Sean - Bio2

Sean O'Deay

  • CrossFit Level 1 Certification
  • CrossFit Football Certification
  • USAW Weightlifting Certification
  • Teacher, Physical Education, grades K-12

I had always been an active kid growing up. I played football, baseball and was really into mountain biking in high school. I played colligate football for 3 years as an offensive lineman. In my first season I weighed about 240 lbs.

Over the next three years, a combination of poor nutritional choices and thinking I needed to be as big as possible, I had grown to between 290 and 300 lbs. I learned after I was done playing football that I could not run a mile without extreme discomfort and felt out-of-shape and unhealthy.

So my solution? Cut my calorie intake in half and stay on the elliptical for an hour, sometimes even longer, six days a week. I didn’t really lift much weight for about a year, and when I did, I never lifted heavy.

After 10 months I weighed 200 lbs and I felt like I was dying and looked like it. Not to mention, I had lost every bit of athleticism that I once possessed. So once again I didn’t feel healthy and so my solution was to get into power-lifting. I took all the supplements I could find, and lifted like a man possessed, for a year. I gained 45-50 lbs, I was bigger and stronger again, but I had lost my cardio abilities and still didn’t feel athletic.

I discovered CrossFit in 2008 when I read an article about it in Muscle and Fitness Magazine. The next day I tried “Murph” for the first time, which is 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 air squats sandwiched between two one mile runs. After an hour in, and just starting my second mile run, I thought to myself, “Wow, I hate this!”

My hate for CrossFit turned into a passion, obsession, and drive to not only become the best CrossFitter I can be, but to help others discover their potential, and to push themselves beyond where they thought they could go with their personal fitness. CrossFit has changed my life and reawakened my competitive spirit. So now after 30, I am in the best well-rounded condition I have ever been in and I feel younger than I did at 25.

CrossFit has helped me to regain my competitive edge, and become truly fit for the first time in my life.