Members of the month – Pawel & Aleksandra | Crossfit GYM

Members of the month – Pawel & Aleksandra

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The Benchmark wods for Crossfit
November 28, 2014
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January 1, 2015

Members of the month – Pawel & Aleksandra

Pawel & Aleksandra are fantastic members and a great part of our crossfit community. Pawel is currently training 2 x a day so he usually does the class during the day then comes in in the evening to work on his gymnastic skills.
Last month Aleksandra managed her first muscle up amounts pretty much everything else including a meat hook. Pawel smashed his previous Fran time & can now do L-sits into shoulder stand on the parallels, which takes amazing shoulder strength especially when you are around 6’5″.
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How long have you both been doing crossfit?
I have been doing crossfit for about year and a half, but a real, high quality training started after I moved to Cambridge and became a member of S&D in January.
I have been doing sports since I remember. My first true passion was Judo then year and a half ago I discovered
Pole Dance and fell for it. Pawel was really excited about ‘all this crossfit’ so I decided to give it a shot in the beginning of June and it turned out to be a great fulfillment of my Pole Dance classes.
What skills and strength have you gained?
I’ve never done any gymnastic stuff before so I was really awkward with my 6.4ft height but after a couple months in your box I started to be quite good at kipping pull-ups, double unders and even headstands.
Recently we started to spend more time on gymnastics so my hand stands are really improving.
But my best achievement are muscle-ups – I can do couple of them in a row
All my life I was really skinny and my friends were joking that I should become a weightlifer…
And now, here I am doing cleans, snatches, deadlifts, presses and more…
I’m not a big fan of weightlifting so I spend more time doing mobility and gymnastics and it pays back.
Recently I’ve made first muscle-up in my life! Toes-to-bar became easy as long as I’m allowed to keep my legs straight
And I can also do single-arm press-ups as well as strict handstand press-ups! So I think it’s quite an achievement for a woman.
Also how has your shape/weight changed?
As I mentioned I was really skinny. I used to weight 11 stones (12.5 when I started doing crossfit) with my 6.4ft height.
Now I weight over 13.5 stones and lot of its are muscles I’ve gained some inches in my chest and limbs and I’m not slouching anymore.
My weight hasn’t changed but my silhouette became more athletic. I’ve lost some inches in my thighs and hips (or Pawel is just lying to me ).
I am really happy with my abs and what’s the most important – my bum looks awesome in high heels!
What is your favourite crossfit movement or WOD?
I like most of bodyweight movements, but my favourites two are toes-to-bar and double-unders and I love WODs which contain them.
I’ve started to practise muscle-ups recently and I suspect it’s going to be one of my favourite after a while.
I like snatches too because they are so complex that even after years of practise there will be still something to improve.
I’m really keen on gymnastics. I love practising handstands and headstands, I could hang on a bar or on rings all day long doing some bodyweight exercises. I think I just like being upside down
What is your favourite aspect of the crossfit community?
The thing I liked from the very first minute in your box is that there is no difference if you are an experienced crossfiter or a newbie. People around make you feel that you are an important part of their community and that your scores on the board are awesome (because they are!).
And the another thing I like is that almost everyone in the box always seems to be really happy.
 It’s competitive, we do WODs together and it keeps me motivated and even if my score is not impressive I still fell like a winner because it’s not about being the best but doing your best.

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