He Didn't Run Out of Time. He Just Got Started.

Lynne Steiner • June 19, 2026

One of the things I love most about this gym is watching people surprise themselves. Not in the sexy, highlight-reel way. In the quiet, consistent, show-up-even-when-it's-hard way.


Mike Szymborski has been part of our CFR fam for a little over a year now. He trains 5 to 6 days a week. He is in his early 60s. He manages Type 1 diabetes. He has had a hip replacement, survived prostate cancer, and came back to the gym after a heart attack in March of 2025.


He also broke his pinky on a box jump during his first workout back after being cleared by his cardiologist. He finished the workout.


I asked Mike to share his story in his own words because he sets such a clear example of what is possible when you show up for yourself consistently regardless of age, injury, and medical conditions.


What follows is mostly him. I've added very little, because very little needed to be added.


Before CrossFit

"Back in my college days I lifted weights regularly. When I got married in 1992, I was in great shape, weighing 205 lbs. Then life happened. We had 3 kids by 1998. I spent my time working and raising a family."


In 2004, Mike was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and became insulin-dependent. The same year, he was becoming dependent on alcohol, too. The diabetes diagnosis, he says, is what made him stop drinking. He has been clean and sober since 2005.


"I ate what I wanted and took high doses of insulin to control blood sugar. My weight steadily climbed to about 290-300 lbs by 2015. When XXL polo shirts no longer fit comfortably and I had to buy size 44 pants, I knew something had to change."


He joined Weight Watchers and a local gym, lost 75 pounds over 9 months, and ran 2 half marathons. Then life happened again. The approach wasn't sustainable. His marriage of 26 years ended. By 2018, he had gained the weight back.


"I found myself alone, fat and miserable."


He Googled CrossFit. He found CrossFit Carol Stream. He dropped into a free class in December of 2018.


"I was hooked after the first class. I've been going 5 to 6 days a week ever since."


The Speed Bumps

Between 2018 and today, Mike's list of health challenges has continued to grow. Prostate cancer diagnosed in 2020, removed in 2021. As of January 2026, he’s 5 years cancer-free. Bone-on-bone arthritis in his right hip lead to a total hip replacement in October 2023. Then came a heart attack and stent in March 2025.


He also broke his foot doing a lateral burpee over bar. And the pinky. He mentions both almost as asides.


"In all honesty, I don't think about any of these past issues on a daily basis. I wake up each day and look forward to every challenge. The years are passing quickly. There is no reason to focus on negatives. Every day presents an opportunity to improve. That's what drives me."


When I asked him what a bad training day looks like, he said the question didn't really resonate with him.


"I don't think I've ever had a bad training day since I started CrossFit in 2018. CrossFit is the best part of every day for me, except days when I golf. Then it's a close second."


The Hip, the Open, and What Changed

For years, Mike couldn't squat below parallel. Not in a wall ball, a thruster, an air squat. The arthritis in his right hip made it impossible, and it meant he was scaling workouts that he wanted to do as prescribed.


The hip replacement changed that.


"My hip replacement and subsequent recovery allow me now to achieve parallel in these lifts. That's given me new-found confidence and the ability to record RX during workouts."


This year, Mike competed in the 2026 CrossFit Open and made the quarterfinals in his age group. He finished in the top 18%.


"That achievement was validation for my hard work. It created a greater sense of belonging to the CrossFit community at large and CrossFit Roselle specifically. I identify as a CrossFit athlete. It's what defines and differentiates me from my male friends in my age group."


What He Wants You to Know

Mike is active on social media. He posts his workouts for accountability and, more than that, to show other people what is possible. When someone in a Facebook group asks whether it's too late for them, or says their health history is too complicated, he shares a video of himself doing a handstand walk and lists what he has been through.


He listened to an audiobook that changed his focus to health span over life span.


"People in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s have already started to lose VO2 max and lean muscle. These losses will continue and the rate will even accelerate unless steps are taken to stop or slow the loss. Any level of movement is a positive step. CrossFit-style movements offer even more positive benefits as the movements address all 3 key metrics."


On the nutrition side, Mike's path to figuring out what actually works took some trial and error. He used Ozempic for 15 months and got his weight into a better range, but felt like something was still missing. After his heart attack, he went fully low-carb and keto. He credits that shift with reducing his A1C, reducing inflammation, stabilizing his weight, and giving him a general feeling of health he had never experienced over five decades of the standard American diet.


