Founder’s Story
We started FWCF in August of 2012 because we had seen a dramatic improvement in our own lives, and we wanted to share that with others. Personally I found CrossFit in 2010 while researching fitness programs to get in shape for the military. I had recently graduated college, and had little to no direction in my life, which translated to, little to no self confidence. I decided to join the military to try and find some direction and purpose in my life. Secretly, I hoped it would give me some self confidence and leadership skills also. I started CrossFit and quickly fell in love with it. My body started changing, and as I struggled through long workouts I began to develop some grit and confidence in my abilities. I felt great physically, but more importantly I felt great mentally. As my way to “give back” to CrossFit I decided to volunteer at the 2011 Central East Regional, where I met Greg Glassman(the Founder of CrossFit). He asked if I was coaching, and then asked if I planned to open my own affiliate. I said “no” to both questions, to which he responded “you should, you have the fire, I can see it in your eyes.” Granted it may have just been his sales pitch to get another affiliate on the books, but it set me on a trajectory that I am still on today. I got my CrossFit L1 the next month, my CrossFit Weightlifting the month after that, and my CrossFit Mobility the month after that. I started coaching Fall of 2011, and then went out on my own in the summer of 2012 to open FWCF.
When we opened we were living on passion and grit. We loved CrossFit, we met some great people, and we were just trying to help people lead healthier lives. I also coached every single class, we lived on Steph’s salary alone, and we dumped every dollar we made back into the business; buying equipment, expanding into a larger space etc… We didn’t take a vacation for 3 years, and there was no such thing as “sick days,” there was no one else to coach! Then we started to grow enough to “hire” a few coaches part time, Steph and Liz both started coaching 5AM 1 day a week. We focused so much on coaching in the beginning, we wanted everyone to feel like they got individualized coaching every time they came in(as they should.) When we got to a certain point with coaching we realized that to grow we needed more structure. That was when we began to focus on our “class experience,” we started leading the class through warmups, we signed up with Wodify so clients could track their workouts, and our motto was “make this the best hour of your clients day.”
Now that we have good coaching, we have good class experience, it’s time to invest in infrastructure. That was when we decided to build the new gym, which turned out to be a much longer process than we anticipated, but that allowed us more time to work on the business itself. Since we have moved into the bigger space we have spent our time defining our vision, and building the business to support that. Our vision for FWCF has always, and will always be, to help people achieve a baseline of health and fitness so that they can go outside the gym and apply it however they want. They can have the general health and fitness to take their kids on a ski trip, to run a 5K with their friends, and to help a family member move! With that clear vision in place, we have tried to reach more people by optimizing our class experience, refining our on ramp procedure, expanding our class schedule and variety of offerings, and constant pursuit of coaching excellence. We are currently delivering on that vision at a level we never have before. Our team is bought in, and they live and breathe that same passion we had when we opened the gym. The future is bright, and I can’t wait to experience it with all of you!
Announcements
Sunday CrossFit 45 is back to regular schedule, 10AM on Sundays
Saturday 1/25: Only 6:15A and 7:30A, NO 9AM class
Sunday 1/26, 12PM, Katy Young Memorial Workout.
Non-members are welcome, please have them fill out the waiver ahead of time at ftwrightcrossfit.wodify.com by following the “Free Trial” menu.
