Bootcamp to crossfit – shailagh’s story

In this episode of The Breathe CrossFit Podcast, Shailagh shares with you her journey and what it’s like being a member at Breathe.

We hope you enjoy hearing Shailagh’s story on The Breathe CrossFit Podcast and if you do, please leave us a 5-star review.

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The full transcript is below.

“All right. Take eight. Welcome to the Breathe CrossFit Podcast. My name is Eli Roy. I’m going to be your host. This is episode seven and we have Shailagh Epps, who is our December member of the month. Shailagh, do you want to introduce yourself?”

“Sure. My name is Shailagh. I’ve been a member of Breathe for about five years. I am a paramedic clinical manager. I’ve been there for about 20 years which is weird, because I’m still 23 years old…”

“Beautiful, this is our eight take cause I’ve screwed up a few times, so all right, we’re gonna get right into it. So Shailagh, what brought you to Breathe in the first place?”

“One of my friends was a previous coach here and she had been at Breathe for, I’d say a few years, and I was coming off of an ACL injury and I had surgery. And I was looking to get back into getting stronger and still working on my injury. And she was like, “Well, come up here. I coach up here. So we can start you off slow and we can work your way up.” So that’s what I did.”

“Nice. And so you live in Methuen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s a little bit of a drive for you to get here.”

“Yeah.”

“So what what made you decide to come here rather than going to a gym that was more local to you?”

“So mainly it was Leah was here. So when I started coming up here for her, and did the classes, she ended up eventually leaving, but I still like the gym and I liked boot camp. I thought I was getting a lot out of it and the people once you get comfortable somewhere, it’s just not easy to change. So, and it’s actually not that bad of a ride, it takes about 15, 20 minutes.”

“I was always thinking it was like 30 minutes.”

“Well, 85 on the highway.”

“Hopefully no cops are listening. Shailagh’s a speeder…All right, so what was your experience like when you were doing boot camp when you first started out?”

“Well, at first I thought I was gonna die every day because it’s really intense and I don’t think you realize it at first, how intense it is, but when I got over that, I think my stamina got better. So every week that I came, I got a little bit better. I got better with the movements. And I think for me, being very nervous to start, an organized gym and CrossFit definitely intimidated me because you hear all these bad things, they say about CrossFit, which Breathe is nothing like anything I’ve ever heard, you know? So, coming from EMS, there’s a lot of people like firefighters, police, and EMS who do CrossFit. There’s tons of people that do CrossFit. They talk about it a lot.”

“So what made you want to start with boot camp instead of just jumping right in the CrossFit?”

“I was nervous mainly. I had a knee injury. I was coming off a surgery. I was just wasn’t sure, like what I thought of it, I was nervous about using a barbell. I was nervous about putting weight over my head.”

“How did you get injured?”

“On a call. I was moving a patient. I got injured.”

“That’s not good. All right, so continue with what you were saying?”

“I was just nervous about it and Leah had said to me, “You know, we use dumbbells, you can do it at your own pace, you can use whatever weight you really want, you can start really light and I remember now going back, I was probably starting with ten pound dumbbells doing like snatches and stuff like that. Now, I can sling up a 45 pound dumbbells.”

“And now you do competitions and stuff!”

“Yeah, so it’s different, but I feel like I really have progressed since I transitioned over to CrossFit.”

“What is it like going from a bootcamp into CrossFit? And you kind of started that transition with Barbell Club, which is something that we don’t have anymore, but you went from Bootcamp to Barbell Club, and then from Barbell Club into CrossFit.”

“Going into Barbell Club, I was nervous about that too, but Sharon was like, “Try it, you’re gonna like it. I think you’re gonna be good at it!” For me, it was awesome to learn the barbell and it was a smaller group and you’re not moving as fast. You have time to work on your technique and things like that. And for me that being one of the big anxieties for me, I thought it worked out well. Instead of kind of going to a class and being expected to like throw up this barbell and have your technique down. So I liked it a lot.”

“Right. And it kind of gives you that smaller group where you can get a little more individual attention rather than like if you’re in a class with 15 people, you might not get that as in depth coaching. So with Bootcamp, that was where you kind of learned the conditioning part of all the machines and dumbbell movements and then Barbell Club you learned all the different barbell movements. And then from there you transitioned into CrossFit. So how was that transition to go from Bootcamp and BarBell Club into CrossFit?”

“I thought it was probably easier the way that I did it versus just jumping in because I had a better idea of the movements so it was easier for me when you get into the Metcons to know what I was doing. You kind of understand, how to move your body and what the workout should feel like and stuff.”

“So what’s your favorite part about CrossFit and coming to Breathe?”

