Member Of The Month – September 2025
Our September MOTM award goes to the inspiring Paul O’Neill!
What a guy Paul is. Always such a kind, friendly, hardworking person, it’s about time he received this award. He always smashes every training session he does. He is incredible at all things cardio and stronger than he lets on too 😉 All of that aside, he’s actually pretty inspirational and sets the precedent for what you can achieve despite adversity. Paul is an ex professional footballer, and all his previous sporting endeavours led to him having pretty bad hips. He has needed a hip replacement for a few years, and his mobility was getting gradually worse but that didn’t stop him coming everyday to the 6am class, doing as many movements as he can, and changing and adjusting others with the guidance of the coaches. Never moaning, always having a sense of humour about it, and always doing his best and trying super hard, for those who don’t know he is the Assault bike king! He doesn’t have an ego, is always coachable, humble, and supportive of everyone else too. He had a hip replacement this year, and his approach to rehab, and getting back to fitness has been so admirable and we are all really proud of him! Seeing him finally able to squat below parallel is mega, and his other movements have improved loads too. He is evidence that you can still do fitness with injury and that needing things such as a hip replacement does not need to stop you. He is an absolute pleasure to have as part of the M Squared Fitness family and below he explains more about his CrossFit journey so far…
MÂ – How long have you been doing CrossFit?
PO – 2.5 years!
M– What class time do you usually attend and why does that work for you?
PO – 6am, I have two children, so it means I can get up, workout and be back home in time to get them ready and take them to school before heading off to work. The whole M Squared community are fantastic, but the 6am crew are a particularly awesome group. It’s really inspirational to see so many other people getting up out of bed and getting after it, so early in the morning.
M– What is your why? Why do you put yourself through it each day? Do you have goals you want to achieve?
PO – There are 3 main reasons:
- Stay fit, healthy, active and be a positive role model for my children who also come to CrossFit, plus I can still just about beat them in a WOD!Â
- Sense of achievement, competition and teamwork – I played sport at a fairly decent level and once I retired, I really missed that team environment and CrossFit has enabled me to experience that again
- Defying nature – naturally as we get older there’s a general societal acceptance that you won’t be able to perform physically to the level you did when you were younger. CrossFit allows you to challenge that assumption, by developing new skills and improving your all-round athleticism. There are so many incredible Masters athletes at the gym, but that said, I doubt I or any of them will ever be as ‘athletic’ as Lance….although to be fair he is incredibly humble about his phenomenal physical capabilities…..
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?
PO – I wanted to start CrossFit two years before I actually started, but didn’t because I was carrying a long-term injury and thought I wouldn’t be able to do it.
When I finally decided to give it a try I couldn’t believe how supportive the coaches  and members were, how adaptable the sessions were to meet me where I was at physically and how much I regretted not taking the decision to just show up two years earlier. I had the hip replacement surgery that I was waiting for six months ago and if it wasn’t for doing CrossFit both leading up to and post the operation, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am now physically and mentally.
M What is your biggest achievement so far in CrossFit and what are you most proud of?
PO – Finally being able to squat below parallel. I spend the first two years as M Squared’s serial “no-repper” due to my limited mobility! A huge thanks to all the coaches for being so supportive, but in particular Emma Gage for answering my scaling related questions every single session for the last 2.5 years and Emma Hill for being a brilliant physio and putting together an incredible rehab programme to get me back to my best.
M – Paul you are amazing. So proud of you! Thanks for this ace blog.
