Member Spotlight: Rachel Harper

Crossfit became a large part of my life almost 4 years ago. It’s wild to think it’s been that long, but Crossfit quickly became my outlet – a place for me to go and release for the day or the week and reconnect with the people that I hold closest in my life! But Crossfit is not where my fitness journey started.

I was a swimmer for 12 years prior to high school graduation – from the time that I could comfortably put my head under water, I decided to swim! I loved it, but I never applied myself to the sport in the way that, looking back, I know I could have. I just did a sport to do a sport. Once I got to college, I stopped working out and all the muscle I had from all the swimming turned to fat and I gained. I knew that was not what I wanted for myself, so I started doing bodybuilding type workouts – I never competed, but I did mini-cuts and followed different programs to reach my end goal. I loved lifting weight and feeling strong.

Dedicating time to myself everyday helped me cope with some anxiety and depression that I was struggling with and really helped me to move on from trauma that I experienced in high school. Lifting heavy weights became empowering and I knew I had found something that was important to me. In college, I studied abroad for a year – 6 months in Italy and 6 months in New York. While I was in Italy, gyms were stupid expensive, so I decided to take a step back and just enjoy the experience. Little did I know, Italy would change my fitness life forever. As I was walking home one night with a couple of friends, we got mugged. I will never forget those moments of being knocked out and punched in the face. It was scary, but I fought back. I hit this guy so hard and fought him with everything I had that he eventually ran off and didn’t take a thing. I don’t say this to have a pity party by any means, I say this to emphasize that, had I not found weightlifting, my reaction would be flight, not fight. I knew that I could not stop what I was doing and, as soon as I had gotten back in the states, I wanted to get back in the gym, not for protection but because I knew that exercise was a key for my life. Once I moved to NY, I found a gym that I really loved and went back to my old routine. The downfall here was I did it myself. Every day I went into the gym, headphones in, and didn’t talk to anyone for an hour or two. After three years of doing this, I got bored. I wanted something new and challenging and fun and different from what I had been doing!

I always heard about Crossfit and was curious to try it but was nervous about what people had to say about it – that it was a ‘cult.’ I watched the Fittest on Earth documentaries and was just always so intrigued at how these women moved these weights, and did handstand pushups, and wanted to know more! Luckily, a new gym opened up right around the corner from my summer job, so I signed up and loved how kind everyone was! I will never forget my first workout had handstand pushups and no one expected me to do them – all they wanted me to do was kick up onto the wall and I thought “the place where people of all different skills come together and support one another like this is a place I want to be a part of.” I had new trauma to cope with, but the friends that I made and the community around me made it that much easier to accept and learn from my experience.

I worked out as much as I could that summer and never looked back. As time has gone on, life has definitely thrown some curveballs, but I’ve always been able to find an incredible Crossfit community that has my back. I never imagined that Crossfit Bexley would become my second family, but the community, kindness, and challenge that comes day in & out, makes me so grateful that I stepped through the doors for the first time almost two years ago!