“I guess both of them is the community because even during the competitions that we’ve had here, we’ve had other CrossFit gyms come, and I feel like they have their community, and it’s similar, so I think that’s a CrossFit thing and then the community at Breathe, obviously. Everyone gets along really well, we joke around, there’s always conversation before and after class. So, I feel like that’s why I like Breathe. I mean, could decide at any point now to go to another CrossFit gym closer to me, but there’s a reason I keep coming back here.”

“You’ve made a lot of friends doing CrossFit, like Laurie, Krystal, Karen, you got a whole crew now! Elaina, all of them! What made you feel comfortable with coming in and talking to anyone in class? Because even new people you’re good about going up to and saying hi to and talking to.”

“So honestly, that was from starting my career in EMS. When I first started I was fairly young, and I was the wallflower, it took me a lot. When you’re in a situation like that, you almost can’t be, right? It forces you because you have to make contact. You have to go into situations that are constantly changing. I started off and I was very shy. I’ve been shy my whole life and then I guess from doing that job and meeting new people constantly all day long, and being in situations that are tough and that you have to manage made me this way. I don’t like that silence so I feel like I was that person before that’s come into a room and everyone kind of get quiet because you’re the new person and I just don’t like when people have to feel that way, you wanna make them feel comfortable.”

“You’ve participated in a couple of our nutrition challenges and you’ve also been continuing to work on your nutrition independently. What have you learned and what are some of your biggest struggles with nutrition?”

“I’ve learned that there’s more to your nutrition and your weight than what the number on the scale is and that’s a huge thing, by doing the InBody and watching the numbers move just because the scale says the same thing, your water weight is different, your muscle mass is different, your body fat percentage. For me, that was a huge thing, learning that. I learned for me specifically that I have to track if I want to make sure I’m getting my protein in and stuff like that. So for me, that’s important, but I have to take breaks from it too, because I get burnt out from it.”

“What would you say your biggest struggle with nutrition would be?”

“Getting back into tracking after taking a break. Even though I know I need to take the break, getting back into it, is a struggle.”

“Do you feel like you struggle more around the holidays?”

“No, I think for me because I try to be social and I try to go out a lot, I always have that, a lot of people during the holidays are like, “oh, I go to parties and I do this and I have some drinks” and I sort of live my life that way. So I’ll add in a margarita for my calories, but it’s not like I’m doing that every single day and I’m not gonna do it every single weekend, but, I’ll also look at what I get when I am going out to eat. It’s like you just don’t go a thousand percent on the nachos every single time you go out, you try to choose. That is kind of something that you can train just like anything else. Like if you only go to parties and hang out with the family and do social things during the holidays, you probably are gonna go pretty hard on the food and the drinks and stuff, but if you do that regularly and you can learn to manage it appropriately and just like if you go out and only have a couple of drinks and small portion or something that’s heavier in protein than something like a pizza, then you can make some good progress and still stay balanced and still have fun and lose weight at the same time.”

“Last question. Are you excited for the box brawl?”

“I am.”

“This is gonna be your third box brawl?”

“I think so, yeah. We got our team, we’re trying to pick a team name.”

“Do you wanna release the names of your team members?”

“Laurie, Monique, and Karen.”

“Oh, good team.”

“Do you want a little hint as to what one of the workouts is gonna be? Because we have one completely nailed down. Actually, I think I can tell two of them. Our third workout is gonna be a three minute amrap of max calories on the assault bike and wall balls, synchro wall balls. So two athletes will be on assault bikes, going for max calories, two athletes will be doing synchro wall balls for max reps of the wall balls. You can switch it any time, but it’s most calories and reps in three minutes. It’s gonna be a brutal one. That was originally gonna be the floater but we decided to just make it a workout. And then the last workout, so workout four, I won’t release workout one and two yet because it’s still up for debate, the workout is called “Heavy Hitters” and it’s for a team total on a 20 minute time cap, each athlete must establish their heaviest lift from the following options. So this would just be an example. So Male RX doing clean and jerk, Male RX doing deadlift, Male scaled doing snatch, and then male scaled doing a thruster.”

“Can you pick which one you wanna do, or do you have to keep doing that one?”

“Everyone has to do one of those. But the tough part is you only get one barbell. For anyone who doesn’t know what the Box Brawl is, we’re doing a four person team competition, same sex teams, two RX, two scaled and it’s gonna be four events, it’s gonna be February 1st.”

“I honestly say, even doing Festivus, it’s tough in the moment, but afterwards you’re like, “oh, I did that!” We have a good time.”

“100%. All right, well, that’s all we got.”

“Shailagh, any final comments?”

“No.”

“All right, awesome. Well, there is Shailagh, episode seven with member of the month. Thank you, bye-bye.”