“I wanna reverse the aging process. I wanna go the other direction,” says Sue Pepe, a 61-year-old CrossFitter who is making significant health improvements through CrossFit.
“I’m more fit than I was 30 years ago,” she says. “I feel great.”
Rob Orlando, owner of Hybrid Athletics, is proud of her success.
“All of her critical numbers have changed pretty drastically. Most importantly, her blood pressure was down from 150 over 110 to 119 over 79, I believe. She is off of all medications that she was taking, and she’s down 30 lb. in one year,” he says.
“I think the biggest changes is the lifestyle changes, taking control of my health,” Pepe says. “I’m seeing the results.”
However, Pepe had a tough time starting CrossFit. She says she felt intimidated and outside the rest of the group because of her age and fitness level. Orlando says he helped her become a part of the community and scale her workouts accordingly.
“I was so overweight and so sedentary that it was an effort just for me to even walk,” she says. “It was just starting off with the small steps first and then working my way up to where I felt comfortable even being in a group of CrossFitters.”
Pepe’s original CrossFit Journal video has inspired others, and Orlando says Pepe isn’t the only one who can turn her life around.
“It’s just regular people doing extraordinary things, and I think that she is the shining example of that,” Orlando says. “This program works, and it works really well.”
10min 38 sec
Additional reading: A CrossFit Grandma by Mary Conover, published Oct. 1, 2004.