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Meet Greg Walker of CrossFit Golden in Golden

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Greg Walker.

Greg, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was first introduced to CrossFit in 2008/2009 as a way to stay in shape and improve my surfing as a professional surf guide in Costa Rica. At the time, I was splitting my time between Colorado and Costa Rica. When I was in Colorado, I was working as a construction engineering consultant and I wasn’t staying as active without surfing. When I would go back to Costa Rica for surf trips, my clients started noticing my weight gain. I had always been active but I hated regular gyms, so I decided to try CrossFit. I immediately fell in love with the high intensity and constantly varied workouts.

I also appreciated the sense of community developed through training, which is what ultimately drove me to open CrossFit Golden in February 2012. In the past eight years, myself and my coaches have trained hundreds of athletes with every fitness goal imaginable. I love helping people change their lives both physically and mentally through the programs here at CrossFit Golden and I especially love the people I have met and the relationships and friendships that have come from being an owner. The community aspect is what got me started and continues to drive me.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are no smooth roads when it comes to owning a small business. There have been many, many trials and bumps in the road over the last eight years. However, there are two big struggles that stick out above others.

The first one was when I first decided to embark on this journey and open my gym. My wife, at the time, decided to leave me because she thought I was crazy for giving up my consulting job. I used all of my savings to pay deposits for the space, purchase equipment, and pay affiliation fees. I didn’t have a place to live since I was just moving back to town and going through a divorce, so I would sleep on an army cot inside the gym or at Mom’s house. My ex-wife took the one car we owned, so I was borrowing cars from friends and family for a solid 6-8 months to get around all while trying to build a membership base and grow my business. It all worked out in the end, but it was a rough start!

The second big struggle has been maintaining business during the Coronavirus pandemic. In January 2020, I had the opportunity to expand the gym by 3000 square feet by taking over the space next door to ours. I had been wanting and needing to expand to meet the needs of our growing membership base, so I decided to take the leap. We have had a waitlist for a little over a year before this point. I knew that financially it was going to make things tight, but it was what I needed to do to offer the services our members were looking for and to continue to grow the gym. On March 17th, 2020, a statewide mandate required us to close our doors for at least a month.

My head coach Lacey and I had to take our entire in-person business and move it online, literally overnight. We loaned out all our equipment to our members to use at home, created YouTube channels, and created an online store for retail purchases. We switched from in-person classes to live group workouts on Instagram, Facebook and Zoom. There was no time to think. We just had to move quickly and figure out the best possible ways to keep the community intact. It hasn’t been easy and as of now, it is still a work in progress. It has definitely been one of the hardest times as a small business owner.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
At CrossFit Golden, we utilize functional movements that make athletes stronger for everyday life inside AND outside the gym. Different workouts are created every day to keep things exciting. The high-intensity nature of our CrossFit & Bootcamp workouts produces the most ideal response for the body–both for appearance and performance. Our creative and fun programming pulls the best of the best from all fields of athletics: endurance, speed training, kettlebells, gymnastics, Olympic and power weightlifting, etc!

Our community is what sets us apart from typical gyms. Our programs provide an encouraging, non-intimidating vibe that makes every member feel they are part of our community. Everything at CrossFit Golden can be scaled to an athlete’s current fitness level–so in a typical class, you will see soccer moms next to active military next to high school students. Every person works together to achieve the same goal: constantly improving his or her fitness level and encouraging each other along the way.

Although diverse, CFG athletes all have something in common: they like to train hard and have a good time. We host and participate in a wide range of activities and events inside and outside the gym and all over the world! We host in-house competitions, BBQ’s and workouts on holidays, and health and wellness seminars to make sure our members are well informed on ALL things health. We organize events and trips for every type of athlete from bike races, to mountain climbing, to triathlons, to running through Europe.

As a company, I am most proud of the community and the experience we strive to give all of our members. I always think to myself, “what would I like to see if I were a member?” and then work to make that experience happen. Many of the members have become like family to me and they are what makes CFG the best gym.

What were you like growing up?
I always loved being active and social growing up. Whether it was playing sports, working, traveling to new places, I always wanted to be busy and always was looking for the next adventure. Skateboarding and snowboarding led to surfing and surfing led me to travel the world, which in a roundabout way led me back to Colorado to start CrossFit Golden.

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