Mat-Su CrossFit offers Valley another way to exercise

WASILLA — If you pay for a membership at Mat-Su CrossFit Gym, you aren’t just paying for access to a weight room — you’re paying for some intense encouragement from founder Mike Chin.

On a Thursday night, there are about 20 people who trickle into “The Box” to endure one of the toughest workouts around. (And Thursday is a slow night, apparently.) But The Box, the local home of this new brand of workout, is different than your average gym. Each and every person loves being there and challenging each other as part of the family that is Mat-Su CrossFit.

Mike and Kori Chin started CrossFit training while living in England. When they moved to Alaska, they stuck with their fitness, but missed the community aspect of a CrossFit gym. The Chins went to the CrossFit Games in California and were encouraged to start their own chapter right at home in the Mat-Su Valley. After a lengthy affiliation process, the Chins opened their own in their two-car garage. Mike said there was a lot of interest, but skepticism over the garage feel.

When Excel Gymnastics moved out of its location on Buckboard Road along the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, the Chins saw it as a perfect location because it had a garage look.

After starting their project with seven members, the CrossFit gym has expanded to nearly 80 members and into “The Box,” as they like to call it. While the space is accommodating, it’s not what the Chins cherish most.

“We don’t want people to pay for pretty,” Kori Chin said. “The reason people come here — from little kids to elite athletes to grandmas — is the community atmosphere. We all do the workout and cheer each other on. If somebody misses a day, we want to know where they are, what’s wrong. It’s because we’re worried about them, we care. This is our family.”

The Mat-Su affiliation of CrossFit took three athletes to the CrossFit Games in California. Mike Chin said it was an incredibly uplifting experience to compete with, not against, thousands of athletes. The first Alaskan CrossFit Games is scheduled for October in Anchorage.

CrossFit is a gym movement created by Reebok and described as the sport of fitness. It focuses on 10 elements of functional fitness.

“I used to be a meathead,” Mike Chin said. “I just went to the gym to get big. The CrossFit mentality is about functional fitness, not marathon runners who can’t hold their own weight or weightlifters who are so big they can’t move.”

As you rumble out of the gym and run to the fence at the end of the driveway, after what seems like a million burpees and 2 million upright rows, you want to give up. But it’s hard to give up when you hear Mike yelling at you and the athletes around you either by name or by nickname to give your best effort.