Member of the Month- Kent Oberlin

Name: Kent Oberlin

Age: 55

Profession: Key Account Rep for Builders First Source

1. Why Do You Train:

For longevity. I’m not scared of pain, but I am scared of heart Disease. To be able to live a better life.

2. Why do you train at out gym?

At first, I didn’t want anything to do with CrossFit. My Wife Dianne has been doing it for a while and I just thought it was not for me. I came to the first workout and it didn’t take but a few workouts to realize this is really cool. I like the whole family aspect and that got me hooked.

3. What were you most afraid of when you joined our gym?

Doing lower body exercise because of problems with my knees. Doing things like squats, but those things are coming around.

4. What was one thing that got you to take the initial leap and sign up?

Location was a factor, being right in town. Having 4 different class times works great for what I do. It works out well to come to any class time and I have utilized every one of them. I like meeting people from each class.

5. What is a goal of yours?

To perform Turkish Get-Ups well. I do not get down on the ground well and I don’t get up well. The Turkish Get-Up is a great exercise to help that.

6. What is most important to you in life right now?

Family is most important thing. If we are blessed to have grandchildren I want to be able to play with my grandchildren and not watch my grandchildren play. By doing this I think that is going to help.

7. What are your biggest challenges in life?

Motivation. For anything whether its work or working out, you just got to do it. Once you get there and get involved in it, you’ll get it done.

Nutrient Timing

Nutrient timing means eating specific nutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins) in specific amounts at specific times (normally before, during, or after exercise).

Having proper nutrient timing will enhance athletic performance, competition, and daily life expectations. Having the right timing will help your body use the food that you eat as fuel instead of turning it into fat.

When exercising a great starting point is to eat most of your daily carbs and proteins before and after exercise and NO FAT. Eating fats before and/or after your workout will slow down the digestion of the fuel you put in your body. This means that our body will not get the fuel that it needs in time to either fuel or recover for exercise.

What should I eat and when?

This all depends on when you workout. If you’re an early riser/exerciser, eat something small like a banana or half the servings of 1st Phorm’s Ignition and 1st Phorm’s Phormula-1. If you are a macro guy/gal, 25 grams of carbs and 25 grams of protein for breakfast. Then, eat more carbs during your dinner (the night before early exercise) and during that day’s lunch.

If you workout out in the evening, you may benefit from a higher fat and protein breakfast. Then, you would eat mostly carbs and protein at lunch and dinner. For you evening warriors, don’t eat a giant meal an hour before your workout and not expect to see it again. Keep your pre-workout snack small and compacted full of carbs and protein.


How soon should I eat after exercise?

This brings us to a term the metabolic window. Often referred to as the “window of gainz”. There’s no hard and clear threshold for when the opportunity to re-feed passes, but typically, you should have a carbohydrate and protein-rich meal down within 30-60 minutes of your final repetition of the day. Eating that meal right away maximizes the number of carbohydrates stored in the muscles as glycogen, instead of fat. This is when your insulin sensitivity and capacity for proper carb utilization and storage are at their highest. During this window, proper nutrition will shift our body from a catabolic state to an anabolic state increasing muscle mass and improving recovery.


How much should I eat after working out?

After working out, we need to have both carbohydrates and proteins. Without carbs post workout, our body will break down the protein as energy instead of using it to rebuild our muscles. A good post workout shake would consist of about 25 grams of carbs and 25 grams of protein. For us, this looks like ½ a scoop of 1st Phorm Ignition (carbs) and 1 scoop of 1st Phorm Phormula-1 (protein).


Eating the right food before and after a workout is very important. However, what you eat the rest of the day plays a huge role in what your body uses as fuel. If you have any questions about how to get your nutrition back on track, ask any of the coaches at the gym. We are here to help!

Why YOU Should Do The Open

The 2019 CrossFit Open is right around the corner! What is The Open all about and who is it for? We are going to be giving you all the details on who, what, when, where, and why!

The CrossFit Open is a five-week online fitness competition that kicks off February 21st. So how does it work?

