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Ben Knorr: Cleaning Out the Closet

The weight crept up on Ben Knorr like a horror-movie jump scare.

“Like when your other set of clothes that are your heavier clothes, all of a sudden they start fitting,” he said.

It hadn’t always been this way. He used to run on the treadmill or swim laps at the globo gym. But as time wore on, he stopped pushing himself. A few workouts a week turned into one—which turned into once every few weeks.

At the same time, work had gotten stressful. He’d be on the road, sometimes for weeks at a time, and his tally of high-carb convenience meals climbed with his frequent-flyer miles. And when he did get a chance to spend time at home with his two young children, he felt more like a spectator than an active participant.

“It impacts your energy and it impacts your mood because you’re not happy,” Ben said of the extra weight. “And you’re not dealing with stress as [well] and so it kind of snowballs, and you can’t do the things that you want to do with your kids because you’re not in the mood or you’re stressed out or you just don’t have any energy.”

He considered his options. He could go back to the treadmill, but he knew he’d soon fall back into the habit of just going through the motions. Or he could try swimming again. That had worked great for a few years.

“But after a while, I got sick of looking at the bottom of the pool,” he recalled.

Then he remembered some work friends recommending this thing called CrossFit. Ben had scoffed at the time, dismissing it as crazy. But as he tugged at his now form-fitting “big” clothes, he thought maybe a little craziness was in order.

“I just needed something to kick my ass. … And so I thought CrossFit might be that,” he said.

Ben walked into CrossFit St. Paul for his first workout about three years ago.

“It was like loud music and people with their shirts off doing fitness things,” he remembered. “It was a little intimidating the first time I went.”

Ben’s first workout involved rowing, sit-ups, burpees and lunges. He can’t recall the details, but “I remember it hurting,” he said, laughing. “It definitely got my heart rate up and I was sore afterwards.”

As he moved through his level one classes, Ben learned just how much fitness he’d lost. He couldn’t do more than a pull-up or two and wall-balls left him winded.

Still, CrossFit offered everything his solo workouts had lacked—variety, instruction and accountability.

“This could actually go somewhere and be what I’m looking for,” he thought. “I liked the group setting … like working out on your own, you never really push yourself. But then if you’re suffering and you see somebody else there that’s doing the same thing. You’re like, ‘Well, if they can do it, I can do it.’”

It helped that the gains came fast.

Two pull-ups became five. Chin-over-bar pull-ups became chest-to-bar pull-ups. A month in he’d lost 15 lb. and was lifting more than he’d done in college. After just a few months, his mile pace dropped by a minute.

Progress came even faster once he cleaned up his diet during a nutrition challenge a few months into his CrossFit journey.

“The pull-up bar doesn’t lie,” he noted.

He lost 10 more pounds during the challenge and kept the habits after it was over. Instead of hitting up the restaurants or take-out when he travels for work, now, the first stop after the plane lands is the local grocery store.

“Getting the right things so that you don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re like starving … and then you get to that point where you make bad decisions,” he said.

If he can’t drop in at a nearby CrossFit gym, he’ll do a travel workout in the hotel gym (50 dumbbell clusters with 4 burpees at the top of every minute will do the trick, he assures you).

Today, Ben is 30 lb. lighter than when he first started CrossFit, can do Murph as prescribed and is working toward a muscle-up. But even better are the improvements his fitness has made to his life outside the gym.

“I have more energy,” he said. “I’m more present with my family. I just feel better about myself.”

Not only that, but now he’s always up for rousing game of “Blast Off” with his kids.

“Basically me push pressing them up over my head so they can touch the ceiling,” he explained. “No way I could do that before CrossFit.”

And as for what’s hanging in his closet now?

“Let’s just say I’ve thrown away a lot of clothes in the past year and a half,” Ben said. “Things that I don’t plan to miss anytime soon.”

 

‘Till Death By Burpees

As John Clarno lay in bed, he struggled to breathe. 

Each breath felt deliberate and shallow, like something was preventing him from getting enough air.

“It was the extra weight hanging off me that wasn’t there before,” he said. 

He wasn’t accustomed to having to work to breathe. After all, John had been an athlete most of his life, playing soccer and football as a kid and then rugby from high school all the way through college and after.

