VOA常速英语:我一生中最重要的部分就是帮助人

I cannot remember what it was like to have two legs and it was just 14 years ago.I mean, the reason why is because I know that, that is the old me, that is not the new me, the new me is what is here now.

Right about the end of high school, I decided I wanted to go in the Army,I was in the field practicing my job essentially, with my other teammates.And I was injured when an artillery round, that’s about the size of two-liter Coke bottle landed five feet behind me and exploded.

They tempted to do limb-salvage work on me to try to make leg work the proper way, and it just was not working.So, I actually opted about eight months later to have my leg removed and it was amputated about six inches below the knee.

About two months later I was fitted with my first prosthesis and never looked back.

One of the best ways to help an amputee’s advance is to help them get more and more comfortable with their prosthetic device.

There’s just a level of mistrust and discomfort, so what I try to do first and foremost,is give amputees the tips and tricks and the tools that they need to work and make themselves stronger.Because I generally feel that a stronger athlete is a more balanced athlete.

About 2011 timeframe, a friend of mine sent me list of workouts and said, “hey you should try this stuff, it’s called CrossFit.”

And I looked at all the things that these people were doing and I was like, “There’s no way I can do that as an amputee.”

So, I just decided to try it and within day one I was hooked.

If you were to take functional fitness, in other words, how you would actually move in real life,you mix that with a little bit of weight lifting, you mix that with a little bit of a high intensity interval trainingwhere essentially I take your heart-rate and I try and drive it up and then let it calm down and drive it up again, that’s CrossFit.It’s very social aspect to CrossFit.

You know, if you’re not in the gym for a while, as a coach, I might call you out and say, “Hey, why aren’t you here?”

What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to get vets to have an understanding that, that same social comradery that you had in the military,that same feeling you got when you worked out with your entire unit in the military,can be re-enacted by coming into a CrossFit gym and work.

I require a prosthesis to do the movements that I do in CrossFit, so therefore I am an adaptive athlete.A lot of my coaching style comes from the same desire I had in the military to take care of soldiers.

I’ve always told people that I’m a coach that CrossFits, I’m not a CrossFitter that coaches.And what I mean by that is that I’m there to take care of you and all I’m trying to get people to do when they’re in my gym is one,sweat and have a good-time and two, try and see what’s good about you and what you’re doing is going to bring out more of what’s good about you.

One day, a gentleman out of Park City, Utah, just sent me a message and said,“Hey, would you like to try out as a brake man for the U.S, para bobsled team?”

Went up to Canada and tried out, went to Europe about a month and a half later.Had a first and second place finish and came back as the overall champion.

To hold the title of the first ever para bobsled world champion was pretty special, I’m not the future of this sport.So my goal is get us noticed, compete when I can and recruit as many people into this sport as I can.