    Every Thursday for five weeks (starting 2/21) CrossFit Headquarters will release a workout. Participants have until the following Monday to complete the workout and enter their score on CrossFit’s leaderboard. This leaderboard will show where you stack up across everyone that has signed up from all over the world (last year there were around 500,000 participants!). As you participate in the open for multiple years, you are able to watch yourself improve as you become fitter amongst everyone in the world!

    So who is the open for and why should you participate? The Open is for anyone and everyone. Just like the workouts we do everyday, there is the RX and scaled options to meet you at your level. We have put together the top 5 reasons YOU should join the fun and sign up for The Open;

  1. Community- The Open allow you to be apart of something a little bit bigger. It’s all about participating in an event that brings athletes of all genders, levels, regions, ages and ethnicities together around the world. The CrossFit community has over 15,000 gyms worldwide and The Open is a great way to feel connected. Participating will also bring our small community here at CFA to be closer as we judge each other’s workouts and cheer for each others accomplishments. We will all complete the Open workout every friday during the morning and noon class and in the evenings we will have our “Friday Night Lights” event!
  2. See Where You Stand- When you register for The Open, you can compare your scores to fellow CrossFitters in your community and across the globe! You can also narrow your scope to compare against people of the same profession, age, region, etc. This will help you push yourself just a little bit harder than normal each week and gives the workout some more meaning. The fun thing about The Open leaderboard is each year you can watch as your placing gets better and better as your fitness increases!
  3. Be Inspired- Watch the professionals of the sport go head to head and battle against each other doing the same workout we are doing! Their hard work and pure athleticism is shocking and inspiring. It is awesome to see people of all levels do the same exact workout that you are doing each week.
  4. Learn- Gain insight watching the live WOD announcements. CrossFit analysts make predictions and review strategies and approach. Watch other athletes for cues about pacing and technique. Get feedback directly from the athletes after the WOD, or talk to your coaches and fellow Open participants on the best way to attack each workout for success!
  5. Have Fun While Getting Fit- This is a great excuse to stay a little later at the box with your friends. Challenge yourself/ others and support your box mates during their workout. This can become one of the most fun and exciting times of the year! Bring your family and friends to come watch you complete The Open WODs each week during “Friday Night Lights”! We encourage people to hang around after their heat to cheer each other on and partake in their beverage of choice….anything from FitAid to beer 🙂

To sign up for The Open, visit games.crossfit.com and click “REGISTER”. The first workout is released on 2/21 so don’t wait! Sign up now and don’t regret saying no because of your fears and excuses! If you have any questions, feel free to hit up your coach. See you #InTheOpen

Member of the Month- Alisa Mills

Name: Alisa Mills   

Age: 49

Profession/Career: Executive Director of the Community Humane Shelter of Steuben County 

1. Why do you train?

I made a promise to my son Alex, that I would join when it opened. I need to for me, I am turning 50 this year and my husband and I loke go on active vacations and I do not want to be the slow one. To be active outside of the gym especially on vacations.  We like to hike.

2. Why do you do train at our gym?

Because I live in the area and my son got me to sign up.

3. What were you most afraid of when you first joined our gym?

Gym Gorillas and Angry Coaches. My son assured me that coaches wouldn’t be screaming in my face. Gym Gorillas are big guys who lift a lot of weight and scream and holler.

4. What one thing got you to take the initial leap and sign up?

Alex. He is very supportive. He even came over to load the cows one morning so I could come to CrossFit class.

5. What are your goals?

Stay healthy and stay active. I am looking forward to an active retirement.

6. What is most important to you in your life right now?

Work/ Life balance, I struggle with that because I get obsessed with my job. It can eat you alive, literally because I run the Humane Society. That is why I come at 5 am because I know that I can commit to it. Any other hour of the day I do not know if I can commit to it.

7. What are your biggest challenges/ pain points in life right now?

Pushing my limits and not being so conservative.

8. What improvements have you noticed in our short time training here?

My husband says I am sleeping harder! He says I don’t even move anymore. So better sleep.

