With the 2012 Games coming to a close the excitement continues to roll! We are very excited to announce the newest athlete to join the Rx Team, Karissa Rempel. There are athletes with a lot of potential, and then there is Karissa. She is in a class of her own. At 15 years old she is poised to absolutely tear up the competitive #CrossFit scene for years to come. At this year’s Canada West Regionals Karissa finished 13th; moving up from 31st in the Open. With incredible support from her parents Dave and Nicky Rempel, remarkable athletic ability and a determined attitude, Karissa is going to do some amazing things. Here is a little bit more about Karissa:
I was a competitive gymnast for 6 years and had been involved in gymnastics since I was 3. In January 2011 I pulled my hamstring and rather than healing, it continued to get worse each day. So in March I decided to take a month off and just let it heal.
While this was going on, my Dad had just started CrossFit and had decided to participate in the Open just for fun. None of us knew much about CrossFit at the time. My dad suggested that I join him and thought that it would be perfect since I could modify the workouts to accommodate my injury.
A month later my hamstring had healed and I was ready to go back to gymnastics. My gymnastics training required 20+ hours a week which wasn’t going to leave me with any time for CrossFit. After 2 weeks back at gymnastics I decided CrossFit was what I wanted to be doing. I talked to my parents about making the switch and they were very supportive… I started back at the CrossFit gym right away.
Gymnastics has given me a big advantage in CrossFit. It taught me a lot about discipline and many of the skills are quite similar. I have been doing CrossFit for 15 months now; First training about 4 hours a week and soon progressing to about 8 hours a week. In November 2011 I participated in a local throw-down at a box in our community and won 1st place! Next was the open where I finished 31st in Western Canada followed by the Regionals where I improved to 13th. Recently I started working with CJ Martin of @CFInvictus who has come along side my trainers at @VO2MaxGP, helping to develop programming specific to the goals I want to achieve. All of the trainers at my box, including Brett Shillington and Janine Walinski are amazing! They are great at encouraging and helping me with this new program. I really enjoy having a program tailor made for me and working with the trainers who started me off on my CrossFit journey.
I haven’t done any competing since the Canada West Regionals because of school and it was nice to take it easy after Regionals. I definitely plan on going to throw-downs around my area this summer and love going to new boxes and meeting new people. I plan on taking most of my schooling at home next year for grade 10 so that I can really concentrate on training. My school has been very accommodating, helping me to achieve success in both sports and education.
Welcome to the team Karissa! We’re excited to be a part of what we know will be an epic journey in CrossFit. With such a great team around you to support you we know you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with!
