“Maybe recent childbirth should not hold us back, but push us forward ... We don’t have to be broken just because we gave birth. I believe that we are, in fact, stronger ... The only limitations are those that we place on ourselves.”
Photos by: David Olmeda
Lauren Lewis, owner of CrossFit Arx in Toms River, N.J., qualified for the North East Regional only four months after giving birth via cesarean section.
With her husband, Jacob Conner, gone for much of 2012, Lewis had more important things to do than to prepare for the Games season. In May 2012, Lewis and Conner opened CrossFit Arx while she was three months pregnant — a combination of responsibilities that does not lend itself to competitive training.
“She opened the gym single-handedly while I was out of state for work,” Conner says. “She ran the gym by herself until October when I was finally able to reunite with her.”
In November 2012, Lewis gave birth to a son, and began the adjustments that most CrossFit moms have to make as they return to the gym.
“What seems to be the hardest part is coming up with a plan,” Lewis says. “I am a very structured person. I like to have a general, set agenda. Before the baby, I worked out at a certain time, ate at the same time, generally ate the same foods and went to bed at the same time. Once you have a baby, there are no plans and no concrete routines. You are at the mercy of your new addition. The best thing I have been able to do is plan by having no plan.”
Even at the gym her workouts are different. The demands of being a new parent and a new gym owner provide their own set of challenges.
“I would be in the middle of a workout and think, ‘I can’t do this because I slept for two hours last night. I can’t do this because I haven’t worked out in months. I can’t do this because I have been playing with my son all day and I am exhausted. I can’t do this because I have been working all day,’” she explains. “Loads of laundry, piles of dishes, my husband is sick, my son is sick, I am sick. The list of excuses that popped up in my head during workouts would go on and on.”
But with quiet determination, Lewis turned each of those reasons why she could not do something into an imperative — a reason why she could, and would do something. No excuses, no crazy expectations, just personal resolve to “do.”
Even so, when March rolled around, Lewis viewed the 2013 Open with some trepidation. Months of not training the way this former All-American track athlete had been used to training left her with very low expectations.
“When it came time to begin the Open, all there was, was doubt. I wasn’t incredibly excited for the Open ... ”
And even after solid performances in 13.1 that had her ranked 42nd in the North East, Lewis was skeptical.
“I spent days going over it in my head. ‘I just got lucky’ I told myself, as well as anyone who said ‘good job’ to me. After childbirth, women are broken, right? We have pounds to lose, sleep to catch up on, babies and sometimes husbands to feed, clothes to clean,” she says. “We aren’t our former selves and we shouldn’t expect to reclaim our previous selves for years, if ever.”
Like many women, Lewis was trying to define her new roles and balance her family, work and time for herself. She was skeptical about how well she was doing in the Open post-pregnancy even though she was always a great athlete.
“There was no way I just plain performed well. That’s not what we have always been told about pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum.”
But Lewis forged ahead through the Open, pushing herself and rejecting any excuses that would pop up in her head. In all but one of the Open workouts, she ranked in the top 100 in the North East, and after 13.5, she found herself ranked 47th.
Lewis, just four months after the birth of her son, qualified for the North East Regional.
For Lewis, the 2013 Open has been a life lesson.
“What I have learned is maybe we were lied to growing up. Maybe recent childbirth should not hold us back, but push us forward. We should not hide behind it, but proudly stand before it. We don’t have to be broken just because we gave birth. I believe that we are, in fact, stronger. We are better. We are even more alive. The only limitations are those that we place on ourselves.”
