“The thought was, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to die,” says Jonathan Edwards. “The very next thought was my kids . I can’t let them grow up without a dad.”
Jonathan Edwards was a police officer before he opened CrossFit North Alpharetta in Georgia. He relates the life-threatening experience that led to his career change.
Edwards describes how CrossFit helped him recover so quickly.
“In CrossFit, you tear down your body during a workout, right? You just completely annihilate yourself, and you’re left in a puddle of goo on the floor, right? Your muscles know what’s going on, and they repair themselves, right? So I’ve been doing that for three years, and my body knew what to do when trauma was introduced to it,” he says.
However, his recovery was not yet complete. Edwards was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Therapy and CrossFit helped him get a handle on his life, and he made the decision to leave law enforcement and open his own CrossFit box.
Even though this endeavor had a slow start, growth has been exponential.
“As soon as people come in the door, man, the results speak for themselves,” Edwards says.
14min 22sec
Additional reading: Athletes—Always by Russell Berger, published Nov. 4, 2010.