Sean Nordquist

sean@crossfitseattle.com
206-321-1101

  • CrossFit Trainer Certified: Level I
  • National Strength and Conditioning Association – Certified Personal Trainer  (NSCA-CPT)
  • CrossFit Barbell Certification
  • Olympic lifting seminars with Greg Everett and Mike Burgener
  • CrossFit Gymnastics Seminar with Jeff Tucker
  • CrossFit Endurance Seminar with emphasis on Pose running
  • CrossFit Nutrition Seminar with Robb Wolf
  • Teaching/Coaching experience includes Nordic and Telemark ski instruction (Certified by Professional Ski Instructors of America)
  • Former ultramarathoner for over 10 years. Ran the Western States 100 miler, several 50 milers, and several marathons (including one in Antarctica)

Interests:backcountry and ski mountaineering, Nordic ski racing, rock climbing, bike riding and touring, backpacking…a general love for wild places

 

After earning a degree in philosophy and minor in English,  I thought it best to pursue a career in publishing.  During the late 1980‘s, two years into working as an assistant copy editor for a scientific journal, I decided that humans weren’t meant to sit in offices and work for 8 hours a day.

With that as my main motivator, I looked for a career working outside, using body as well as brains.   I started out as an electrician but soon fell in love with the creativity and physical demands of carpentry.

The lifestyle of an itinerant carpenter, always with more work than I needed,  helped create a  solid foundation of physical fitness which fueled my next 20 years.   I became a competitive and successful ultramarathoner, running trail 50ks, multiple 50 mile trail races, and Western States 100 miler in 1994.  Two years were spent seriously pursuing nordic ski racing.    Rock climbing became an obsessive lifestyle.

During the early 1990′s my father suffered a severe stroke.   I accompanied him during many sessions of physical therapy.  The therapists working with my dad struggled to teach him how to walk and speak again.  I was inspired by one therapist in particular.  The care and detail this PT showed for my dad’s progress had a profound affect on me.  I vowed to go back to school and become a physical therapist.

Fade in 10 years later.   Aspirations towards PT school were shelved by a necessity to work and a hunger for adventure.   I had discovered a unique path while working as a carpenter for the U.S. antarctic program– the work schedule and remote locations facilitated good fitness levels, while traveling evolved from local adventures to roaming the entire planet.

However, I never really had a good understanding of the relationship between nutrition and proper movement patterns.  Carpentry, running, and climbing were starting to wear on my joints.

I found relief by getting rolfed.   My rolfer, an ex powerlifter, put it to me simply– my body had become imbalanced;  bad movement patterns had evolved into weakness.  He didn’t mention nutrition, but I agreed with his summary of strength imbalances.   He suggested I visit a gym in an old aircraft hanger at Sand Point Magnuson Park.

And that’s where I met Dave Werner and discovered CrossFit.

While taking classes with Dave we became friends.   The care and detail shown for my progress had a profound affect on me, very similar to when the physical therapist was working with my dad years earlier.

Dave isn’t a physical therapist but had survived trauma, was sharing his experience, what he’d learned from years of rehab and strength training, to help others.

I soon realized that, like Dave, I could share my experience as an endurance athlete, as a carpenter, as someone who’d used their body in extreme circumstances and made mistakes, so others could learn.

I became an advocate for “re-learning” how to use our bodies, of how to renew innate movement patterns.

Over many years, I’ve endured torn pelvic ligaments, sprained or broken my right ankle multiple times, subluxed a shoulder, fallen and broken and rebuilt the other shoulder.  The laundry list of trauma can fill up two pages.

During those years, the “establishment” would prescribe pain killers and restricted movement.  Sometimes surgery.

In the early 1980′s a surgeon suggested removing damaged leg nerves in my torn sacroiliac joint.   I tried to wear a prescribed pelvic brace for 3 months, day and night. After all, I was told I’d probably never be able to run or bike again.

Rolfing, insightful physical therapists, and CrossFit showed me an alternate path.

When I train, I have to “scale” many of the hardest CrossFit movements but, I can truly say that I’m stronger, healthier, move better (and with more grace) at 49 than I did at 29.

I want my clients to have the same profound realization that change, albeit through hard work, is possible.