Rich Froning It’s more than just CrossFit’s most decorated athlete. Along with being his most recognizable face, the “Fittest Man on Earth” was instrumental in transforming CrossFit from a niche exercise trend into a multi-billion dollar mainstream fitness juggernaut.
As the all-time leader in Games titles, Froning became one of CrossFit’s marketing pioneers, landing a shoe deal with Reebok and paving the way for many other CrossFit stars such as Matt Fraser and Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr. Helped to do. Get financial benefits from your achievements.
Despite his CrossFit legacy forever cemented, the former firefighter from Cookeville, TN experienced the same humble beginnings in the WOD world as every other athlete who first steps into the box — it wasn’t pretty.
“One of the first workouts I did was when I was at the fire station,” says Froning, “and I remember doing some farmer’s carries and burpees and then hand-to-hand hose pulls.” And man, I remember being absolutely devastated. Next, I tried ‘Fran’, and again, I was totally fried after this workout.
Froning went on to win four consecutive CrossFit Games championships from 2011-2014. This past summer, in his final Games as captain of Team CrossFit Mayhem, Froning completed a record-setting 10Th Games championship with a sixth Thames Division title.
More importantly for the sport, Froning’s popularity had a huge impact on CrossFit, which grew from just 13 CrossFit boxes in the US in 2005 to more than 12,000 globally and is worth nearly $4 billion today.
Although officially announcing his retirement after his final victory, Froning is far from fit. These days he is busy with his exercise. Crossfit mayhem. “I’m trying to get in” in Tennessee. [Mayhem] class workout every once in a while,” he says. “It’s a lot more fun to break down and train yourself than it is to get there and do the workout.”
In addition to being able to spend more time with family, Froning has been able to work more on her shoe line, the fourth version.Nano X2 Froning– the latest in what they call a success. Partnership with Reebok.
“Reebok and I have been together for so long. And [Reebok’s senior product manager] Rhythm is short Such a great friend,” says Froning. “He knows what I like in a shoe. And so it makes it easy. But for the most part things have been going very well in the last couple of years. I’m doing a little more.”
There is more to life than CrossFit titles, including family and faith. As Froning shares his winning strategies include rising to challenges, always striving to improve, and learning how to find your community.
Pace yourself.
Pacing yourself for me, it really comes down to experience. I’ve been doing this for so long, I know which moves really blow me away or the ones that take a little too much out of me. So trying to figure out a workout. Is there a movement, and a speed that I can hold that I know I can still push a little bit but also recover a little bit at the same time. So, it’s just kind of breaking down the exercise, seeing what the overall time is going to be, what the movements are there while moving, that’s kind of a stopping point or a catching point for me. And if there’s a place where I can maybe get my speed back or get my composure back, that I have a little bit of enough to push at the end. So experience is a huge part of it.
I mean everyone always jokes about how good the pace is and I just said, I’ve been in that pain cave so many times. So I’m afraid to go there again. So I kind of live on edge, it hurts, but it doesn’t hurt to bet, you know, so. It’s, oh, yeah, I honestly miss it a little bit. Sometimes having the courage to go to that dark place, you know, I just can’t, can’t. I have been doing it for 13 years. I’m like, man, I’m good. You know, I’m going to, I’m going to push hard enough, but I’m never going to go over that line. And sometimes, you need to be able to walk that line.
Check your limit.
It feels horribly, for lack of a better term, drunk. You cannot control your body alone. You can try to hide a bit of it in different places. But it’s a good place to be. Every once in a while, not necessarily in competition but in training, you have to experience where that place is for you. There’s a lot of technology now with heart rate monitors and things like that, why not try to see where that threshold is, and what happens and how quickly you can recover after that.
The one that sticks out in my mind the most is 2011 or 2010, the last one where we didn’t know what we were doing and they just pulled us to the floor — you know, the famous Froning rope climb fail video. . That’s what burns in my mind the most — I was just a complete body failure at the time. I don’t even think if I could have used my feet on the rope, if I would have been able to do it. So it was not a fun experience. That’s for sure.
Enjoy fitness… don’t let it consume you.
For me, everything goes back to 2010 and putting a lot of pressure on myself and letting CrossFit be my identity. As everyone knows, my faith is a huge part of why I do what I do. And so for me, faith was my way of saying, hey, it’s going to be okay, whatever the outcome. Don’t let what you do define you. And for me, it’s been a good place for me to be able to compete.
I know that my identity is Christ and not who I am as a player, so that’s what has worked for me. And I think for a lot of people, you get so caught up and think you have to do it, and get caught up in numbers and times and everything like that. But unless fitness is your profession, this should be the best time of day for you to release all your stress. You have some fun, put your body through the ringer a little bit, but once you leave, you leave it behind. It shouldn’t be an added stress—it should be a good thing for your life.
Oh yeah. Well, depends on the day. Yes. I have a blast when I train when I work out. I don’t have that much fun so I’ve been in the last couple of months. It’s working for me and it’s a little bit of training. I’m trying to get in a class workout every now and then in jumping and ham classes. And it’s a lot of fun just going there. And like I said, workout vs break yourself and train per se.
Rich Froning is looking for ways to improve perfection.
As far as products go, this would be the one I use. I don’t like putting my name behind something and don’t really use it. So I add a lot of input to be true to who I am.
I think a lot [Reebok’s senior product manager] rhythm short, innovation with Nano X2 Froning It’s that they can look for something, like a material that’s a little lighter or something that’s a little better or look for a more solid platform. There is so much technology that goes into a shoe, it’s crazy. And to see what they do year after year, you see something new when the new Nano comes out and things like that, let’s add it to our shoe — let’s change something.
The Froning X1 was my favorite shoe of any shoe we’ve ever had. And so to build this rhythm, it’s great. It’s better, but different from the Froning X1s, it was a slip-on, kind of boot style. With the X2, Reebok wanted to cut a lot of weight from the shoe and add something more high-performance. You can even move the insole out, which I do quite often—there are actually holes drilled into the footplate to take out some of the extra weight. So the shoe is incredibly light and a higher performance shoe than the X1, which was like back in the day, a jack of all trades type of shoe.
Build your community
As for fitness, I personally love CrossFit. I think it’s very effective and enjoy the community aspect of it. If someone wants to do CrossFit, my point would be, hey, go find a good gym. Ask them if you can watch the class, see how the coach communicates. Check out the gym’s community and see how it fits in before you jump in.
If CrossFit isn’t your thing, that’s okay. Find something you enjoy, like a spin class. It seems that people love to find some type of group fitness that will take you longer and further, even if it’s an online program. We have a great online community with online programming and videos and things like that. So this could be your thing. But I think having a community that you can come back to and be a part of is a huge motivator for staying fit.
Mountain biking is my big thing at the moment. Anyone who’s paid attention to my Instagram over the past couple of months has noticed that I’ve been pretty into hunting and getting out…it feels like something I have to do and that’s how I’m wired and that’s it. Like the last couple of months have been so much fun and I see myself doing something in the future that you don’t know if you’re sitting around waiting and doing things like getting lost in the mountains and just Trying to juggle and it’s been great is just good for my soul.
Follow Rich Froning on Instagram. @richfroning
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