Brian Quinlan competes with the planet’s best in the international Crossfit Games
.
Like many Crossfit affiliate gyms around the country, CrossFit Explode sits tucked away in a small industrial park. Off of East Union Street in West Chester, next to an after-school program facility and a few trade and manufacturing companies, over by where the old skate park used to be, CrossFit Explode forges a sense of community, strength, and fitness behind its unassuming exterior.
The facility holds morning, lunch, and evening classes, each lasting an hour, but when I walk through the front door, it’s the middle of the day and the gym is quiet, save for two men sweating their hearts out in the wicked humidity that the large fan and the open bay doors can’t alleviate. They’re performing a brutal combination of weighted lunges, yoke walks, and walking handstands, managing to hit three separate training modalities (gymnastics, cardio and strength training).
Watching on is their coach – and the owner of CrossFit Explode – Brian Quinlan. I recognize the chiseled 6-foot, 215-pound athlete from the photos and videos on the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games website, where a page features Quinlan, his stats, and his standing among the other athletes who competed for a spot in the finals. Quinlan is one of the few athletes who made it to this year’s CrossFit Games, an international competition featuring the fittest from each region worldwide. Since their start in 2007, the Games have taken place in California in mid-July, where roughly 100 athletes from around the world gather for three fierce days of mental and physical challenges to see who can be named “The Fittest on Earth.” But unlike your typical 5k race or triathlon, the Games aren’t something you can simply sign up for and pay a registration fee. You have to earn your spot through two other taxing stages – the Open and the Regionals.
In 2011, Quinlan finished 18th in the Mid-Atlantic Region. This year, the 35-year-old athlete finished third, and come July 13th, he will find himself at the 2012 Games. Not an easy feat considering Quinlan is roughly ten years older than the average athlete who he’ll be up against during the three-day competition.
For all his size, strength, and tattoos, when I introduce myself Quinlan flashes a disarming smile and welcomes me to CrossFit Explode. He immediately shares with me some exciting news, not about himself, but about Team Explode, the group of three male and three female athletes from his facility, that also went to the regional qualifiers. Teams, not just individual men and women, compete in the CrossFit Games. At Regionals, Team Explode tied for second place, but the subsequent tie-breaker put them in fourth and out of running for the finals. That is, until the testing for performance-enhancing drugs came back positive for the second place team, putting Team Explode on its way to Carson, California in a few short weeks.
The two men currently busting their humps on the gym floor are on Team Explode. Having just received the news they’ll be heading to the Games, training has again become focused and intense, as none of the athletes, including Quinlan, know what physical challenges they will be put through until just before the actual events start. When I ask Quinlan how his training will change now that he knows the Games are in his near future, he laughs and says, “More training.”
As the owner, head coach, and permanent resident of CrossFit Explode, Quinlan admits that with the coaching of his athletes (in whom he takes considerable pride) and the administrative duties of running a gym, it’s hard to find enough time for his own training. But as with any good coach and leader, those you train and lead will come to your aid when you need it most. The trainers at CrossFit Explode decided to divvy up the duties around the gym to help free up more of Quinlan’s time, so that Quinlan, who spent so much time training everyone else, can now focus on his own preparedness, especially because he doesn’t know what the Games will bring. The events might cater to his strength and size or might expose some of his less-than-strong events, like swimming. In the 2011 Games, one challenge featured a 400-meter open-water swim. Some competitors dropped out because of this portion alone.
That idea of “the unknown challenge” is a driving force in CrossFit. The program is broad and general; its specialty, as a sport, is not in specializing. The workout of the day (or “WOD”) could be a 10k run, heavy deadlifts, or, as it was at CrossFit Explode on the day of my visit, a combination of back squats, kettlebell swings, and hanging leg raises (reassuringly dubbed “The Reckoning”). CrossFit philosophy states that the load and intensity of the
workouts can be scaled to an individual’s level, but no matter if you’re a mom of three, an emergency first responder or an elderly grandparent, the kinds of workouts that you do are all the same.
To ensure his own ability to meet any challenge, Quinlan will hit the three major training modalities of gymnastics, cardio, and weight lifting. “I want to say I’m ready for anything. I don’t want to fail at something because I didn’t prepare,” Quinlan said. With intelligent and safe training and spot-on nutrition (he stays away from inflammation-causing foods, such as simple sugars and carbohydrates that he laughingly asserts “lengthen my workout-recovery time in my old age”), Quinlan feels that as the Games commence, he’ll be as prepared as possible.
Brian has an advantage. The 35-year old athlete is just that – an athlete. And a well-educated one. As a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with an exercise science degree from WCU, Quinlan knows how to blend his classroom education with his real-life experiences as a rugby player, a wrestler, and an amateur boxer. He’ll admit that his athletic accomplishments come from a comination of time spent in the gym and good genes but, he says, “I’ve seen plenty of people waste good genetics. You can’t get results and make progress if you aren’t dedicated.”
Training safety is a huge concern for Quinlan, who did not make it to last year’s CrossFit Games due to a herniated disc in his back. A lack of rest, working too hard, and one rep with poor form turned an otherwise fit body into an injured one.
Quinlan also wants to make sure that, despite the demanding nature of CrossFit, the members of his gym aren’t training to the point of sickness or injury because, “If you push people to the point that they are constantly breaking down, then you’re always breaking down and never building up.”
As I talk to Quinlan, I can’t help but notice one of the quotes stenciled on the wall above the pull-up bars. It reads, “Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring.” As an elite athlete, coach, and leader, Quinlan exudes confidence and poise. It is this confidence in both his own abilities and that of his team as they head to the CrossFit Games in July that will continue to inspire the members of his CrossFit family and spectators alike, regardless of who gets dubbed “Fittest on Earth”. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if the final results show “Brian Quinlan” from West Chester, PA, on top.
