Back East CrossFit Opens
By Chris Seymour | Correspondent at November 20, 2023 | 9:15 am | Print
Back East CrossFit, 598 Deming Road in Berlin, opened its doors last month and is bringing fitness, confidence and community to its customers.
“It is fitness for everyone,” said Jeff Capizzi, owner/head coach and programmer at Back East. “Everything is modifiable for all walks of life that come in here.”
Capizzi opened the gym last month with co-owner/coach and director of member relations and marketing MacKenzie Carruth, who is also his girlfriend.
According to a press release from Berlin Economic Development, Back East is “a fitness facility with a defined exercise program focused on constantly varied, high intensity, functional movements.”
Capizzi explained that a “typical class” lasts about an hour and usually averages 12 people. “We all follow the same exercise routine and that might look like, for example, spending 15 minutes working on some sort of strength component, so doing three sets of 20 pushups,” detailed Capizzi.
“And then our main workout, which is usually called the ‘workout of the day’ or ‘WOD’—can be anywhere from 5 to 40 minutes,” added Capizzi. “But we usually pick an average of three different exercise movements and we build them into a circuit essentially and everybody is a big support for each other and cheers each other on; it’s very community-based here.”
Back East opened on Oct. 5 and held a grand opening celebration—including group workouts, food and raffle prizes—on Nov. 14. Thus far, things have gone well, according to Carruth.
“Yeah it has been great actually,” she said. “We surpassed what we had expected for the first month; it’s been a lot of word of mouth. We have members who are dedicated and are coming consistently and our big thing is to have them set goals for themselves and really trying to help them achieve those.”
Capizzi noted that Back East strives to “make people healthy and live an active life outside of the gym as well, and add some longevity and preventive care through exercise.”
And, if you’re new to CrossFit, Back East has you covered with a “foundations course” that covers all the bases. “It’s kind of a requirement for someone who is new to CrossFit,” explained Carruth.
“But if you’ve never done it before we offer a foundations course so it is six classes over the span of two weeks and throughout those six classes, we basically run through all of the fundamental movements,” she continued. “It kind of is like a CrossFit 101 for new people. We just graduated our first ‘foundations course’ and there were two people so you really get personalized attention and learn how to do everything safely.”
For more information on Back East, please visit www.backeastcrossfit.com.
