"At that time, I had very little experience with CrossFit, but I watched these athletes and told myself I would be there."
Photo by: Kristin Cooper
Photo by: Lily Baltazar
Craig Cooper, 25, spent five years as an active duty Aviation Rescue Swimmer for the United States Navy. It was not out of the ordinary to be woken by an alarm signaling it was time to go off on a counter-narcotics assignment.
“It is a really intense way to learn stress management,” says Cooper of his time in the Navy.
Five-foot-9-inch, 200-pound Cooper attributes much of his success in CrossFit to his experiences in the Navy.
“When on the ship, you are operating under the expectation that at any given time we might have to move, therefore it helps CrossFit feel a bit more predictable,” he says.
Beyond giving him a level of comfort when dealing with the element of the unknown or the adversity that a workout can bring, Cooper credits his Navy experience with teaching him how to be “cool under pressure.”
“Before a workout I try to just slip into a zone and trust the body to do what it is capable of,” he says.
His ability to remain “cool under pressure” is paying off. This newcomer to the sport currently sits in 46th place on the South East Leaderboard after three weeks of competition.
The ability to deal with stress is not the only manner in which the Navy helped Cooper improve his life. Before his last deployment in January 2012, a friend, who knew Cooper’s affinity for cooking, challenged him to try the paleo diet. Cooper accepted the dare despite the fact that he knew finding paleo-friendly options on the ship would be no easy task.
“At about 240 pounds and almost completely inactive, I knew something had to change,” he says. “On the ship, it is mostly carbs available, so I survived on canned chicken and tuna while waiting for care packages from home.”
As a child, Cooper was often found in the kitchen with his mother, but figuring out ways to eat and cook healthy were not easy options while deployed.
“I managed to lose 42 pounds on that deployment by eating as properly as possible and basically running on a treadmill or elliptical,” he says.
Once he finished his deployment, Cooper decided he wanted to continue and expand his healthy lifestyle and figured, “If cavemen can do it, it must be easy to cook paleo.”
He started to cook paleo food by experimenting with various recipes and bringing the leftovers to friends.
“Paleo has had a huge impact on my life and has helped me transform personally,” he says. “I want to share that with others.”
It was also the Navy that led Cooper to Florida where he found himself in the stands watching a friend compete at the 2012 South East Regional.
“At that time, I had very little experience with CrossFit, but I watched these athletes and told myself I want to be there,” says Cooper.
The next week he joined CrossFit Sovereignty in Jacksonville, Fla.
Cooper is no stranger to athletic competition. Originally from Long Beach, Calif., Cooper played water polo and swam competitively ever since he could remember. His time spent in the water can be credited for his strong cardio and his willingness to go long. Murph is his favorite workout.
“I’ve still been doing this less than a year, so there is a bit I do not know, but I trust in my endurance,” he says.
At the moment, Cooper only does one workout a day but will practice the Olympic lifts whenever possible.
“I like anything overhead, but the snatch is such a complicated and skilled lift that it is definitely my favorite,” he says.
Besides training in the gym, he still plays water polo or swims two or three times a week and manages to find some time to surf when the Florida waves cooperate.
Cooper might be new to CrossFit and the competition circuit, but his ability to deal with stress may pay immediate dividends.
“13.1 was probably the roughest CrossFit workout I have done,” Cooper says of his early Open experiences.
He decided to do the workout on Wednesday night after the announcement, but without ever watching any of the videos. He managed an impressive 188 reps. A few days later after watching a number of videos and reading various strategies and posts, Cooper retried the workout finishing with a much lower score.
“Again, for me, I need to be careful not to over think the workout because I am used to just getting up and getting the work done,” he says.
He applied this strategy to 13.2 thinking that with a lighter weight the goal is just to never stop moving. His “gut check” occurred at about seven and a half minutes in when he hit a wall and started to slow down.
“A friend looked at me and repeated a simple phrase twice: ‘Yes, you can,’” he recalls.
Cooper finished the last two rounds faster than the first two for a final score of 319.
He proved that once again he “could” by doing Open Workout 13.3 not once, but twice, and gaining one more rep the second time around, to finish 20 muscle-ups.
“I PR’d my Karen time by a minute and five seconds,” he says. “My legs felt like Jell-O on the dubs, but (I) got through them, and muscle-ups were tough as always.”
Cooper realizes that a mixture of elements have helped him transform his life.
“The combination of healthy eating and CrossFit has helped me so much that I just want to take that feeling to the people,” he says.
For now, Cooper maintains a blog that has recipes and other inspiring elements from his life, www.thepaleobro.com. However, he hopes that his passion for cooking paired with his investment in a healthy lifestyle can eventually be turned into a successful business.
“I am not sure how long my CrossFit success will last, if you can call it that, but for now whatever WOD might come next, I am just focusing on the idea of, ‘Yes, you can,’” he says.
Below is one of Craig Cooper’s Paleo-friendly recipes he recommends the next time you are in the kitchen:
Herb Roasted Chicken Breast
Prep Time: 5 Minutes
Cook Time: 45-60 minutes
Ingredients:
2 Large bone-in skin on chicken breast
1-2 Tablespoons melted bacon fat, ghee (clarified butter), or coconut oil
2-3 Tablespoons fresh parsley and thyme (you can use dried herbs, but fresh is always better)
4 Garlic cloves
Preheat oven to 357 degrees farenheit.
Place chicken on baking sheet or into an oven safe dish. Brush chicken breast with bacon fat. Generously add fresh chopped parsley and thyme to chicken. Smash garlic cloves and add to top of chicken for extra flavor.
Bake for 45-60 minutes or until a thermometer reads 165 degrees fahrenheit when inserted into the center of the breast.
Serve with Roasted Vegetables or green salad.
Note: you can substitute breast for thighs, drumsticks, wings, etc.
