When 25-year-old Courtney Rainville first heard of CrossFit through her sister and brother-in-law, she wasn’t interested. At 270 lb., she had one goal: getting on The Biggest Loser.
“I remember sitting in the room with other contestants and thinking, ‘OK, this is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m no longer going to be that obese girl who’s ashamed to look at herself in the mirror or just ashamed to be, basically, alive.”
But after five weeks on the show, she was cut. At that point, she went back to see Jason Spreck, owner of CrossFit Forever Strong in Chandler, Ariz.
The transition wasn’t easy.
“When I came to CrossFit, it was completely changing my mind of how I thought of things,” she explains. “I had to basically swallow my pride and listen.”
Today, Rainville is one of CrossFit Forever Strong’s top women and frequently finishes at the top of the leaderboard.
“It was when I came to CrossFit I realized how strong I could be as an individual,” she says, “and how I didn’t need a TV show to make me a better person.”
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Additional reading: Coaching Fitness From Scratch by Stephanie Vincent, published Oct. 7, 2011.