It has long been a goal of mine to have my own facility to be able to help people in their pursuit of health and fitness. Michelle has been in medicine for many years and loves many different forms of exercise, which is what attracted her to CrossFit. It seemed natural for us to combine our passion and knowledge and create an environment from where people could become the best version of themselves and not have to rely on the health care system as they get older. Ultimately, our goal is to help you become better at life.
I first started working out when I was about 14 years old. Up until that point I had always played lots of different sports; football (soccer), athletics (track & field), cricket etc. and represented my school in pretty much all of them. When I was about 14 a friend of mine started going to a local gym. It was called ‘Muscle Mania’ with a slogan not for the faint hearted. It was a hardcore bodybuilding gym. It was pretty rough and very intimidating as a young lad. Most evenings it would be packed with huge guys, all lifting crazy amounts of weight – with their shirts off of course so you could see the pump!! I loved the vibe and fell in love with training pretty quickly. After becoming friends with the owners, I ended up working there after school behind the front desk.
After leaving school I tried a couple of good jobs that I just didn’t enjoy, I decided it was my calling to join the military. I didn’t tell my parents at first and went down to the local military careers office to get signed up. I had no clue about all the different branches so I took their advice and ended up joining the Royal Mechanical & Electrical Engineers in the British Army. This was not what I was looking for at all. After about 18 months of classroom work, earning a diploma in electrical engineering, I managed to leave and join the Royal Marines Commandos. They are part of the Royal Navy and are a part of the Britsh Elite fighting force. This was exactly what I wanted to do.
The initial training package to become a Commando is one of the longest most gruelling of any military in the world. A mentally and physically tough 32 weeks is what you must complete in order to be awarded the coveted Green Beret. After finishing this training you move onto your first unit. I quickly established myself as a more senior Marine and was promoted as a result. This came with the responsibility of keeping my troop fit for service. I would often design and organize our physical training sessions. At this point I had discovered CrossFit and would use this approach for our ‘troop phys’. After various deployments I had become unhappy that I couldn’t commit more time to training. I remember trying to snatch whilst aboard a ship, not easy when hitting the waves. I wanted to get good at CrossFit and see how far I could go.
I left the Marines in Dec 2014 and moved to Kuwait in January. This is where I first started coaching and training full time. I had been coaching at my local gym for a while whilst I had still been serving, but only at weekends and when I had time off. There was a lot of challenges coaching in the Middle East, particularly cultural. Overall, it was a good experience and allowed me the time to train hard and gain knowledge through online courses and attending seminars. I quickly focused on the goal of getting to the CrossFit Regionals after the Open in 2015. I fell short in 2016 in a tough region due to the small allocation of qualifying spots (and not being good enough of course).
Later that year I moved to Canada to have a change of environment and continue my coaching career. I have focused most of the time here trying to qualify for the Regionals. 2017 was better than 2016, and 2018 was even better again. Ultimately I still fell short which has been very frustrating. I’ve been unable to fully understand why I haven’t managed to achieve this goal. I believe I’m good enough but I think execution in some workouts has let me down along the way. I decided that I couldn’t put all my efforts into one goal anymore which has led me to this point. Competing has been great and I’ve managed to qualify for a couple of good competitions along the way; Dubai Fitness Championships 2015 and Wodapolooza 2017 and 2018, but it’s now time to create something bigger than myself and share my knowledge.
Defy Functional Fitness is now my main focus and we are going to create a seriously awesome gym. I cannot wait to share what I know and do things the way I feel are best for my members and my coaches. The goal of qualifying for Regionals hasn’t disappeared but I will have to see how I can manage being a business owner and training for the Open. I’m not sure how that will work out but I will give it my best effort.
The beginning of a new chapter is exciting and is as unpredictable as the events are in the 2019 Open.
Thanks for reading.
Darren