whats everyone's athletic background

[Steve Kaspar]

just curious. lets hear about your athletic background. from your grade school days up to today. what was your favorite sports? did you excell in any? achievements in sports?
it aint bragging , just post up what you have done playing sports.
thanks
steve kaspar

[Arden Cogar Jr.]

Steve,
Nice start to what I hope leads to some good sharing among the group.

At age six, I went to work with my father (he's a logger) in the woods. I didn't want to be home with my mother. He sat me to work in his firewood business, lugging blocks of wood, and splitting ones I could. I eventually worked as a "gin-hand" or "chocker-setter." Eventually, he taught me how to cut timber. All of this physical work helped me with strength when I went into little league football and softball. I wasn't overly tall, but I was very "husky" and stout.

In gradeschool - played football, basketball, and softball. Didn't have any other sports in my school. I excelled at softball and did well in football. I sucked at basketball - even though I was one of two people on the basketball team that could grab the rim. I started dabbling in weight training in grade 6, when the 8th graders were having a deadlifting contest. I pulled 325 pretty easy with horrible form. I stated dabbling in my family's sport - lumberjack or timber sports.

In highschool, I played football, wrestled, and ran track. I didn't really run track. I threw shot. In hindsight, I didn't really excel at any of it. I did "okay" in football; and considering I had never wrestled until my freshman well, I did "better than okay" wrestling. I got much more serious into my weight training and did my first bench contest my freshman year. Nothing to write home about - 240 or 250, if I recall correctly. Unfortunately, I neglected doing squats and deads until my senior year. When I finally started doing them, I got really strong.
Continued working with my father during the summer and continued dabbling in my family's sport.

In College, I tried to walk on at WVU for football. Mistake. Too slow and not tall enough. Went into powerlifting. My best performance was 617-314-622 at 198 before I turned 20. I had dieted down from 225 to get to 198. When I was no longer a teenager, I gave that sport away because it required a "dark side" element to make the next step. When I gave the powerlifting comps away, I concentrated on timber sports. Once an athlete, always an athlete. Ya know?

In my sport, I've been blessed and I've done very well. It's 18 years later now. I've won several world titles. I've travelled the world. I've had a great time. And thanks to my introduction to CA style training, olympic lifting, and the improved athleticism that the training engenders I can see myself doing very well for another 10 to 20 years.

All the best,
Arden

[Garrett Smith]

Baseball: ~12 years, up through varsity as a junior in HS, mostly played as catcher

Basketball: ~5 years, up through JV as sophomore in HS, mostly as forward/center

Swimming: Youth swim teams, ~4 years, best at breaststroke & freestyle

Soccer: ~3 years, defender (?, I can't remember the positions, I was just athletic and fast enough to push around the forwards from the other team)

Bodybuilding: From age 11 through early college, almost competed as a natural BBer until I actually watched a show in person and quit right then and there

Triathlon: 2 years, competed in 3 sprint and 2 Olympic distance (including with the UA team at Wildflower Collegiate Nationals)

Skiing then snowboarding, from early youth until college, started snowboarding in '86 when there were only like 3 other snowboarders on the mountain.

OL: First meet in Nov. 2008.

Um, there may be more. I'll have to see what I recall.

[Brian DeGennaro]

Heh, it seems everyone's got a longer training career than I do.

First got on the track freshman year in highschool. This was my first sport. I ran all 4 years, even despite a very invasive appendictomy (which was stupid), ended my career running in the 53s for the 400m. The end of sophomore year I took up gymnastics for the hell of it; kept training it consistently every day until college. I never competed just trained it all, worked the crap out of tumbling and rings.

I lifted on and off, mostly "Power to the People"/"Naked Warrior" style all those four years. Played with KBs for conditioning stuff. I never really focused on it until the end of my senior year going into the summer. That year I had been working on CF exclusively until I found out my slow lifts had gone down. In that period my friend Adam turned me onto Oly, and I've been training it since September this year, as soon as I got bumper plates at college.

