Fitness as Prescribed

May 27, 2017

Brittney Saline

Healthcare professionals compete at Central Regional. 

Last week, we saw three of the world’s fittest teachers throw down in the East. Maybe occupational fitness is geographic, because Central has the healthcare field locked down. Competing at the Music City Center this weekend are the world’s fittest two female medical doctors, Karla Solum (pictured at top) and Marilyn Hopkins, registered nurses Jessica Griffith and Megan Scales, and the top EMT/Paramedic, Danielle Kot.

Kot, 28, didn’t realize she’d earned the title until friends told her they’d seen her on the CrossFit Games Update Show.

“I totally forgot that I put my occupation down,” she said, still seeming somewhat amazed. “I think it’s really cool that they did that for healthcare fields and law enforcement.”

Kot became fascinated with the human body while playing soccer in college. Lessons learned in anatomy, physiology and kinesiology informed what she did on the field, and a passion for the health sciences was born.

Kot worked first as a medical scribe, and now she's an EMT. She hopes to one day become a physician’s assistant.

Starting CrossFit in 2015 strengthened her ambition even more as she noticed that her friends and coaches in the gym seemed to care more about holistic health than her colleagues in healthcare.

“I think the biggest thing that I have an issue with is how often we treat patients with medications rather than maybe trying a more preventative approach through exercise and diet,” she said. “CrossFit’s really inspired me to … in the future encourage patients with preventative medicine prior to that."

This weekend, she’s competing for the second consecutive year with team Union Fitness—currently in 12th place after four events—but she’ll keep on moving weight when she gets back to work on Monday.

“At my work, every single nurse requests me to come help lift patients,” she said, laughing. “They're always like, ‘Can you get someone out of a car? Can you lift them into a wheelchair. Can you get them onto the bed?’”

Like Kot, Solum—a doctor of chiropractic care—prefers to prescribe push-ups over pills whenever possible. She described sustaining a bad ankle injury back in high school.

“Everybody wanted me to take ibuprofen, rest and ice, and I went to my chiropractor and he's like, ‘Nope, we'll get you back by joint mobilization ... progressive rehab and doing better nutrition and supplementation,” she said.

The 33-year-old started CrossFit in 2010, a year after beginning her work as a chiropractor.

“I'd just run a marathon and I thought I was in shape, and that was a lie,” she said, describing a 75-burpee cash-out in her first workout. “I was rocking it till about 50 and at about 60, I got real lightheaded. (At) 65 I was out the door dry heaving.”

Two-and-a-half years ago, she merged her two passions, opening EHP CrossFit and operating her own chiropractic practice inside it. Though many of her patients are also her CrossFit clients, she serves other kinds of athletes as well—and when she does, she often gives them a squat clinic.

“Nine out of 10 runners can't actually do a squat,” she said. “Everybody has to know how to squat. Just because they aren't doing CrossFit doesn't mean they can get away with not being able to do functional movements in life.”

Though an ankle injury earlier this season means she’s not having the Regional she’d hoped for—she’s currently in 21st place, 14 spots off her seventh-place finish last year—she’s happy to be here and proud to be the fittest female doctor on Earth.

“It's really great to have that honor,” she said.

Scales, 31, is currently 14th in the Central. She also opened her own gym in order to serve people better. Though she said she’s loved being a nurse, she felt the high-volume workload didn’t leave time to make the kind of impact she desired. Four years ago, she opened CrossFit Adversis with her husband.

“I never really thought I touched people’s lives the way that I wanted to,” she said. “Even though I probably numerically helped a lot of people (as a nurse), I feel like I actually help people at my CrossFit gym. I get to know each one of them and try to help them as a person as a whole.”

Megan Scales

Hopkins, a urologist, said she doesn’t often get to offer direct medical advice to patients. As a surgeon most frequently operating to remove kidney stones or tumors to treat bladder or kidney cancer, she says, “at that point people have already unfortunately made (choices) in their life that were gonna make them have that issue before they got to me."

Though she may not be able to prevent people’s poor health, she strives to set a good example. When patients—and co-workers—ask to feel her bulging biceps, she jumps at the chance to tell them about CrossFit.

“I’ll just say, ‘7 minutes of burpees,’” she said, referencing Open Workout 12.1. “‘Tell me that's not gonna do something for your heart.’”

Though she loves competing, Hopkins—whose team, Maximus, currently holds the fifth Games-qualifying spot—said the real reason she trains is for her own longevity.

“I want to work my fingers to the bone until they pull me out of the hospital when I'm old and gray. I don't want to quit.”

Griffith hopes her title as fittest female nurse in the world will serve as an example to her fellow nurses who are known for big hearts and hard work ethics but who don’t always take time to take care of themselves. Though she said it’s tempting to succumb to break-room donuts or to work through lunch breaks, she strives to take breaks and eat healthy meals.

“You can't take care of your patients if you're not taking care of yourself,” she said.

Jessica Griffith

Though this is her first individual Regional appearance, Griffith helped team CrossFit 417 to 23rd- and 11th-place finishes at the 2016 and 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games (incidentally, CrossFit 417 currently holds the second Games-qualifying spot). But her job as a level-one ER trauma nurse has helped her prepare for the pressure almost as much as her Games experience.

“This whole weekend my motto's kind of been ‘Just stay calm,’ and I really think I’m very well-conditioned to staying calm with what I deal with on a daily basis at work,” she said, adding that “gunshot wounds to the face are right up my alley.”

“We're just trained to perform what you know how to perform,” she continued. “It absolutely translates onto the competition floor. You know what you're doing. You do this every day. You've trained yourself how to do this.”

Staying calm seems to have paid off, as the 25-year-old currently holds fourth overall at the end of Day 2, a ticket to Madison within her grasp.

“I'm having so much fun; I could not be more happy to be here,” she said. “I did not expect to be doing this well ... I just wanted to come out here and do the best that I could, and fortunately I'm at where I'm at in the standings, and it's just wonderful.”

 

MEN

  1. Zak Carchedi (325)
  2. Scott Panchik (310)
  3. Streat Hoerner (308)
  4. Luke Schafer (296)
  5. Shane McBride (294)

 

WOMEN

  1. Ragnheidur Sara Sigmundsdottir (285)
  2. Kristi Eramo (265)
  3. Stacie Tovar (246)
  4. Jessica Griffith (238)
  5. Katie Trombetta (224)

 

TEAMS

  1. CrossFit Mayhem (385)
  2. CrossFit 417 (365)
  3. OC3 Black (355)
  4. Timberwolf CrossFit (340)
  5. Maximus (320)

 

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