"Some people say they found God. Well, I found CrossFit, and it changed my life completely."
Photos courtesy of Stephanie Polkowski, Kate Manley, and Kirstie Solano-Mullins.
When Quintin Solano started CrossFit in 2012, he weighed 315 lb. and couldn't do five burpees without panting.
Today, 100 lb. lighter, the 19-year-old can snatch 200 lb., deadlift 500 lb. and complete Fran in 2:42.
This is his second CrossFit Games Open and his sights are set on the top 200 in the Central East Region. On the first of the five workouts he put up 331 reps (14.1).
“I think it’s within reach,” Solano said.
Solano spent the bulk of his childhood brushing Dorito crumbs from his fingers and going on magical quests in World of Warcraft. During his freshman year, his GPA was 1.9 and the scale his enemy. He did everything to shift the spotlight.
“I would disrupt class and cause havoc for the teachers,” he said. “I never thought people would like me because I was bigger, so I always tried to be the funny guy.”
Although he was big, he was also strong. With a 405-lb. deadlift and 215-lb. bench press, he found a home on the football field. But he was easily winded.
“I put out max effort but it wasn’t (like) anything other kids could do at that point,” he said.
He tried fad diets, weight loss pills and personal trainers, but he couldn’t buy motivation. It wasn’t until his junior year, when his football coach opened CrossFit Downriver in a dentist’s basement, that Solano found himself breathing hard and liking it.
“We were surrounded by a bunch of shelves with documents on them and one squat stand, and it was called CrossFit,” Solano said. “I loved the workouts because they were never the same, and once I started having fun (working out), I stopped video-gaming.”
As the weight faded, Solano’s commitment grew. Now, after following Zone prescription from the CrossFit Journal for more than a year, he weighs 210 lb. and has 40 unbroken pull-ups to go with his sub-3 minute Fran.
He said the old Solano would never have made it through the lung-burner that was 14.1.
“I would have been doing singles,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have been able to breathe.”
Solano’s strategy was to go unbroken for as long as possible while keeping calm and staying under one minute per round. He did his first two rounds unbroken, and then split the snatches into two sets for the remaining rounds.
“The last two minutes were a full-on sprint,” he said. “I couldn’t feel my forearms in the last couple of reps. I was putting my hands on the bar and trusting I had enough grip to pull it up.”
His coach, Joseph Alberga, screamed from the sidelines as he watched Solano outwork men with twice the teenager’s years and experience.
“With 10 seconds left, he drops the bar and rushes over to the rope and he’s got so much pain on his face, but he wasn’t going to stop,” Alberga said. “It really was incredible.”
The once overweight troublemaker is now an athlete, respected throughout his community for his work ethic and humility.
“The reason he was so successful with his weight loss is that he takes himself to places that even some of the best athletes don’t take themselves to,” Alberga said. “He made those gains because of what he does daily in the grind … every time he’s in (the gym) he’s taking it to the redline.”
Poised to meet his goal for 2014, Solano’s efforts are paying off. But his vision doesn’t end there. After two years of CrossFit, he took home a senior year GPA of 3.7, and is now studying biochemistry at the University of Michigan.
He credits CrossFit with giving him the drive to excel outside of the gym.
“(CrossFit) changed my work ethic,” he said. “As efficient as I was in the gym, I wanted to be efficient in school. Some people say they found God. Well, I found CrossFit, and it changed my life completely.”