The problem was that even though he stopped playing rugby after getting married in 2012, he kept eating like a rugby player. Like a rugby player who loved pizza, beer and nachos. 

“My favorite cheat on like a Friday or Saturday was to get that nasty canned nacho cheese that’s in the pull-tab can and a bag of Doritos and sit and eat the whole thing of nacho cheese, to the point of cleaning the can,” he said.

But when the nachos started showing up in the mirror, he knew he needed to change. 

“That was the biggest (thing) for me,” he said. “I had always been a fit person and seeing the weight add up in the mirror … I was starting to get depressed and not happy with myself.”

John’s wife, Jenny, was also craving change.

Though she’d never been athletic, preferring reading to running, she’d been on a diet for as long as she could remember. Even after recovering from her battle with bulimia in college, she still had a disordered relationship with food. 

“I didn’t understand food as a way to fuel your activities and your goals,” she said. “It was a like a necessary evil.” 

But after encountering a Facebook group that empowered women to lift weights and build strength, she began to look at health and fitness in a new light. 

“That really interested me because I had always been on a diet and only ever exercised to lose weight, so the idea that there is a different goal was pretty exciting to me,” she said. 

So the couple decided to get in shape. 

Together, they trained at a local rec center, following an online program Jenny found in her Facebook group. It didn’t take long for them to realize they wanted more. 

John recalled his rugby training back in 2009—for six months, the team had trained with CrossFit. So he looked up CrossFit Minneapolis and suggested they give it a shot. 

The suggestion terrified Jenny.

She was even more terrified when she walked into CrossFit Minneapolis in 2016 and saw a roomful of muscled women lifting weights that were definitely heavy and definitely not pink.

“I was terrified, but also stoked,” she said. “Because suddenly you’re surrounded by women that have totally different goals than I’ve ever seen, and I was like, ‘Oh wow! This is so cool!’”

While Jenny was experiencing equal parts excitement and fear, John was getting a sample of humble pie in his intro session with coach Sara Krych.

“I was the big, strong rugby player for 15 years, and I was scared out of my pants by Sara,” he joked. 

In his rugby days, John could back squat 300 lb. Now, he couldn’t even break 200.

“I was just completely blown away,” he said. “Like, I had just expected I could walk in and squat 350 without even thinking about it. All of my strength was gone now.”

Despite their trepidations and insecurities, the Clarnos were eager to learn, training three to four days per week in the infamous 6-a.m. class at CrossFit Minneapolis. 

Though John desperately wanted to be part of the “Rx club,” he wanted to get his fitness back more—so he listened to his coaches and scaled appropriately.

And Jenny quickly realized that it didn’t matter how much she could or couldn’t lift or that she’d never played sports in her life—the coaches had her back.

“No matter what the workout, the coaches figure out a way that you can do the workout and feel successful,” she said. “It was a really rare occasion when I left feeling frustrated; I almost always left feeling really, really good—even if I was terrified beforehand.”

The progress came quickly, and for the Clarnos, CrossFit rapidly become more than a workout program—it became a way to celebrate and support one another as they shared their PRs on the car ride home, congratulating each other on a job well done. 

It became a shared source of joy and excitement as they eagerly refreshed the website each morning to see what the day’s workout entailed. 

It became fun. 

“CrossFit taught me that I can make friends as an adult,” John said. “My whole life I was like, you get the friends from grade school, middle school, high school, college and that’s it. You don’t get to make any more friends.” 

But after a few months at CrossFit Minneapolis, he recalled walking over to his wide and realizing, “These people are our friends. I didn’t know you could make friends as an adult—this is awesome!”

A few months after starting CrossFit, John and Jenny took the next step of their CrossFit journeys: they joined a gym nutrition challenge.

For the first time in her life, Jenny had a reason other than pants size to think about her nutrition. 

“CrossFit really woke me up to (the notion that) you have to eat good food if you want to get better (in the gym),” she said. 

The couple tossed out the frozen pizzas and replaced them with meat and veggies. When it came time to retest biometrics after the challenge, Jenny had a whole new perspective on numbers. 

“On paper I didn’t lose a lot of pounds, but I gained body composition, and coming from a eating-disorder background, being on the scale can be poisonous; I stay away from the scale. So to see something where the weight didn’t change a lot but my health changed significantly, that was also really reassuring for me.” 

