Logan Dedmon

Before CrossFit, I was an endurance junkie. Before that, I was a chubby kid from Tennessee. I never played sports growing up, other than little league baseball and the occasional church basketball league, but there was never much emphasis to compete. By the time I got into high school, I was well into music and had taken up marching band. Around that same time, I started running. A month after I turned eighteen years old, I ran my first marathon. After the marathon, I was hooked. I started swimming and biking, and taking on any endurance challenge I could manage. During this time, I started hearing about certain CrossFit-styled workouts that were completed for time and really put your body through the wringer. Though I loved the long runs, I was feeling really underweight (and achy), slightly bored, and needed something different.

It was the summer after I graduated high school when someone showed me the “300 Workout,” which the actors of the movie 300 supposedly performed everyday to get a Spartan body. Who doesn’t want to look good? So I did this workout about five times a week and noticed my times would improve over time, so I started pushing myself harder and looking for more workouts that followed the same movement/rep scheme. I loved the intensity and felt the same kind of accomplishment I felt after a grueling run or ride. I did workouts like “Bodyweight 1000,” Men’s Health “The Drill,” and some Army PT workouts.

Around sophomore year of college, I started following the CrossFit main site programming with a friend of mine. After some time, we started programming our own, while using many of the benchmark and hero workouts to hit our weak areas. I was loving it. After about two years working out in a little CrossFit dungeon in Nashville, I was squatting around 350lb at 185lb bodyweight.

Then the unspeakable happened.

I was cliff jumping with some friends in East Tennessee in October during my senior year of college. I got a little uneasy on top of a 35ft jump and decided to climb down. That was the plan anyway. I fell about 10ft and landed on my side with my shoulder extended overhead. I later found out I had subluxated my shoulder and had torn my labrum in my right shoulder. I couldn’t move my arm more than a few inches for a good two weeks, and I still had about six months of physical therapy ahead of me even without surgery. The worst part was I couldn’t squat because I had no range of motion, nor could I run due to the jarring motion. After a long arduous recovery, I was finally running, biking, and swimming again but had lost a considerable amount of strength.

When I moved to Arizona, I had been competing mostly in triathlons and doing bodyweight movements. I had never been a part of a class setting for CrossFit until I moved here. Many of you remember me coming to the gym the first time at around 150lb and running like a gazelle.

I competed in the 2013 Locals Only (RX division) after a month of joining Incendia, and it made me realize how much I enjoyed the community here. Everyone was so supportive and truly excited about CrossFit. The next month, I got my L1 certificate and read the CrossFit Journal everyday. After a year of being a member here at Incendia, I have become such a more well-rounded athlete. I’m glad to have finally gained some weight and back to lifting heavy weights. I love coaching my CrossFit Prep classes and have enjoyed getting to know all the amazing athletes at this gym.