What would I be doing right now?
Sitting home just made pancakes like, watching fishing shows.
Instead, I get to run a 19-degree weather. God, this is so much fun!
My name's Tom Butler. I'm 55-years-old. I'm from Philadelphia, PA.
I played football. Played football from grade ball to high school to college to semi-pro.
In the past two and a half years I had both my knees worked on.
I don't have knee replacements, I've had torn meniscuses in one— my left knee I tore
the meniscus and had to have the patellar tendon repaired and this one.
That was something that I thought for the rest of my life I would have to bear with is having knee problems.
It was because of football, because I did roofing for a while. You name it. I run an insulation company.
You know, I've insulated, I drove tractor trailers...
A lot of it probably had to do— was because of the weight. I was a lot heavier this time last year.
I was up to 280. That was the most I weighed.
I was a little reluctant because haven't tried— trying to think my son coached me to do something. You know, to
swallow your pride and— and he goes, "For two years you've been— you haven't been able to change.
You're still the same."
I thought I could do it myself. Okay?
That, oh yeah he just always looked great. Sean has always been a phenomenal athlete, okay?
I was wearing a size 42 pants. Everything was double XL— going to triple XL.
I couldn't swallow my pride. He said, "You know you can recover. You can rebuild.
You know? It's gonna take time." He says, "You come here, you make the
effort. You can get back to where you were."
So you guys are gonna partner up, this is the partner deadlift.
You need the height so you'll be both lifting to the same spot.
- Okay. - Alright and you'll go off about 70 percent of your max.
So that's gonna be nice and tough. - Okay.
- Alright? - No problem.
Cool.
So we're going to set you up— - I like the challenge.
You get a bar set up
continue to warm up and then probably in about five minutes or so I'll start bringing people—
[Sean] He was basically my— my hero growing up.
He was my coach as a kid and I saw an opportunity where I could improve his physical wellness
and overall life because I know— you know he'd be gettin to that point.
His knees were beat up from football and I started getting after him.
It took me a good year and a half to two years to get him in here
but when I finally talked him into it, it was always, "Hey listen, you know, I
know your knees hurt. I know— you know, you're looking at surgeries and stuff
but along with that we got to get something— we gotta get the weight off of
you we got to get a little relief to those knees.
And I know you're looking at—or, talking to doctors and stuff but there's also— you gotta look at—
they're gonna tell you you're gonna need exercise."
And I'm like, "We got a great thing here and I have a bunch of people that are getting
big big improvements and seeing results especially in you know, the weight loss and seeing their knees."
I had another gentleman here whose knees really improved due to just dropping that good 40/50 pounds.
[Tom] Oh this is good. This is good. I like partners, I think partners is a lot—
it's good because it helps push each other
and it helps you— like, if I'm doing the pull-ups and my— you know, my legs ain't together
he can tell me.
You know, I can tell him, "Come on John keep your legs together. Come on."
You can help each other. You can make it move. You know, it makes it work a lot easier.
The first workout I'm like, "This is what he does?"
He—they scaled me down.
We did the workout and I'm like, "Well that wasn't that bad."
You know?
And I said, "Okay, well I could do this whole thing."
And he says, "Okay, do a muscle-up. Pull-up." I can't do it.
My flexibility... My flexibility was I guess
the easiest way to explain it was being like a stiff chair.
I couldn't do half the things— a quarter of things that I did when I was younger.
Now, it's absolutely incredible.
I can jump a thirty inch box. Jump straight up on a thirty inch box.
I still have to scale— I'm okay, what you learn here is to swallow your pride.
Okay, this is my family here.
These are my friends.
We workout— we work out together. We help each other.
[Kathy] Energy.
He used to come— gets up four in the morning— used to fall asleep by six thirty, seven o'clock at night.
Right after dinner. He was on the couch, ten minutes later he's asleep.
Now he can go the whole nine yards.
But you've had some issues from football.
[Tom] Oh, from football— with knees... [Kathy] From football. With knees.
[Tom] From— [Kathy] And obviously I think that that's
keeping you from having to get full knee replacement
[Tom] Yes. [Kathy] Is CrossFit.
[Tom] Yes. It is CrossFit. Yes.
[Kathy] Because you were— I mean if you had gone on without CrossFit
you would probably a year or two away from—
[Tom] The doctor said the worst thing with your knees is weight.
He said you have to drop the weight.
[Kathy] So, energy's the main thing and then obviously just appearance-wise.
I mean we obviously got our bodies back. We were just kind of fading into
the background and now we're fit again.
[Tom] And with CrossFit I think you get to learn to enjoy life a lot more.
It's a cold day but it's a beautiful day.
I mean, there's people this morning that didn't wake up. There's people that that are just
sitting on their couches doing nothing.
First time we ran outside a while.
I mean it's good to run.
You gotta work on every aspect. I mean, you think about this WOD— what we did today...
It was from head, all the way down to your toes.
Every part of your body was worked out.
I wouldn't have done that in a normal gym.
Might have looked pretty doing it.
Age does not matter. It does not matter. It's a farce.
It's all what you want to do with CrossFit.
It's all what you want to be.
You're your own worst enemy.
In this gym, there's nothing you can't do.
I mean, CrossFit has taught me that.
I can't believe I can do some of the things I do and how I do it.
Ya know? I'm not saying that somebody's gonna come in here the first week and do this.
Okay?
You have to put the time and the effort in CrossFit to do this.
And it's worth it.
What you get out of CrossFit is utterly amazing.
When you work during the day, work is work. Okay?
As I tell all my sons and my daughter-in-laws,
"Remember, not unless you love it all's it is is a J-O-B. It's just a job. Okay?"
What I look forward to is four thirty, five o'clock. Is coming here and talking with my friends.
Because the whole world is now out there. This is where I feel I'm in the zone.