Living the dream...

Rest Day

Eric Matlock's 1 year Anniversary at CrossFit Off The Grid

This is one of Eric's first pics with us.

Brett, Kyle, and his son Brandon accompany us.

From OTG:

Eric has been a great asset to our gym, community and family. He has contributed countless hours to our gym without thought or question. We really appreciate all Eric has done for us and we are grateful to have him as a student/friend/trainer.

Eric's testimonial:

This time last year I was assigned to the local Police Academy, at my age I was looking for a way to keep up (and leave behind) the guys and girls in their 20's. Don't get me wrong, in my eyes, I was the picture of health and fitness. I have been weight training for close to 15 years and even got into some powerlifting. I was on the Internet, on one of those police blogs and had looked up this Crossfit thing in the past, looking at some of these guys, thinking their out of their minds. Sure their fit but they really don't look strong and in my world, it's all about strength.

So once again I start looking into this "Crossfit" thing, all the places I found are in North Jersey, and then there it was, OTG in Williamstown NJ, since I live in Millville, it's not that far. So I shot this guy (Nick) an e-mail, making sure to tell him that I am already in good shape and looking for a couple of new things to add to my program. Nick replied with some questions and next thing I knew, I went to my one-on-one with my older son Brandon. Now don't take this the wrong way, I walked in and saw Mark and Nick, two really great guys, the only problem is they looked "small", both around 160 - 170 lbs. What can they teach me? Well they showed me some exercises and ran me through a mini-Cindy. 10 minutes of work later, I was on my back thinking, "what the hell was that?" It was a great workout that put me in my place and showed me I was no where close to fit or even "in shape." But I still wasn't sold, I assured them that I was only looking to join for about three months and then I would move on.

Well that was one year ago, the guys and girls at OTG have become family. Those skinny guys Mark and Nick are like brothers to me and I would trust them with my life. It did take a while but after the level one cert at Fort Dix, I am now a Crossfitter for life. You will never catch me doing any more calf raises or arm curls. My wife is now a member of the gym, also level one certified and she never liked to work out with me (I'll let her tell that story when she reaches one year). For the line of work that I am in, Crossfit is the best way to prepare for the unknowing and unknowable, and that's what we face every day. I would like to thank Nick and Mark for sticking with me, I may not be the easiest person to train but you have made it a blast!
Sgt. E.C. Matlock

*1

A.C.E.R.T. District #3

Atlantic Co. Dept. of Public Safety

Anniversary..

"Heavy Deadlifts"

3-3-3-3-3

Work your way up to 5 solid 'working sets' of 3.  If you have anything left after your last set, you didn't go hard enough.

Post loads to comments.

Mark, Brett and Nick on his first day.

Brett's one year anniversary of CrossFit at Off The Grid.

He was our first client and has made tremendous gains in every facet of CrossFit.  He is now Level 1 Certified and looking to add to his fitness resume a certification in CrossFit Running and Endurance in April.  As we stated earlier, Brett is a great addition to the OTG family and we probably would have never met him if it wasn't for CrossFit.  

Here's Brett's OTG Testimonial:

This month makes it one year that I've been training Crossfit. Looking back on how far I have come in this short year, I realize I've made immense gains but still have much I would like to accomplish. I just want to share a bit about how I got involved with Crossfit and what its done 

for me. It was late 2007 / early 2008 when I was reading through Navyseals.com (becoming a SEAL has been a dream of mine for years) that I ran across a fitness article talking about this thing called

 Crossfit. It was being used by military, law enforcement, and Navy Seals in particular. Crossfit...hmm if Navy SEALs are using it, I outta check it out. From there I found crossfit.com and started watching the videos: Greg A's JI Jane, Rob Miller's Jason, OPT's Helen, Pat Barber's Dianne, etc. These guys along with the likes of Speal, Brendan Gillian were so impressive with their ability to 

do these workouts with weights, their own bodyweight, or a combination and do it with an intensity I hadn't seen before. I wanted to be like those guys and train like them too! Unfortunately there were no affiliate gyms near by. Damn.   Wilmington and Philly were just too far away.

Enter Crossfit Off the Grid... Another couple months went by. I read another Crossfit article entitled "God's Workout" which begins "The superfit walk among us." That pretty much says it all.  I did another search and found a gym in Williamstown, just down the road from where I grew up. I couldn't have gotten any luckier! The trainers were super excited about Crossfit and

 so was I. The workouts were awesome and Nick and Mark couldn't have been any cooler. I felt right at home and since then I havn't looked back. Constantly varied functional movements are at the heart of Crossfit programming with increasing work capacity as the goal. The training and being involved in the Crossfit community has changed the way I think about health, fitness, nutrition and has made me fitter, stronger, and healthier.  Just over a year ago at about 190lbs I was following a "bodybuilders" lifting and eating routine. Lots of drinking protein shakes, weight gainer, and eating protein bars were the way to fuel my training.  I wanted to get BIG and strong.  Typical workouts were back/bis, chest/tris, legs, shoulders/calves.  Much different from the Crossfit methodology of training the body as a whole.  

My diet also had a total transformation.  I was absorbing as much information as I could about the Zone and started making these eating habits my own.  Since then I've tried to adapt as much paleo into my diet as possible.  I'm now 173lbs and doing somewhere between 17-19 blocks a day with 3x fat (if I were to do true paleo I would need to cut out milk, cottage cheese, peanut butter and cashews). About a quarter of those carb blocks I replace with extra fat, and my PWO meal is usually a bit on the carb high side. 

I look forward to even more PR's this coming year and absolutely cannot wait for the new facility.

The Triple Threat Abmat Challenge

Day 3 - 9

Buy In - 18

CrossFit OTG makes an impact

Take a look through the eyes of a current CrossFit OTG client and how CrossFit changed her perception of working out.

Leanna with the Owners of CrossFit OTG: Nick and Mark

Leanna's Testimonial:


I guess my story isn’t unlike most other peoples’. For 13 years I went to a regular gym, ran on the treadmill for 30 mins, lifted some weights, and was completely bored out of my mind. Like most people I lost enthusiasm and more than anything lacked any real results. I heard about Crossfit, but was really skeptical about when they did cardio and why they didn’t do any traditional weight lifting. But my boredom at the gym outweighed my concerns, so with a friend we started searching the internet for a Crossfit near us. We found OTG and off we were to our 1 on 1 session. That was the day that changed my fitness life completely around. I woke up the next day and have never been so sore. I also had never been so excited to go back for more!

I have been doing Crossfit for 8 months and I can honestly say that I will never go back to a regular gym. I have never experienced results the way I have with Crossfit. I am stronger and more fit then I have ever been before in my life.

The workouts challenge you in ways I can’t describe. Besides the workouts being physically challenging you are mentally challenged as well. There are plenty of days that I think to myself ‘How the heck am I going to finish this workout?!’.


Not enough great things can be said about the trainers at OTG because they encourage you and challenge you to leave it all on the table. You have such a sense of accomplishment when you actually finish! I could write for hours about what Crossfit has done for me, but you really need to find out for yourself. One thing is for sure, you will push yourself beyond limits you didn’t even know you had and are guaranteed to feel better about yourself in ways you could have never imagined.


Leanna exemplifies CrossFit through her determination and character. We are happy to have such a terrific person be a part of our gym.