Story by Athena Skapinakis
Editor-in-Chief

Photos by AJ Alvarado
Assistant Photo Editor

Inside the dark gym

known as CrossFit CrazyHouse, those who gather dare to push themselves far past their limits.

To a stranger, the room almost resembles a dungeon with various torture devices strewn about or a battlefield with unknown enemies and obstacles. However, to the warrior, CSU Bakersfield senior Monica Morley, the chamber is a familiar place. It is a playground full of thrill worth seeking and trials worth enduring. This is where the warrior comes to conquer.

Morley and the other CrossFitters prepare themselves with a series of warm-ups for the challenge ahead. Low, animalistic sounds escape their mouths as they lift massive barbells into various positions: Knee, ankle, power clean, overhead squat and a full snatch.

Unmistakable from the rest of the CrossFitters, Morley’s presence burns brightly in the low-lit room. There’s something about her that captures attention immediately. Perhaps it’s her petite stature combined with her resolute gaze that draws you in. At 5-foot-3 inches and 121 pounds of lean muscle mass, she can overhead squat more than her own bodyweight. How can someone so small appear so fierce?

“CrossFit is efficiency,” instructor Crystal Becks tells the class.

Morley looks up to the dangling rings, dips her hands into a bucket of chalky white powder and brushes her palms together. She wants to make sure she gets a good grip.

“You’ve got this, stay focused,” she thinks as she readies herself for her first ring muscle-up. “Get your mind right.”

All other thoughts are absent from Morley’s mind as she recites the cues to perform her next movements.

Strong kip, loose elbows, quick turnover. She latches onto the rings, pulls herself up. She isn’t the least bit intimidated because her warrior’s mindset is unbendable. She sees her goals ahead of her, and she’s ready for it.

“Let’s do it,” she yells out.

• • •

Twenty-five-year-old Morley comes from a competitive athletic background. She was a cross-country runner for five years, and during her sophomore year of high school, she was the number one runner in Kern County. She’s also a two-time champion of the Volkslauf, a Marine-designed 10k run, which features a waist-deep mud pit about a quarter-of-a-mile long as well as obstacles that require participants to claw, crawl and climb.

She sought to expand her athletic interests. As a personal trainer and a group exercise instructor, she was used to coaching others.

“I was always pushing people, and I was looking for something to give me that back as well,” Morley says. “That’s what CrossFit gave to me.”

A year ago, she nervously walked into CrossFit CrazyHouse for the first time. It was like jumping into a thick fog. She felt intimidated, uneasy and unsure if she was ready to come out on the other end of the mist swirling before her. After trying a week’s worth of class sessions and learning that Becks also had ties to CSUB as the housing director, her mind was made up. CrossFit was for her, and it would become something that would encompass her whole life.

CrossFit is high-intensity training, based on functional and natural body movements. Everything needed to become a well-rounded athlete can be found in the sport. It increases speed, strength, balance, core and stamina. According to CrossFit Inc., the first training facility began in Santa Cruz, Calif. in 2000, and now there are more than 11,000 affiliates around the world.

Her smiles are full of enthusiasm, and her excitement bubbles up whenever she speaks about fitness, particularly CrossFit. She loves the saying, “If you know anyone who does CrossFit, the first thing they will tell you is about CrossFit.”

The sport bleeds into Morley’s life so much so that she got her certification to become a CrossFit coach. She instructs at CrossFit Crazyhouse. She also finished third at the Jan. 31, 2015 WOD (Workout of the Day) Wars in Porterville, Calif. for the highest division of combatant.

She incorporates the fundamentals of CrossFit in her 30-minute Abs and Butts and Guts classes, which she teaches at CSUB’s Student Recreation Center. She does the routines with her students and demonstrates proper and improper form so that they can understand the difference.

Erica Smith, Morley’s best friend, says she’s like the Energizer Bunny. In an anonymous survey by a class member, one student credited Morley for helping her lose 20 pounds and changing her life.

There is no quick fix, she tells her students. She says getting in shape is very basic but requires discipline and determination.

“There’s no easy way out. So, it can’t be a habit,” says Morley. “It has to be a lifestyle.”

• • •

Even for Morley, she can recall times when she’s given in and quit.

Six years ago, she was in the middle of a race. She fed herself negative thought after negative thought until she had convinced herself she was physically sick. The only sickness was her self-doubt. Her entire body ached, and her breath became shallow. Suddenly, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe at all. Morley dropped out.

She isn’t proud of self-doubt, and understands it helped fortify her iron will. When negative thoughts creep in, she releases them immediately because she knows that to doubt herself and give up is by far the greatest of failures. She knows the power of her mind is greater than any muscle in the body.

“No matter how tired, sore, hurt or in pain I am, I won’t give up,” Morley says.

• • •

Every year, only the top five men and women in CrossFit in the whole world will be invited to the CrossFit Games. To qualify for the Games, every week CrossFit, Inc. puts out a workout for competitors, and they have four days to complete with as many attempts as desired before they have to submit their best scores. Morley must place in the top 20 women from the U.S. to advance to regionals. At regionals, the top athletes from two or three regions compete together.

The first CrossFit Open workouts will be released Thursday, Feb. 26. Morley hopes to go to regionals and then to the CrossFit Games, but she knows it will take more than just hard work. Willpower and devotion are necessary to take her to the top.

She hopes to place in the top 10, if not the top five, of female athletes in Kern County. Last year, when she was only about four months into CrossFit, she competed and placed in the top 30 of more than 100 women.

Becks believes that Morley is one of the athletes who are willing to take on any challenge thrown her way. She describes her as someone who is driven, solid, fearless, and a warrior, and Becks thinks that she has the potential to go to the CrossFit games and win. However, the victory is entirely up to Morley and how badly she wants it.

“Does she have the athletic ability? Yes. Does she have the thirst and the want for it,” Becks says. “She’s the only one who really knows that.”

• • •

She hangs onto the bar as her repetitions grow higher and higher, she feels the pressure. The 65-pound weight isn’t the challenge though. The hard part is the 100 unbroken hang power cleans, a movement in which she brings the bar from the floor to a front rack position, elbows tucked underneath. The bar isn’t to touch the floor, not even once. If the bar drops at any point during the exercise, her repetitions will reset to zero and her hard work erased. To drop the bar is to have to start again, leading to more pain and more frustration.

Forty, fifty, sixty repetitions.

Pain consumes her forearms like scorching fire, but still, she clings to the bar. She tries to filter out the negative thoughts clawing at her. Even with the stakes high, she refuses to contemplate dropping the bar.

Morley has been training for a year, and while still new to CrossFit, she is ready to show how hard she has worked. She treats each and every workout as if she were in competition, getting her mind ready for the real thing.

Looking into the future, Morley is confident; she believes this is her chance to prove how far she has come.

“I’m not really nervous,” says Morley. “I know I will give it my all and that’s all I can ask for.”

The author works as a part-time personal trainer at the Student Recreation Center, but does not work with Monica Morley.

Take one of Monica’s Group Exercise Classes at CSUB’s Student Recreation Center!

Tuesday & Thursday
30-minutes Abs
11:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Tuesday, Thursday & Friday
Butts & Guts
12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.