Karl Linger

Member Since September 2010

(In Karl’s own words…)

A little over a year and a half ago as I sat on the couch after dinner my beautiful wife reminded me the garbage needed to be taken up to the road for pick up.  I took off down the driveway and walked the big can with wheels up to the road (about 30 yards or so). I got to the top huffing and puffing and made my way back to the couch.  I had the clear realization that I was losing.

I had recently been informed that my liver disease had progressed to stage four and Hepatitis C, the result of much too much fun in earlier years, was continuing to damage my body and quality of life. I would be looking at another round of a difficult drug treatment and/or find myself a place on a transplant list. I knew I needed to do something, as just sitting around and not fighting to regain some quality of life was just not acceptable to me.

A coworker had mentioned that she had done some kind of Bootcamp and it was really helping her in many ways. (Thanks Ms. Wilson ) I got the number and decided to sign up. I had been in the military and was a Martial Arts practitioner for many years when I was younger so I thought “OK, I can do this.”

I arrived at Strength & Conditioning Bootcamp on day one and met my Coach, Ashley Denton. She described the process and walked us through a warm up before we took our initial fitness test, which would help us to later gauge what progress we had made during Bootcamp. I dragged my butt through the first 400 meter run and into the rest of the stations, my body clearly not in any condition to do anything resembling the explained exercise.  On the second 400 meter run and about half way up the hill my legs scream out some obscenities to me and inform me that after sitting on the couch for the past years they were not up for dragging my lazy butt up the hill again.  As two people passed me on the left and the right looking back at me with sad eyes I walked the balance of the run and realized just how much trouble I was in.

I finished my first Bootcamp in somewhat better condition then I had started.  However, I had seen on enough mornings the athletes in the 6:15 Strength & Conditioning class working their way through the days WOD and watched women knock out extra kipping pull ups after class.  I had no illusions that I could survive anything like that. “These people were crazy,” I thought to myself, “but man were they in good shape.”  I continue to be impressed by the women of Strength & Conditioning.  They have changed my perception of women in so many ways.

I signed up with some other Bootcampers for the next round of Bootcamp.  We made a deal with each other that if we stuck together we might be able to negotiate a new 7:15 WOD class that we could all sign up for and venture into “real” Strength & Conditioning together. After some convincing, Dave surrendered and the 7:15 class was born.  We all made the commitment and, to date, most of us have remained regular and have taken our own long drink of Strength & Conditioning “Kool Aid.”

Along the way somewhere I recognized that although we all admire the successes we see each other make, as our training continues the thing
that really wins respect in the Strength & Conditioning Community is the willingness to fail, the willingness to push ourselves past what we think we can do and being OK with failing at that next rep. It seems that the most necessary muscle for success in Strength & Conditioning is the heart.

I have continued to train after and through injury and am about to start a new round of drug therapy during which I hope to keep training as best I can.

Thanks to Mr. Glassman and my Coaches at CFD.  You guys have been simply the best.

I love this thing.

– Karl Linger