"Positive changes are very incremental and big changes come slowly. It's not a race to get to a certain point or fitness level. It's a journey. It's a process. If you don't like where you are, it's within your sole control to make changes which will bend your trajectory in the right direction."


What's Next

Mike turns 62 in September. His goal is to hit a new baseline weight by his birthday and hold it. He's eyeing the 2027 CrossFit Open and, eventually, the semifinals.


"I understand I might have to age into the 65+ age group for that to happen."


He says he's starting to feel some issues with his left hip. He suspects he may need a replacement within the next year or 2. He's not looking forward to it. He's also not going to let it go as long as he let the right one go.


He'll be in the gym tomorrow morning. Five or 6 days a week, like always.


A Note from Coach Lynne

I share Mike's story not because it's unique, but because it's honest. His progress was not linear. He didn't get here on a clean path. He got here by deciding, over and over, that the path was worth staying on.


If you're reading this and thinking your situation is too complicated, or that you've missed your window, I'd ask you to sit with Mike's answer to that question. He's been posting his own version of that answer on Facebook for years. Now it's here, too.


If this sounds like your story, or the story you want to write, we'd love to meet you.


Start with a free no-sweat intro at CrossFit Roselle. No experience required. No perfect health history required. Just show up, and we’ll take it from there. Click the "Book a Free Intro" box to get started.






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You Don't Need a Clean Slate. You Need a Tuesday

By Lynne Steiner • August 3, 2026
Summer wrecked your routine. Vacations, baseball tournaments, a work trip that ate your mornings, a heat wave that made the idea of a workout feel like a dare. Whatever the reason, the gym bag has been sitting in the corner of your car for weeks, quietly judging you every time you open the trunk. Here's the part nobody says out loud: the workout was never the hard part. Walking back through the door is. The Real Reason You're Still Waiting You're not stalling because you lack discipline. You're stalling because some part of your brain is convinced there's a "right" moment to restart, a fresh Monday, a new month, a blank page with no eraser marks on it. So you wait. And waiting turns into a week, and a week turns into "maybe after Labor Day," and suddenly your comeback has its own calendar and its own excuses. This is the all-or-nothing trap, and it is sneaky because it dresses itself up as responsibility. It sounds like planning. It is actually procrastination wearing a nice outfit. The trap has no finish line. There is no version of "everything calms down" that arrives on schedule. Life will always have a reason to wait one more week. The people who come back are not the ones who found the perfect moment. They're the ones who stopped looking for one. What Your Comeback Actually Needs To Look Like Forget the version of "getting back into it" where you walk in and crush a workout like you never left. That version is a myth, and chasing it is exactly why so many comebacks last one day and then quietly die. Your first day back has exactly one job: happen. That's it. Not a personal record. Not proof that the break didn't cost you anything. Just a body in the building, doing something, at whatever intensity your body has right now. Show up even if you know it will be humbling. Scale the workout hard. Half the reps, half the weight, whatever it takes to make it doable. Skip the mental scoreboard comparing today to your best day in June. Let it be mediocre. Mediocre and done beats perfect and imaginary every time. The One-Sentence Permission Slip If you need something to say to yourself standing in the parking lot, try this: " This doesn't have to be good. It just has to happen." Say it, walk in, and let the workout be whatever it is. You are not rebuilding your whole summer in one session. You're just proving to yourself that the door still opens. Start Small, Start Ugly, Start Today Nobody remembers their comeback workout for how impressive it was. They remember it for the fact that it happened at all. Rebuilding a routine isn't about intensity. It's about showing up enough times in a row that showing up stops feeling like a decision and starts feeling like Tuesday again. So skip the clean slate. You don't need one. You need a Tuesday, a pair of shoes, and about twenty minutes of being willing to feel out of shape in public. That's the whole plan.

Consistency Is a Team Sport (Even in July)

