In the history of Walpole High School, hardly any students have graduated to attend a Southeastern Conference (SEC) university, and none have played a Division I Varsity sport any of these schools — until now. Senior Abby Wohler plans to attend the University of Alabama this fall as a rowing rec
ruit, and she has a certain workout program to thank for this opportunity.
Abby Wohler joined CrossFit Florian at the beginning of her junior year because she wanted to become stronger and faster for basketball and rowing. She started a beginners class at the CrossFit Florian through an off season training program with the basketball teams. After those first workouts, Wohler was hooked.
“I loved everything about it,” she said. “Everything from the workouts, the coaches, and designs of the workouts.”
However, Wohler also competes on the Community Rowing team during the fall and spring and during the winter she was a captain of the Girls Basketball team, so she had to make sacrifices in order to continue her workouts. Many mornings, while most students sleep until the last possible minute, Wohler woke up at 4am to hit the gym before school. Later in the day, she tried to find some more time after her other practices to get back to CrossFit for another session at 7:30. Wohler enjoys every moment of this busy and strenuous schedule.
“I try to spend as much time as I physically can at CrossFit,” Wohler said. “I love the energy of everyone and all the coaches pushing me to be better. A typical CrossFit class is nothing like the classes one would find in a regular gym.”
The classes try to build strength and conditioning through extremely varied and challenging workouts. Each day participants do the “WOD” or Workout of the Day, which are different workouts that changes daily with a skill or strength. The workouts test different parts of a person’s functional strength or conditioning, not specializing in one particular thing, but rather with the goal of building a body that’s capable of practically anything and everything. These workouts include everything from Grasshoppers, ninja rolls, bodyweight deadlifts, box jumps, runs, squats, and cleans. After that workout Wohler usually finishes with some sort of Metabolic conditioning. Wohler said that “ I think everything I do at CrossFit is some how connected to my success as a rower. The constant variation helps me with all aspects of athleticism needed for rowing.”
However, Wohler does not love going to CrossFit just for its workouts, but she also loves the coaches and other participants.
“The community at CrossFit is unlike anything I have ever been a part of. I am especially thankful for my coach Melissa McManus for everything she has done for me to help me become a better athlete and person.”
Even though the people in this community all vary in ages from 15 to 50 Wohler said that we are all a very close group of people and kind of like a family, and we all love hanging out with one another.”
Through her gym Wohler has competed in a couple CrossFit competitions. At these competitions participants complete a series of exercises like doing squats with weights in an allotted amount of time, runs, and a series of WODs. The athletes are timed in all these events or their reps are counted. The athlete who wins the most competitions then wins the competition. Last summer, Wohler competed in a CrossFit competition called CrossFit for Katie in Connecticut, and she won the competition, for her age group. She hopes to do as well in her next competition,which is at No Risk CrossFit, in Rhode Island on June 27.
Next year Wohler will be attending the University of Alabama and be a part of their rowing team. She said that “ their is no doubt in my mind that my rowing career is where is now because of CrossFit.”
“I plan on taking time off in college to focus on my rowing career and college,” said Wohler when asked about the time commitment of both Division I rowing and Crossfit. “But I still plan on keeping up with strength programming through the athletic department at Alabama.”
