For Yorkton's Taryn Romanowich her beginnings into the world of CrossFit began at the gym four years ago. "I was at Benno's Fitness in Yorkton doing some ugly hang cleans and I saw some guys in the corner doing something crazy and they helped fixed my technique and showed me CrossFit and I got ripped up and took it from there." Now Romanowich is the owner and instructor of Yorkton's first CrossFit gym in Function and is an aspiring CrossFit Games athlete, combining the sport of weight lifting with the philosophy of CrossFit and functional exercise.
CrossFit describes itself as "constantly varied, high intensity, functional movement" the goal of it is to carry over the workouts into real life, something that drew Romanowich to the sport. Now Romanowich is in her second year of competing in the CrossFit Open with the aim of reaching the CrossFit Games, an annual event held in Los Angeles to determine the "fittest people on earth" using a random assortment of the timed CrossFit workouts. With 17 regional divisions and 12 in North America, Romanowich is competing in the Canada West Division for the second year and is looking to improve upon her 14th place finish in her first year of competing.
"Last year I came into Canada West trials in 52nd place and finished in 14th and this year my goal is to finish in the top ten," says Romanowich who has been consistently improving the more she has been competing in the relatively new weight lifting sport. Being ranked ninth going into her final stage of pre Canada West qualifiers Romanowich will be going to Richmond BC June 7-9 as one of the outside favorites to be among the two people who get to represent Canada West at the CrossFit Games in Los Angeles.
Coming from an athletic background Romanowich first saw the potential of functional exercise from her basketball career as the former YRHS Lady Raider noticed how much the exercises she was doing improved her on court play, saying "Basketball was my first love and I always trained for the sport and once I started with CrossFit I instantly noticed what it brought to the table for my basketball game and how it upped my physicality and what I could do on the court which drew me even more into continuing with CrossFit." Romanowich, who still officiates basketball around the community mentioned that after awhile something that once was training for basketball became her sport and passion. "After awhile CrossFit just became my sport even though I love basketball, I just consider this to be my thing now" mentioned Romanowich.
Owning her own gym for two years, Romanowich admits that having a gym designed specifically for CrossFit as well as having a much more flexible schedule has been an invaluable asset to her training. "It has been a huge help, I have the support of all the people at Function from coaching them and in returning the people at the gym cheering me on and supporting me as well as having everything I need to train at my disposal as well as the time to train whenever I need," explains Romanowich. With Function now almost being open for two years Romanowich focuses on coaching equally as much as her own athletic career, taking the time to instruct new members on proper form as well as helping out with the three daily sessions the gym hosts for its members.
As the ninth ranked athlete in Canada West, Romanowich advantage is in the power disciplines of the workouts such as Olympic lifting, but with a random draw of which workouts will be used in any given tournament she will need to be proficient in each assigned workout for the event if she wants to reach her goal of top ten or the even loftier goal of being in the top two and advancing onto the Games in Los Angeles. "My strengths are more power based and that is what I enjoy to do, but going into the event I know that there is very little chance I will get all of my best events so I need to continue to work over these next two months on getting better reps on every workout I can in order to succeed," explains Romanowich.
As for weaknesses Romanowich explained that the mental side might be the toughest of all saying, "Sometimes being mentally tough and motivated to push yourself is all you need to reach your personal best so that is another focus of mine right now." Canada West Regionals will take place June 7-9 in Richmond at the Olympic Oval where Yorkton and it's local gym will be represented with a chance to qualify for the CrossFit Games. In a new sport Romanowich has found her calling, where that calling and the sport goes is for the future to decide, but for now a local athlete looks to climb to the top in an exciting new athletic discipline as well as spreading the gospel of a new form of fitness to the community.