Today, John’s reclaimed his 300-lb. back squat and then some—and he sleeps easier at night. Jenny can squat to full depth and recently ran her first nonstop mile. They even convinced Jenny’s grandmother to start CrossFit out in Sioux Falls, South Dakota—the 70-year-old recently hit a 130-lb. deadlift. 

Best of all, the Clarnos say sharing those 6-a.m. swole seshs have brought them closer together than ever. 

“I feel like CrossFit was the best marriage counseling ever,” Jenny said. 

She recalled an encouraging kiss from John before a tough workout involving multiple 400-m runs, her Achilles’ heel. 

“I was about to cry because I was so scared and John came over in front of a whole crowd and hugged me and kissed me,” she said. “It was so cool to realize how much he supported me. … I think we just learned a lot about each other because we’re in the same class and we’re doing it three to five times a week together.”

“My favorite thing to do is watch Jenny lift,” John added. “She’s the love of my life.” 

As for the future, John’s hoping to convince his wife to join him at the upcoming Game Day competition this fall. Other than that, their goals are simple. 

“My grandparents are starting to get older and have less capabilities and mobility,” John said, “and seeing that just kind of reiterates that we’re doing the right thing, and we’re going to keep doing this thing and keep getting stronger and fitter and eating as healthy as we can and living, but still having fun.”

A couple months ago, Holly Blake ran a mile without stopping.

“That was the first time in a long time that the mile felt really good,” she said. “I didn’t have to take a break, I didn’t feel like I had to walk at all.”

Of course, she gets plenty of practice chasing her three young children around; she’s the mother of a 5-and-a-half-year-old (Aela), a 3-and-a-half-year-old (Orrin) and the 8-month-year-old Anders.

She’s also been a member of CrossFit St. Paul for almost seven years, and she says doing CrossFit has been great for both pregnancy and motherhood.

“It’s for sure something that’s been really good for everybody in the family,” she said.

Holly and her husband, Anthony, started CrossFit in the summer of 2012. At the time, they’d been living with CrossFit Minneapolis/St. Paul members Ryan and Molly Lake, who encouraged them to give it a try.

“We were like, ‘You guys come home sore and like you’re gonna throw up—no thanks,’” Holly recalled, laughing.

But in reality, Holly and Anthony were tired of the globo gym.

“We didn’t know what to do when we were there,” she said of their previous attempts to get fit. “We’d just putz around on the treadmill; it was just dumb.”

So they gave in and gave CrossFit a shot.

“It was great,” Holly said. “Right away our bodies felt challenged, and you could just tell that it was gonna be a different workout regimen than we’d ever done before. We really liked it.”

Six months later, Holly became pregnant with their first child, Aela. While some CrossFit critics question training while expecting, Holly knew the gym was exactly where she needed to be.

“I think what was really good is we got probably in the best shape of our lives right before I got pregnant,” she said.

She consulted her midwife.

“‘Listen to your body,’” Holly quoted her. “‘If you’re comfortable lifting that much weight, lift that much weight. If it feels weird, just back down.’’

And that’s exactly what she did.

If the weight felt heavy, she lightened the load, and as her belly grew, she modified movements appropriately. Box jumps became box step-ups. She stopped going inverted. She did squat thrusts instead of full burpees.

She even did a modified version of the Dirty Thirty.

“I felt good,” she said. “I never felt like I was endangering myself or the baby. … Sometimes I didn’t even (feel) like I was pregnant.”

When it came time to welcome Aela into the world—after 26 hours of labor—Holly was grateful for her increased fitness.

“I definitely chalk up being able to last that long in labor pains to just one super-long CrossFit workout,” she said.

But fitness is a lifelong journey, and it’s not a straight path.

After undergoing a C-section with Aela, Holly was forced to take a hiatus from training. Not long after returning to the gym about a year later, she became pregnant with their second child, Orrin.

As any mother will testify, training while pregnant is all about knowing your body. This time, since it had been several months since she’d done CrossFit, Holly abstained from training during pregnancy.

With two beautiful, healthy children, Holly and Anthony were happy. But they were also tired. Very tired. 

“We were stressed, tired—all the things with having a baby,” Holly said. “Everything spiraled. We were eating like crap, and we gained a ton of weight.”

A glance at a family photo album was all the motivation they needed to return to the gym.

