Derrick Shealy

My journey with fitness and working out started with high school football team lifts and progressed through college lacrosse. After 7 years of lifting and conditioning, I was ready for a change.  I knew of CrossFit from a couple of my teammates and actually did a couple of CrossFit workouts while in college (my first one was a version of filthy 50) and decided I wanted to try that when I graduated.  I began my CrossFit journey after graduating in 2020 and began coaching in 2022.  I have loved every season of my time in CrossFit from being a beginner and practicing my snatch progression with a broom handle at home to training twice a day and competing regularly to having a newborn and trying to balance the gym and being a good husband and dad.  CrossFit is a huge part of my life and I love getting to share the energy and passion that I have with people in the hopes that they will find as much joy and excitement in their fitness journey as I have.

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I’ve always been a very competitive person by nature (and growing up the oldest of 4 - 3 of which are boys) so when I started CrossFit I always wanted to win or be the best.  This became the reason why I trained and replaced a lot of the joy and fun with comparison to others.  I have always heard “comparison is the thief of joy” but it was not until I progressed in life by becoming a husband and then a dad that I have come to fully understand those words and the meaning behind them.  Although I am still competitive, my effort is no longer focused on being better than others but instead on being the best version of myself.

I am a firm believer in the idea of doing hard things and making an effort to have a good attitude in every situation.  As a coach, my goal is to help people accomplish hard things and build a mental toughness that can serve them in and out of the gym.  I love to encourage everyone in my class to challenge themselves and to not give up when it gets hard as this is where we grow both mentally and physically.