CrossFit Athletic Group

As tradition dictates, every week of Summer brings the announcement of an Athlete of the Week. The first one for this year goes to Luke Heide.

I can't say I took the most flattering picture of him this week, but you'll just have to take my word that his string of workouts were really impressive for a football player coming off a lower-back injury.

When Luke came back from college at the beginning of May it seemed pretty set that a Summer with the Champions Club was not going to happen; there weren't many unloaded movements that could be done pain-free, let alone lifting or impact. But he tagged along with Cecilia anyway and while her and Caitlin and Owen and crew did their listed workout, Luke would be on the side testing out plank holds and throwing an occasional jump rope in there. As the month went on he began to reclaim a good amount of capacity and last week he pulled the trigger to jump on for his 4th Summer with us.

Conditioning has been the name of the game for Luke and his improvements in that area have been coming much quicker than I expected. He was Maddy's partner on Monday, hit consistent weighted squats and an 800m run on Tuesday, did slow deadlifts at 115 lbs. and burpees with zero pain on Wednesday, almost caught Anto (for about 10 meters) on Thursday, and rocked out a great workout today with Cecilia. With this momentum it's looking like if Luke decides to continue playing football this fall he'll be in the best shape of his life.

Keep up the good work my man!