Suck It Up: Andrew Tucker's Mantra

March 22, 2013

Lauryn Lax

Former Marine and U.S. bobsled team member Andrew Tucker is now taking a stab at CrossFit athlete.
 

When personal trainer and former U.S. bobsled team member, Andrew Tucker, agreed to help members of the Marine Corps stationed in Gulf Breeze, Fla., as a physical training consultant in 2009, the only hoop the holder of a master’s degree in sports medicine had to jump through was obtaining his CrossFit Level I Certificate.

“I went to the (course) blind,” Tucker says. “I had no experience with CrossFit —hadn’t even heard of it. I got my ass handed to me, and fell in love with it. I came back to my own gym where I trained and told my partners, ‘We’re changing everything.’ It changed my training for myself, my clients and my influences.”

In the midst of his change from a classic globo gym trainer to CrossFit coach and athlete, Tucker also ruffled some feathers.

“The gym kicked us out one day when we were doing Diane and Helen, so there were five of us out on a pool deck doing WODs,” Tucker says. “A couple guys came over to see what we were doing and joined in, then another day a couple more came, and we got our first girl working out with us.”

Nearly four years later, Tucker, 40, now owns and operates CrossFit Gulf Breeze, the first and only affiliate in the town of 5,700 people.

“When I opened the box two years ago, all of my clients were green,” he remembers. “None of them had done CrossFit before so they grew as I grew as an owner and coach. Now, I have a huge community of about 200 with many of my original members, who have improved … and a couple even coaching part time.”

This year, Tucker is also making a name for himself as a CrossFit athlete. After 13.1, he sat in first in the South East and ninth worldwide in the Masters Men 40-44 Division after logging 171 reps. Tucker says he is humbled to have experienced success early on in the Open.

On 13.2, Tucker posted 260 reps, just 10 box jumps short of nine rounds. Now, he's looking to 13.3 to help him climb up the Leaderboard.

While the competitor boasts a 565-lb. deadlift, a 220-lb. snatch, a 2:30 Fran, and a 1:33 Diane, athletic training and success is nothing new to him.  

Tucker has been a personal trainer and strength coach since 2003 and an athlete his entire life. He grew up playing football and running track before finding his real passion at age 19: bobsledding.

Tucker was on the U.S. bobsled team for seven years, from 1995 to 1998 and 1999 to 2002. Additionally, he competed on the Europa Cup team, America's Cup team and was part of the delegation and a forerunner for the team in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

He says he fell into it by sheer luck.

“In 1994, I heard about a combine in Atlanta where the U.S. bobsled team were holding tryouts, and I decided to go just for the fun of it,” he says. “I didn’t think I’d make it, but how many times can you say you tried out for the team?”

Tucker made the top-10 cut on day one, and on day two, he stole away with first place after pushing a sled 40 yards for time.

"I ended up being the one guy selected out of 78 competitors," he recalls.

The team handed him a plane ticket right there.

“I had never seen snow before, and there I was about to fly to Lake Placid, N.Y., to be part of the U.S. bobsled team,” Tucker says, laughing. “The greatest memories I have, though, are competing at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. It was a great experience.”

After retiring from bobsledding, Tucker says he missed the competitive atmosphere, and for that reason, is thankful he discovered CrossFit.

"CrossFit is that same competitive, challenging experience, that same feeling,” he says. “Since I was a competitive athlete, it gets those juices flowing. Today, I want to be a great coach, a successful business owner and get better at my own weaknesses.”

Tucker trains and coaches classes at CrossFit Gulf Breeze six days per week. He is also the head strength coach for the Pensacola Ice Flyers, the Club Sailfish swim team and the Pensacola State College baseball team. In addition, he helps train the Gulf Breeze track team, Pensacola Catholic basketball team and the Gulf Breeze swim team in their pre-season conditioning — all CrossFit.

“CrossFit trickles into all of my coaching and training now. For these competitive teams, I program a power-based strength component with each workout, then I have them do a met-con with a focus on core strength, hip flexibility and range of motion. Lastly, they end with mobility for injury prevention,” Tucker explains.

As for his own workouts, Tucker trains himself by always doing some things he likes, and then doing some things he can’t stand.

“I stay on a strict 12-week cycle for my strength, and for my met-cons, I do one met-con that my partners program for the day, and my second WOD will be a met-con with goats and things I hate, because, as one of my mentors once said, ‘The only way to get better is to get better.’” 

He says he trains for a greater purpose today, more so than ever before, since recently discovering his older brother’s diagnosis of muscular sclerosis, a degenerative muscle disease.

In fact, during Open workout 13.1, Tucker wrote, "MS is killing your brother" right in front of his bar so he would see it when he looked at the bar during the workout.

“My brother’s condition puts a strain on me and inspires me to work with all I have,” he says. “It’s tough to watch your big brother, who you used to look up to as a rock, fight such a crippling disease.”

“CrossFit gives me a release or an outlet to the strain. It gives me a ‘suck-it-up’ attitude. I wrote that phrase out before every WOD, because, no matter how bad the WOD hurt, it was nothing to what he battles every day, so suck it up and pick up the fucking bar,” he says. “Some spiritual shit has happened to me through CrossFit. It truly has changed my life.”

Tucker’s personal determination is contagious.

“I started a couple mottos in the box: ‘Last set, best set,’ and ‘Lose the quit.’ Now, we all know, finish strong with everything you do — in the box and in life, as well.”