Better, more free movement at work. I can do daily tasks easier. I am surprised I am already seeing improvements.

CFA Tips for Success

We know that this whole CrossFit thing is pretty new to most of us. We also understand busy schedules. In fact, many of the members we have here at CrossFit Angola initially joined because they needed a more efficient workout that didn’t require them to be in the gym for hours at a time.

That’s why we’ve put together this list of ways you can make your time at the box as productive and fulfilling as possible.

6 TIPS TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME AT CROSSFIT ANGOLA:

1) SET A TRAINING SCHEDULE

While you generally enjoy coming into the box, there are some days when maybe overtime at work, school papers, family issues and other nasty things can really get you in the mood to skip the WOD “just because.”

A good way to deter the “just because” excuse is to get into the habit of coming in at the same time on the same days. Once you’ve created this habit, it becomes automatic. You’ll find yourself going to the box without any force involved regardless of the plants who could probably use watering (or any other strange excuse you give yourself.)

Bottom line: A schedule keeps you consistent, and consistency is the key to forming healthy habits.

2) TRACK YOUR PROGRESS, & CELEBRATE ACHIEVEMENTS

If you’re serious about hitting your fitness goal, it’s critical to track your progress. And we don’t mean stepping on the scale every morning and completely freaking out at any increase in weight.

Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you’re doing it right you’ll be gaining lean muscle while you’re losing fat which-doesn’t always result in seeing a lower number on the scale.

Keeping track of your workouts and progress will help you train with a purpose and show you how much your fitness is increasing over time. If you did 5 back squats at 135 a few months ago, and that sequence has come up again, well now you’ll know what number to shoot higher than. Celebrate any achievements, PRs, goals, etc that you accomplish. The goal is continued progress, not reaching perfection.

Bottom line: Knowing what you did yesterday will help you be better today.

3) COME EARLY, STAY LATE

Many of us get into the habit of coming in on-time and leaving on-time. That’s by no means a bad habit! An awesome part of CrossFit Angola is community vibe! We like to say “You don’t have to workout to hangout”. CFA is a place more then a gym where we encourage you to come in, hang out with some other awesome people, and forget about some of your stress.

On top of that, you may even be able to put in a little extra fitness work if you come early or stay late.

We know, working out before working out sounds like advice from a crazy person, but it’s a great way to work on some extra skills/ goals that you want to improve on. If you can find a few other people that like to go above and beyond and will come in with you early or stick around after class, you start to build awesome relationships with other people.

Bottom line: Come in, hang out, and put in some extra work both physically and socially

4) ASK FOR HELP

It’s ok to admit that you feel a little intimidated or uncomfortable asking for help at the box. But don’t be shy! Even those big, huge, grunting, bearded guys were new once. Everyone has been in the same spot and loves to help beginners learn. There’s absolutely no shame in needing some extra help to understand a movement. In fact, that’s the sign of a smart athlete who’s on their way to big things.

Bottom line: There’s no such thing as a stupid question. Ask away.

5) SLEEP MORE

We want you to sleep more. In fact, we insist you sleep more. We can’t stress enough the importance of getting a good night’s rest because without it, all the training and dieting in the world will just be a waste of time.

It’s hard to believe that something you do when you’re not even awake can be one of the most important ways you can make the most out of your training sessions, but it’s true. To put it simply, lack of sleep stresses out your body which cases weight gain and anxiety.

Bottom line: Prioritize your sleep. Prioritize your well-being.

6) PRACTICE MOBILITY AT HOME

Stretching and becoming more flexible really shouldn’t take a back seat in your plan to become a fitter you. If we could tack on an extra 30 minutes to the WOD for mobility, we’d do just that! An hour a day at the box isn’t going to undo a lifetime of sitting on your bum craning over a keyboard.

Invest in a few key items for home like a foam roller and a PVC pipe to improve your range of motion while you’re watching TV or right before bed. Practicing mobility at home will improve your overall athletic ability and will decrease the risk of injury.

Bottom line: Mobilize everywhere and invest in the tools to do so.