"There was nothing in particular that drew me to CrossFit. CrossFit chose me. Competing just kind of happened as the by-product of enjoying CrossFit so much."
“I started CrossFit when I was 15, but I never took it seriously. It was just something I did during the off-season to get in better shape for basketball and baseball. I was very, very inconsistent in the gym.”
This is not the Garret Fisher you see now. Taking third place at the 2013 NorCal Regional after finishing in fourth place in the Open, there is no doubt CrossFit is now his sport.
It wasn’t until the 2012 Open when competing crossed his mind. Since he was at the gym, enjoying his workouts and having fun, he figured he might as well sign up.
After a 29th-place finish in NorCal, he jumped up to seventh at the Regional.
Going into the 2013 season, he wanted the podium.
“There was nothing in particular that drew me to CrossFit. CrossFit chose me. Competing just kind of happened as the by-product of enjoying CrossFit so much. I never thought about competing in all my early years, but now I love it,” he says.
In his move up the Leaderboard, he is quick to acknowledge the influence of two men: his dad and Jason Khalipa.
His father, an example of perseverance and commitment, suffered the loss of one leg in a work-related accident right before Fisher was born. With his own construction business, this type of obstacle can easily take a man down, but his dad never even slowed down.
“The doctors said he would never be able to play sports again, never be able to do the same things he has done prior to the accident. However, he proved them wrong,” Fisher says. “My Dad never let his handicap slow him down. He is the most hardworking man I have ever seen in my life. He's non-stop, seven days a week, working and owning a construction business, and he never complains. Being able to compete at the CrossFit Games is a privilege. What we do is very little pain compared to what my dad has experienced.”
After a great foundation in CrossFit from CrossFit 209 Sport, Fisher moved to San Jose for college. Now at NorCal CrossFit, he trains with Pat Barber, Miranda Oldroyd and Jason Khalipa. Training in this environment has been a great boon for Fisher, and he considers Khalipa his role model.
“Jason’s my biggest mentor and has taught me everything about competing,” Fisher says. “He truly wants me to succeed and will do everything in his power to help me. He has shown me what it takes to compete at a high level in CrossFit. He’s the most selfless person I’ve met.”
NorCal CrossFit sent five individual competitors to the 2013 Regional, proving they know competition. But they also know fun. There is no strict program with a strength progression, an exact gymnastic-skill plan or a spreadsheet managing a well-tuned variety of met-cons. The training plan is to keep it varied, attack weaknesses and enjoy training.
“I’m surrounded by tremendous athletes who really push me to my limits every day,” he says. “We have no clue what we are going to do when we go in, we just vary it all the time. We’re striving to keep our training really mixed, keeping it weird, most recently with swimming, riding bikes 16 miles, go-ruck runs and log tosses. I guess you can say we just stick to the CrossFit prescription. There's no secret, there's just no substitute for hard work.”
In these final days before the Games, Fisher admits that it’s “all pretty surreal,” and he’s looking forward to everything from the check-in to the last day.
“I know that all my hard work for the past two years has paid off and I'm going to the Games.”
