There are many different athletic and exercise programs that Alliance High School offers. Some may be as well-known and common- place as the football and volleyball programs, or as routine as a weights class. However, one new workout, called CroffFit, has become a new workout fad with some AHS students. CrossFit is an exercise program that prepares people for everyday living through various movements that include everything from gymnastics to Olympic lifts.
Colton Rolls, a sophomore at Alliance High, got involved with CrossFit after seeing an advertisement for it on television. Colton said he started doing the workouts about four or five months ago and has continued to improve ever since. His favorite thing about the program is being able to compete against other people from around the world as well as working to improve his own personal bests. Colton said the CrossFit program creates a real community environment because of the element of competition and shared goals that are built into it.
Rolls explains, “I do CrossFit for the competition and so I can prepare myself for life.” Colton says he admires Rich Froning Jr, a highly respected name in the CrossFit world, and also his father, local Physicians Assistant Steve Rolls, for their extremely hard work ethic. Both men have been roll models for Colton as he has embraced the program and begun competing in it.
To keep himself moving forward Colton says that he puts a lot of pressure on himself to work to the best of his abilities. He said he also has a great deal of encouragement and support from friends and from freshmen basketball coach, Roger Trennepohl.
CrossFit has an unusual way of competing. Participants can either be judged by the number of reps of each movement they can do or by the time it takes them to complete a set of reps. CrossFit also hosts the CrossFit Games for everyone who is interested in attending. The games are held in July in California and last year almost 70,000 athletes competed in the Open. This year, more than 138,000 are registered to compete. The games involve many different workouts that include box jump variations, power snatches, and jumping pull-ups. The snatch is a when you lift a barbell from the platform to locked arms overhead.
Colton says that the easiest exercises for him are burpees and hang cleans because he has done so many of each. On the other hand, one of the most difficult exercises for him is the snatch as well as the handstand push-up.
Rolls entered his first CrossFit competition in March not by traveling to California to compete in person but by submitting a video of himself completing a timed workout routine. You can find three of Colton’s workout videos on CrossFit.com by simply searching his name. Some of the reps that he was judged on were clean and jerks, thrusters, and shoulder to overheads.
In the future Colton would like to pursue a career in the medical field to become a physical therapist and later, perhaps, open up his own CrossFit gym. He says goals are to be the best at anything he decides to pursue and to one day compete live in the CrossFit games in California.
In the meantime you can usually find Colton in the gym at the Alliance YMCA working out and training for his next CrossFit competition.