[Joe Hart]

I played football, basketball and soccer in elementary school. I liked football because I played D. I didn't have the hands for skill positions. I was short for basketball but I wasn't afraid playing against tall kids. Soccer was good our team won state championships. I was a defender I think it was because I didn't have a problem with contact and I was slow compared to my teammates.

In 7th grade my math teacher Mr. Glauner asked if I wanted to wrestle. I enjoyed it right up until I broke my arm the day before the first match. I was out for the season. I wrestled freestyle during the summer and had great time.

I wrestled in HS all four years JV1 Varsity 3. I wasn't that good in our confernece we had about three - four wrestling powerhouses in our conf. I could beat most of the people on our team or atleast make it interesting. I really enjoyed wrestling even if I was a .500 wrestler.

The Marine Corps put a cramp on sports. I did do alot of BBing when I wasn't working on Helicopters. I didn't like squatting and didn't make any strength gains.

In college at SC, I was still BBing and trying some JKD. It was fun as college should be, but I should have applied myself more.

Whilst in the Navy I did Metzers HIT and ran and rowed. That was the beauty of being on an aircraft carrier (Kittyhawk). You have 3 gyms of various sizes that you could work out in and a flight deck to run on IF you like turning your knees to jelly.

After that I CFd in MN for about 3 years. I sucked because my nutrition was poor. Pizza and beer in modration was my downfall.

Now days I spread myself around CF, CA WOD and Coach RUTs sites and practice BJJ. I coached my son's soccer team this summer and that was like hearding cats. This winter my son wanted to try wrestling which is fine with me.

My goal is to hit a reasonable BF%, eat lots of meat and veggies, live longer than my father (and not have alzhiemers) and get a black belt in BJJ. And to help my boys take care of business whatever that may be. I seems to be a simple plan for a soon to be 40 yr old.

This will be interesting to hear about others.

Arden- what is a gin somthing or other in your post?

Happy new year!!!!

[Arien Malec]

I'm a bit atypical here. From the age of 6, I did 5 and 10K runs, and some longer distances -- my favorite being long hill runs. Besides that, a couple of years on a swim team and a bit of martial arts.

Then, about 12 years of mostly nothing, a few years of active weight loss, and 2 years of a mostly strength/power focus, with a goal to do Masters Oly comps.

[Mike ODonnell]

Ice hockey from age 5 till.....well now (36). I stopped playing baseball once the pitchers could make the ball curve and slide in high school.....Joe-boo can't hit curve ball. No desire to really compete seriously anymore...just having fun doing other things like adventure racing, skiing, mountain biking or whatever else goes well with a beer right after.

[Will Moore]

High School - Track and Cross-country running. Ran my first marathon

US Marine Corps - Every crazy thing you have to do as a Marine infantryman. Spent for nearly 5 years as a Combatives Intructor (martial arts/hand-to-hand combat). Boxed for 3 years.

Fighting - Won middle weight NC Toughman competition, 1996

Bodybuilding - Took 2nd place in two NPC events (middle weight - 164 lbs.)

Last 10 years - Don't compete in anything now but I refuse to get old. I still work out with weights, hit the heavy bag, and then there's my favorite endurance exercise: hiking with a heavy backpack.

[Will Moore]

Hey, Joe Hart, I just looked back and saw you were a Marine too...helicopters...where you ever at New River Air Station? I was down at Lejuene for 99% of my USMC career.

[Arden Cogar Jr.]

Originally Posted by Joe Hart

Arden- what is a gin somthing or other in your post?

Happy new year!!!!

Joe,
I hear ya on trying to be as-fit-a-40-year-old-as we can be. Gotta keep up with the little ones.

A "gin hand" is basicly a timber fallers assistant or gopher. Beyond that, with traditional east coast logging, they run the chokers and wench cables from the skidders/dozers to the fallen trees. A gin hand then secures the "choker" to the log and the wench cable to the choker.

Throughout most of my youth, my uncles worked as my father's timber cutters. Which led to me learning a LOT of interesting stuff while running and lugging stuff up and down the steep hills of appalachia.

Wouldn't trade anything for the memories and what that work taught me.

Happy new year.

All the best,
Arden