Dozens of athletes from the South Coast and beyond strained to lift barbells of increasing weight as Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” filled the air at Seaside Crossfit on June 9.

The gym’s first ever competition, named “Wodstock” in honor of Workouts of the Day (WOD) and Woodstock, consisted of four workouts (“Numb,” “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Staying Alive,” and
“Jump”) that had athletes heading out for a trail run, lifting weights, jumping on boxes, doing chest-to-bar pull-ups and more.

Fifty athletes in teams of one man and one woman, competed and cheered each other on.

“It’s as much camaraderie as competition,” said Tara DiGiantomaso of Wareham, who has been training at the gym for about a year and a half. DiGiantomaso said that she values the community at Seaside Crossfit and the variety of the workouts.

CrossFit, an exercise program developed in California and established as a company in 2000, uses elements of aerobic conditioning, Olympic lifting and gymnastics to train for what it calls
“functional fitness,” movements that people use in their everyday lives.

DiGiantomaso says she got bored at her previous gym, partly because it was on her to plan her routine. At CrossFit, the workout is different each day and planned by the gym. The workouts are
also designed to be scalable to each person’s abilities.

Emma Thornell, 15, and Cooper Newton, 16, of Mattapoisett — also known as Guns ’N’ the Rose — were the youngest team in the competition.

“He’s the rose, I’m the guns,” joked Thornell.

She and Newton both have parents participating in CrossFit. On Sunday, Newton’s father was helping to run the event and his brother and aunt were another team in the competition.

“CrossFit is one of those things, we're like, yeah, it’s a lot of hard work, but you form really good friendships. You both go through a lot of pain, but you’re here together,” Thornell said.

“Everybody’s super supportive and cheering you on no matter what.”
Both Thornell and Newton participate in the gym’s strength and conditioning program, which is aimed at high school athletes.

Seaside Crossfit, located on Little Brook Road in the Patterson Brook industrial park, was founded by owners Jennifer and Matthew Christopher in their Marion garage back in 2010. The couple got
interested in CrossFit when he started doing the workouts with the Army while stationed in Germany.

Since then, Seaside has outgrown first the couple’s garage, then leased space in Marion, and then its first industrial park space in Wareham.

Sunday’s competition was the gym’s next step forward -- its first competition open to athletes from other CrossFit gyms.

About half of those who competed were members of Seaside Crossfit. While athletes from Gardner took the top spot in the “Rx” (elite) division and other non-locals stood atop the podium in the Intermediate and Beginner divisions –- Seasiders earned the No. 2 and 3 positions in all three divisions.