“We were like, ‘Whoa, we need to get back into the gym,’” she continued. “And we knew CrossFit was the only thing that would really work for us.”

It wasn’t always easy—physically or mentally. Holly sometimes struggled to lift weights that had once seemed light.

Still, she committed to her fitness, scheduling her three workouts per week into her calendar just like a work meeting.

“I literally put it in my schedule … otherwise it’d be too easy to not go,” she said.

With young children at home, no one would have blamed her if she’d decided to skip the gym. But Holly said setting aside time to work on herself ultimately benefits the whole family.

“I feel like we just have more energy,” she said. “When you’ve got more energy, you’re happier; you’ve got a little bit more patience with your kids, you’re not so tired all the time.”

CrossFit class, she said, is one of the few times she and Anthony get to enjoy some childless activity together. But the kids are still often nearby, watching their parents get fitter while they play in childcare.

“Aela loves it,” Holly said. “She sees me working out, and that’s a big thing for me, for her to see me doing stuff. I think it’s great for her to see I can do it, too, it’s not just Dad who can lift a lot of weight.”

The Blakes now have a third child, Anders, who’s just shy of a year old. Holly continued to CrossFit until the last month of the pregnancy—and if you attend the 11:00-a.m. class today, you just might find her working out alongside you, continuing to prioritize her own fitness for the sake of her family.

“With Anthony, we just thought about our long-term health,” she said. “We want to be there for our kids and be able to play with them and get down on the ground with them and that kind of stuff. We look at it as a long-term thing, and we make time.”

Anybody who’s intimidated by CrossFit should meet Tony Kieffer.

He’s the kind of guy who, when you meet him at a coffee shop to do an interview, will slyly pay for your coffee. 

And at the gym, Tony’s the kind of guy who’ll share a barbell with you even if you’re lifting half what he is. He’ll empathize with your front-rack struggles and share a cue that worked for him in the past. If you’re not watchful, he’ll pick up your weights for you after the workout is over, too. 

He’s also got some fitness. At 38 years old, the guy can clean and jerk his body weight, and he’s the proud owner of both bar and ring muscle-ups. 

“Those were huge,” he said. “And it took a lot of work, a lot of coaching and a lot of tips from other athletes—everybody together.”

He wasn’t always fit. When Tony did his first CrossFit workout, a slightly modified version of Cindy, he couldn’t squat below parallel or do a single pull-up. 

“I did ring rows, and I broke up my ring rows because I couldn’t do 5,” he recalled. 

Previously, he’d been working out at a typical globo gym. 

“I think I was using a Smith machine to squat—which is embarrassing—and I was really impressed because I put two tens on the bar on either side,” he joked.

But he found the atmosphere boring—“the TV’s on, everybody’s got headphones in”—and he never seemed to get fitter. 

“It was mind-numbing and boring, and I’d sit there for an hour and a half and I would not get stronger; I would not get faster,” he said. 

But where the globo gym lacked community and structure, CrossFit offered both. He first joined CrossFit Charlottesville in Virginia, where he lived at the time, in 2011. 

“Since then it’s been my way of meeting people in just about every city I’ve been to,” he said.

And when he came to CrossFit Minneapolis in 2012, he knew he’d found a community he could call home. 

“The cool thing about the Minneapolis community … is there’s a certain mentality; they’re looking to get better, they’re ambitious, they’re interested in trying new things and thinking about things in new ways,” he said. “Those are the kinds of (people) I enjoy being around, so to find that kind of like-minded community is really cool.” 

Part of that like-mindedness is an attitude of celebration, Tony said. He recalled seeing a new athlete hit a PR while classmates rallied around him, cheering as loudly for his 100-lb. squat as they would for an elite athlete squatting 500. 

“It shows what the community is about,” Tony said. “To celebrate that, I think, brings people together. Even if you’ve been doing (CrossFit) for a while … you get to be more appreciative of the effort it takes to get there. You know the process.”

He’s been on the receiving end of that support countless times, from his first pull-up to his first muscle-up to the time he clean and jerked his body weight in Oly class a few years ago.

But you’re even more likely to find him on the side of the platform, cheering on someone else.

“He doesn’t just participate,” said coach Sara Krych. “He is always happy to share a platform with anyone, regardless of their ability, offering encouragement along with some coaching cues he’s picked up along the way. Tony’s exemplary spirit of generosity and humility have made him a valued member of our community, and it’s been a privilege to coach him over the past six and a half years.”

