David Brezler had goals similar to most when he started CrossFit: He simply wanted to lose weight, get fit, and reclaim his life.
A project manager from suburban New York City, Brezler started CrossFit-adjacent training at his local Lifetime Fitness in 2021.
- Brezler is also a caretaker for his disabled parents, so he was happy to find a place for his family to go together so his parents could start working on their health.
There, he discovered a functional fitness class called Alpha, which was headed by CrossFit Level 1 (CF-L1) and Level 2 (CF-L2) coaches at the time.
He took to the class immediately, but never thought of CrossFit as a long-term goal until he came across the Buttery Bros.
- Brezler described it: “I consume CrossFit content and have been watching the Buttery Bros videos. Heber Cannon put up his ‘Fit After 40′ videos, and I connected with them. I wanted that for myself.”
Brezler began training with post-40 fitness in mind, drawing motivation from Cannon’s videos.
- “The idea was to do as much fitness as possible,” Brezler told the Morning Chalk Up, “and try to get to a spot where I could enter a competition. I told everybody – my trainers and the people I was training with. This was the big goal.”
By the end of 2023, Brezler had reached a point where he was confident in registering for a local competition. “I had already signed up for a triathlon, Murph, the 2024 Open, and a bunch of other things,” he said.
And then it all came crashing down.
The Injury
It happened two days before Christmas.
- “I had just finished a class where I had done tons of spinning on the fan bike,” Brezler said. “Some friends of mine from class were doing box jumps and decided to give the 30-inch box a try. I had done 18, 20, and 24, and decided that 30 was the next thing.”
He was more accustomed to cushioned boxes — this one wasn’t — and as Brezler said, “I’m a bigger guy.”
- “I made the jump, and the box tipped over, and I was going towards the rack,” he said.
Time stood still for a moment.
- “I started going through all these calculations in my head – go towards the rack? No, that’s dangerous. Can I fall backwards? No, because my other foot is stuck. Can I fall sideways? No, I’m going forward too fast to fall sideways. So what do you do?”
Going against everything we are taught in CrossFit about landing with a soft knee, Brezler locked his and shattered his tibial plateau on impact. There was massive trauma and swelling, and an ambulance came to take him directly to the emergency room.
The Road Back
First, there was a six-hour surgery with plates and pins, followed by morphine resistance. The recovery was brutal.
- With lidocaine patches, Tylenol, and ice in tow, Brezler started the long road back. All of the work he had put in prior to the injury proved valuable as he healed quickly with the physical therapy.
In late April, Brezler was ready to get back to training, but instead of training at a Lifetime Fitness, he went all in and joined Alta Fit CrossFit in New Rochelle, NY. He instantly fell in love with the community.
- He has been a member for over a year, and his most significant goal after the injury was to rekindle the competitive fire that initially ignited his passion for fitness.
In May, Brezler competed in a local competition called Monarch Melee.
One of the workouts included a heavy deadlift, which he was stoked to tackle. He hit 450, only 15 pounds off of his lifetime PR, which he hit pre-injury.
Brezler’s year is packed with more competitions, including an upcoming triathlon. He is proud of how far he has come, but he does have regrets.
- “I don’t know if I would quantify it as good – I feel like I’m a year behind on my goal because of my injury,” he said. “I know there is no actual deadline for this, but I shouldn’t have been so careless. I should have known before I even tried that box jump in December – I had signed up for that triathlon and the Open and more, and I shouldn’t have attempted something that could have gotten me hurt.”
Lessons Learned
Brezler knows he has a lot to be thankful for, including the relationship he has forged with his new CrossFit family.
He also understands that he wouldn’t have found this amazing community if he had never hurt himself.
- “Maybe I needed to shatter my knee to have that be the catalyst that eventually pushed me over.”
His story, he said, “is the same as everybody else’s who found CrossFit late in life. I have sports injuries from high school that have followed me all the way through life, and finding CrossFit solved essentially a very large percentage of those problems.”
- “The methodology works, and there is a reason why everybody says that. It actually works.”
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