Mark Watson - Coach
CFL1: 2017
My love for activity and sports goes as far back as I can remember. I will never forget the long days of shooting basketballs and hitting baseballs after school until I would shake and have to go get food. I have always had a drive to win, but lacked tools to make me top notch athlete. I still remember asking my high school basketball coach how to get leaner and in better shape. His response was for me to stop walking to McDonalds before games and eating burgers with fries and drinking sodas. I looked at him cross-eyed and thought in my head “McDonalds is bad”? This is the first time I can remember actually realizing that foods were not created equally. Obesity runs in both sides of my family. With my aspirations to become an athlete combined with my fear of becoming overweight, sparked my interest in fitness and health.
My fitness journey started by working chest and arms only and terrible nutrition plans. After many years of trying different routines and never staying consistent with any of them, I kept hitting walls with my results. After my 3rdyear of college I decided to join the Air National Guard. As soon as the physical fitness portion of my military training started, it ignited a new fire in becoming the best version of myself. Soon after returning home from training, the college routine became a reality and my attention focused on other things. Around this time, the same Mexican girl I had been chasing for 4 years decided to accept my request to marry her! We have both always loved working out but could never find something we could do together. I had heard about CrossFit from my Military pals, but really just talked badly about it for months. After finally deciding to try it once, I proceeded to do 2 of the required 3 rounds and threw up. I couldn’t understand how I thought I was in great shape but this CrossFit chewed me up and spit me out.
After some convincing to my soon to be wife, we decided to start CrossFit together a little over a month before we got married to help us get in shape for the wedding. We struggled at first, but loved being able to do something together that didn’t involve eating or drinking! One week after our wedding I deployed for the summer, and CrossFit filled most of our conversations while I was across the world. Having something that both of us could do a whole world apart was crucial to keeping our relationship strong. After returning home I was referred to as “Moe’s Husband”, which took some getting used to. The community had opened their arms to her while I was gone and accepted her as part of the family. The CrossFit community is the closest thing I have found to Military comradery, and an amazing group of likeminded people that will open their arms no matter where they are from.
After 6+ years of training on my own and traveling to 50+ CrossFit gyms across the globe, I was finally ready to fulfill my dream of changing people’s lives through this unique and effective medium. The Activate family was born in September of 2017 starting with my wife (Moe) and I combined with our amazing business partners Dallas and Alexis King. We collectively have a burning natural passion for leading people to becoming the best versions of themselves. CrossFit has changed each of our lives, allowing us to live to our full potential. All we want to do is lead as many people as possible down the same path.
