Photo courtesy of Jenna Jones.
"Is a handicap really a handicap if it makes you strive to do better?"
It happens more often than Rocky Piwko would probably admit.
Nervous new athletes walk into CrossFit Douglasville and warily eye the bald-headed, muscular owner telling them CrossFit is for them.
That’s when Piwko gets the picture, the one proudly displayed next to his competition photos showing nearly 300 lb. on his 5-foot-5 frame. He’ll tell them it took him 45 minutes to do his first CrossFit workout and under five to complete the same workout within that year.
Perhaps it is the picture that draws people to Piwko, who did a stint in rehab for alcohol and painkiller addictions before finding CrossFit. But the most powerful motivator is watching the 44-year-old, 155-lb. man clean and jerk 225 lb., snatch 155 lb. and string together numerous strict muscle-ups—all with one hand.
“Is a handicap really a handicap if it makes you strive to do better?” asked Piwko’s childhood friend, James Needham, who introduced him to CrossFit in 2010. “If a handicap makes you strive to do better, is it a handicap or a motivator? For Rocky, he definitely uses it as a motivator.”
Piwko and Needham, have gone head-to-head in athletics since they were boys and that competition has been rekindled with CrossFit. There’s not a single exercise Piwko —whose bag of tricks includes a strap, a hook and a clamp to assist his right arm’s grip—hasn’t taught himself to do in line with CrossFit’s prescribed standards. Competing in the 77-kg. weight class at the Altitude Open Garage Games earlier this month, Piwko—the only adaptive athlete registered—took home the gold.
“He says, ‘I want to be seen more as an athlete and an adaptive one second,’” said Piwko’s wife, Kristi, who helps run CrossFit Douglasville. “He wants to be able to do everything everyone else does. He wants to do well in the Open. He wants to do everything Rx’d for that and there’s no reason he can’t.”
“Can’t” isn’t a word Piwko uses much, especially since the day Needham’s constant imploring finally won out and got Piwko to check out CrossFit.com’s workouts.
“I was the guy sitting on the couch, I actually couldn't stand or sit for too long,” said Piwko, who gained all of his weight after he was told by doctors in 2010 that a back injury would keep him from ever lifting more than 10 lb. “I had self-esteem issues. I was a lazy bum. I’m go, go, go now. I’m in better shape now than I was in my 20s. As far as I’m concerned, CrossFit really saved my life.”
Born without his right hand, Piwko—whose real name is George—got his nickname after surviving a death scare at the hospital in Buffalo, New York. The newborn was diagnosed with German measles and mumps and was having trouble breathing. On top of that, the hospital was giving him penicillin which he was allergic to. Somewhat miraculously, Piwko made it through. Afterward, his grandfather nicknamed him Rocky in honor of World heavyweight champion boxer Rocky Marciano. The name stuck, particularly after the young Piwko became obsessed with the “Rocky” movies.
The fight is different in CrossFit, but in many ways it’s the same. Every time Piwko affixes his strap to the barbell to set up for a snatch, or puts on a clamp to grab the other side of the rope for double-unders, he’s the underdog beating the odds.
“I consider him to be such an amazing athlete. It’s not, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good considering you have one hand,’” said Needham, who has a 1-rep-max bench press of 300 lb. but struggled to keep up with Piwko this fall doing incline dumbbell bench presses. “If I can beat him at anything, I don’t care if he has one hand or two hands, I would compare my numbers to him straight up. And he would do the same thing. He doesn’t look at it like, ‘I'm able to do this, but I only have one hand.’”
Neither Needham or Kristi have ever heard Rocky complain about his situation. He’d rather spend his time devising new ways to use his strap, which right now makes it impossible for him to bail on heavy snatches. On a recent AMRAP, Piwko—who uses the Instagram handle @sng_handedly—opted to use just one arm to avoid having to strap back in.
“When I look at something I always try to figure out, I got to be able to do it some way, somehow,” Piwko said. “It’s been through trial and error. A couple times I didn't have my strap with me for deadlifts so I tried mixed grip, and that led into, ‘Let me try it for the cleans so I can hold the bar up.’ And then it happened, but not instantly of course, it took a lot of reps.”
Piwko, who at times will jump in with a group class, puts up impressive numbers and has his sights set on the Open. Last year, his box—which opened in 2012—moved to a bigger space and things were a bit hectic, particularly finding time to train. This year, things are different and CrossFit Douglasville hopes to have an impressive turnout among its members.
“It is all about doing something you didn't think you could do,” Kristi said of the Open. “If you try it just to see, you may surprise yourself.”
And who better to deliver that message than Piwko.
“His reliability to people and the empathy that he has, it’s not just some elite athlete that is giving his knowledge to the masses,” Needham said.
“It’s different when you have somebody who has overcome so much, they have this level of empathy and understanding with even the most out-of-shape person. Forget the fact that he only has one hand, just the fact that he dealt with addiction and was extremely out of shape and being in a tough financial situation. All the things he’s overcome besides only having one hand. And now he’s teaching CrossFit and teaching people to get in shape. It’s just such a great attribute that he has.”
Piwko is eager to share his latest addiction with anyone who walks through his doors.
“I hear all the time now when I walk in, people say, ‘Well, I don’t have any excuses,’" Piwko said. "In the gym, people always tell me they forget I have one hand because I don’t make a big deal out of it, I don't point it out. CrossFit is always pushing me, I'm always trying to push myself further and further.”