Tony shrugs off such compliments.

“At this point in my career, it’s cool to see other people hit those PRs and make those milestones that you’ve hit than for you to hit that 300-lb. back squat,” he said. 

So if you’re afraid to try CrossFit or you know someone who is, just bring them to an evening class at CrossFit Minneapolis and introduce him or her to Tony.

“This community is really good at celebrating small achievements,” he said. “That’s the kind of stuff that keeps you coming back.” 

Did you know that our very own Julia Hesse-Moline was Minnesota’s first female collegiate wrestler to get injured on the mat? 

“It’s my one claim to fame,” the 43-year-old said, laughing. 

Despite the fact that she’d never been athletic while growing up—apart from running and being “squirrely,” she said—she joined the University of Minnesota Morris’ first female wrestling team when she attended in the ‘90s. 

“I thought that would be super badass and totally feminist,” she said. “You didn’t have to try out for the team; they were just desperate for anybody. So I did it, and I was terrible. I broke my arm, I was so bad.”

That was the end of Julia’s competitive athletic experience. Until she signed up for the 2019 Reebok CrossFit Games Open. 

***

Though Julia abandoned traditional athletics long ago, she’d always enjoyed working out: Zumba classes at the local YMCA or bench pressing with her best friend. 

“Now that I know how to do a bench press, you kind of hang your head, like, ‘What were we doing?’” she said, laughing. 

But even while training at the local globo gym, Julia began noticing people get fit. Seriously fit. 

“One time I was working out at LA Fitness and there was this woman there, and she was so strong and she was so beautiful and she looked really friendly, and I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And she was like, ‘I work out at CrossFit St. Paul; you should come and see,’” Julia recalled. “Her encouragement and her friendliness made me feel like maybe I can walk through the door; maybe these people won’t just eat me alive.”

Still, it was nerve-wracking. Weightlifting was intimidating, she said, as was CrossFit’s reputation for being competitive—definitely not Julia’s jam. 

But her fears were quickly assuaged after her first on-ramp class by “the initial warmness and how friendly everybody is. … And just seeing people having a good time,” she said. 

Even if it was “a couple months before I felt like people were speaking English,” she joked. 

Julia’s fitness improved quickly. Back in college, benching 100 lb. was a lifetime achievement; today, she benches 123 and can climb to the top of the 15-foot rope. 

“I think I’m a more satisfied athlete,” she said. “I will go for a workout and leave feeling tired and accomplished and my mind is settled, versus going to the Y and going to Zumba and having a lot of fun, but not feeling that sense of fatigue or accomplishment.”

She also hopes to set an example for her two kids, Helena (11) and Axel (8), teaching them that “there’s a million ways to be athletic—you don’t just have to play varsity soccer for that to count.” 

***

Despite her aversion to competition, on Monday, February 25, Julia found herself clutching a medicine ball and facing the wall for the start of Open Workout 19.1: a 15-minute AMRAP of 19 wall-ball shots and a 19-calorie row. 

“Danita asked me to; it was peer pressure!” she joked. 

But to her surprise, the competition didn’t feel like a competition. Throwing down in open gym alongside a few other buddies from the regular 9-a.m. class felt more like a party, she said. 

“I love our gym because of the social piece,” she added. “My goal was to just show up to the party, have some fun with my friends, and then leave feeling better.” 

Not only did she do that, but she surprised herself as well. Though she typically opts for the 10-lb. ball in wall-ball workouts, for the Open, she went Rx—and made it through more than five rounds before the time was out. 

“Granted, the height is lower, but I was like, ‘OK, maybe I need to start always doing 14. And that’s an improvement.” 

A week later, she did more than three rounds of hanging knee raises, single-unders and cleans in Open Workout 19.2. And even if 19.1 was the only workout she’ll be able to do as prescribed this year, she says she’s glad she participated. 

“I’m happy to put myself out there now,” she said. “Just to do something different and stretch myself a little bit.”

“I just really love the community and the fun of it,” she added. “Maybe a lot of the world doesn’t think this is fun—writhing on the floor, gasping like a fish out of water because you just worked so hard. I’m like, ‘How can you not think this is fun?’ It’s amazing, it’s such a good time.”