Lockdown Member Of The Month – July 2021
Our July MOTM award goes to soon to be Dad – Lee Malone. Lee has been with us for coming up to 2 years, although half of that has been lockdown. Since the gym has re-opened he has gone from strength to strength.
He took part in his first competition – District L in June and absolutely smashed it, was a mega team player, looking after others when they needed it, and just had a great time without getting stressed at any point. In the gym his gymnastics and lifting has improved so much, he always takes coaching so well, and spends time working technique rather than just caring about adding more weight. He recently got his first Bar Muscle Up after spending time getting the basics on a band first, and then also progressed to ring muscle ups too.
Lee is always a pleasure to have in classes, he is coachable, supports others, and works hard. His nemesis is double unders, which used to cause him to get a little bit stroppy 😉 but he has worked on them too and now does a great job of staying calm when they come up! So lets find out a little bit more about his CrossFit journey so far…
M – How long have you been doing CrossFit?
LM – I joined M Squared in Jan 2020 for 5 weeks before lockdown kicked in! Since being 16 I’ve always trained in the gym, not CrossFit, just standard bodybuilding style training (legs one day, chest another etc). While we were renovating our house I got bored of this style of training and that’s when we started to do CrossFit workouts that we’d find online and eventually did the scaled open workouts from 2019. We got some strange looks bear crawling around pure gym!
M – What class time do you usually attend and why does that work for you?
LM – I’m normally on the 7:15am class, not quite sure what class I’ll be on once the baby arrives and I’m sleep deprived.
M – What is your why? Why do you put yourself through it each day? Do you have goals you want to achieve?
LM – At the moment I just want to be as fit and healthy as I can, to be a better me physically and mentally. As for goals, I’m currently focusing on improving strength so on top of classes I’ve been doing 2 open gyms a week where I am just lifting heavy.
M – What advice would you give anyone wanting to start CrossFit but is either unsure or nervous? We get people all the time saying they need to get fit first or they could never do what we do? Any advice for those people?
LM – Just go for it, we all start somewhere. I completely understand how it can seem intimidating looking on social media and seeing all of these fit people going full send and throwing big weights around but they had to start somewhere too. Like with everything in life, don’t compare yourself to anyone else, just focus on you and your own goals. (I got bit deep there didn’t I?).
M – What is your biggest achievement so far in CrossFit and what are you most proud of?
LM – Biggest achievement has got to be getting my first muscle up. From the frustration I’ve had trying to get the technique right class after class, to the absolute buzz I got from getting it a few months ago. Again shout out to Gage and Lance for their coaching and tips.
