s seen many couples connect in her CrossFit classes. And healthy competition and camaraderie are part of their routine. “People thrive in that kind of environment,” she said.

One of Ward’s pupils, Bill Foster, said he figured out that paying a gym membership with an open schedule did not give him a sense of urgency to work out.

With his soccer practice and his CrossFit classes there is a “set time and people are expecting me to be there,” says Foster.

Another client, Julie DeWoody, says one of the things that motivates her the most is “the social aspect, the community that’s formed around this; Monica getting to know everyone here, and the support.”

High intensity, low intimidation

Neither Ward, nor McMillan describe the workouts as “extreme fitness.” They agree that, though they may initially seem intimidating, just about anyone can do them. The intensity for each person’s workout is adjusted to his or her age and fitness level.

McMillan has a special class for seniors at Urban Survival Fitness. He says the reason is because many seniors like to work out with other seniors.

“But I also have seniors that come to the regular class,” he says. “They have high energy and they are the most consistent clients.”

According to Ward, when looking for a class it is important to watch if the coach explains every movement thoroughly and pays attention to each student’s workout.

“Honestly I never would have thought I’d do CrossFit,” says DeWoody. But now, “I love it. I feel myself getting stronger.“

Natascha Seideneck, an MSU Denver professor who practices yoga as well as CrossFit, concurs.

“It’s intense,” she says. “But you get better and better at it, so it’s really gratifying mentally too. And gets results.”

CrossFit 1098

2857 Fairfax Street

720-982-4144

Class: CrossFit

CrossFit Park Hill

7200 E Colfax Ave

Denver, CO 80220

720- 257-4264

Class: CrossFit and Olympic Weightlifting

Urban Survival Fitness

4970 E. Colfax Ave.

720-838-4401

Class: High Intensity Interval Training.

Koko FitClub of Denver

6231 E. 14th Ave. (Mayfair)

303-872-8380

kokodenver.com

Personal Training Gym

Endorphin City Park

3170 E. Colfax Ave

303-993-4041

Class: High Intensity Interval Training

Endorphin at Ryders

3115 E. Colfax Ave

303-993-4041

Class: High Intensity Interval Training

Natascha Seideneck practice movements before lifting weight bars in her CrossFit class. Park Hill, Denver. July 16th, 2015.

Tamesha Gilmore lifts heavy ropes repeatedly as part of a high intensity interval training at Urban Survival Fitness on Colfax St. Denver. July 15th, 2015.

Head trainer from Urban Survival Fitness, Jeffrey McMillan, helps a student on her posture during their high intensity interval training. Denver. July 15th, 2015

Monica Ward, personal trainer and owner of CrossFit 1098, goves instructions to her students on how to handle bars before they lift weights in her CrossFit class. Park Hill, Denver. July 16th, 2015.