By Lynne Steiner • July 27, 2026
Your 9:00 AM crew pulled a disappearing act this summer, gone like fireworks the morning after the Fourth of July. Sarah's at the lake house. Mike's kid has a travel baseball tournament that apparently requires the entire family's presence in a different state every weekend. Your regular class time got swallowed by a "summer schedule" that seems designed by someone who has never met a working parent. And you? You're standing in an emptier gym, wondering why showing up suddenly feels ten times harder than it did in February. Here's the truth nobody tells you: you didn't lose your motivation. You lost your witnesses. Training Alone Is Where Consistency Goes to Quietly Die Motivation gets blamed for everything, but motivation was rarely the thing dragging you out of bed at 5:45 AM. It was the group chat buzzing with "who's in today?" It was knowing Sarah would be merciless if you no-showed for the third time. It was the coach who'd notice, and say something, and make you feel seen . Take that away, and training becomes a negotiation you have with yourself, alone, every single morning. And you will lose that negotiation more often than you'd like to admit. Not because you're weak. Because willpower in a vacuum is like a campfire with no wood. It burns bright for a minute and then it's just smoke and regret. This is the part people miss : the goal was never to build enough internal motivation to never need anyone else. The goal is to borrow momentum from people around you until showing up becomes automatic again. Fix the Gap, Not Yourself You don't need a personality transplant. You need a replacement for the accountability summer stole from you. Text one person today. Not a group chat. One person. "Class at 9:00 AM tomorrow, you in?" A single yes changes everything. Tell your coach you're wobbling. Coaches exist for exactly this moment. A five-second check-in from someone who knows your name does more than a hundred motivational quotes ever will. Pick a standing time and defend it like it's a meeting with your boss. Because in a way, it is. Your boss just happens to be your future self. Accountability doesn't have to be dramatic. It just has to exist. The Bottom Line You're not failing at motivation. You're improvising without the structure that made consistency feel easy in the first place. So stop trying to white-knuckle your way through July solo. Borrow someone else's momentum, one text at a time, and let the group carry you until you don't need the carry anymore. Missed your crew this week? Text one person right now and get back on the schedule together.

Stop Training For A Vacation Body. Train For A Vacation Life.

By Lynne Steiner • July 20, 2026
Picture the last week before a big trip. Extra reps at the gym, salads instead of sandwiches, maybe a mirror check or two, all in the name of looking good in a swimsuit for exactly four photos that will live on someone's camera roll forever and be seen by no one. (To be clear, that goal is valid. We all want to look great in a swimsuit, or out of one ... ๐Ÿ˜‰ But at CFR we believe life is better when your body can do more than just look good. ๐Ÿ˜˜ ) Then the trip actually starts. And the swimsuit body, the one you sweated for, sits quietly in a drawer while your legs do the real work: hauling a suitcase up three flights of stone stairs in a city that clearly hates elevators, walking nine miles because the map lied about "just a short walk to the market," or wrestling a six-year-old off the pool deck for the fourth time before lunch. Nobody has ever regretted being strong enough to keep up with their own life. The Goal You Trained For Isn't The One You Needed Here's the quiet betrayal of aesthetic goals: they're built for a mirror, and a mirror is the one thing you stop looking at once the trip begins. There's no scoreboard for abs on a hiking trail. There's only a scoreboard for whether you can make it up the trail at all. Aesthetic training also has a nasty habit of losing steam right when you need it most. Motivation dips the second the payoff disappears, and on a trip, the payoff of "looking good" evaporates fast. What replaces it? Nothing, unless you gave yourself something better to chase. Capability goals don't have that problem. They pay you back daily, in real time, in ways your body can actually feel. What "Vacation Capability" Actually Looks Like Before your next trip, skip the vague plan to "work out more" and get specific about what your body will actually be asked to do. A few honest examples: Carrying a suitcase up stairs without stopping halfway to catch your breath and pretend you're admiring the architecture Walking all day on cobblestones or sand without your feet, knees, or lower back staging a mutiny by 3pm Getting down on the ground to play with a kid, a dog, or a beach towel, and popping back up without narrating the effort out loud Standing in line, sitting in a cramped seat , then standing again for hours of travel without your hips locking up like a rusty gate None of these require a six-pack. All of them require actual, trainable strength and stamina. Reverse-Engineer Your Training From The Trip, Not The Swimsuit Once you know what your trip will demand, you can build backward from it. Two or three focused priorities beat a scattershot plan every time: If stairs and hills are coming, load up your squats and lunges in the weeks before you leave If long walking days are coming, build your training around time on your feet , not just time under a barbell If you'll be on the ground with kids or grandkids, practice getting up and down off the floor under load, not just stretching This is not complicated. It is specific, and specific beats vague every single time. The Real Point Isn't The Vacation Here's the part that actually matters: this was never really about the trip. The trip is just the moment where the gap between "looks fit" and "is fit" gets exposed in broad daylight, in front of your family, on a stone staircase in a city with no elevators. Train for the life you actually want to live, and the vacation takes care of itself.
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