Lisa Benham

I grew up in a family who were not athletic. God blessed me with strength and quickness. My mom put me in gymnastics at age 5 till 3rd grade. I remember getting an award for the most strict pull-ups, coaches words: “no one even came close”. I wasn’t built like my friends, I was never going to be super skinny. I decided to be strong instead. I was friends with a guy that would lift every day after school with me. I was voted most athletic in high school. I was in cheerleading, softball and track.  Went to state in the 100 m dash one year. Went all 4 years in the long jump, won 3rd my Sr Year at state. In college I started jogging just to stay active. Never over a mile. I took step classes at the Y. I was a cheerleader my last 2 years of college, we had to lift a little, and spend some time doing cardio, and tumbling. I got into pharmacy school in 2002. We moved a lot for (Pharmacy, Rotations, Residency), but once we were in Enid and settled we started having kids in 2008.

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I did body pump at the YMCA through some of my pregnancies. My body was different after kids. My neighbor was into running, so to get back in shape I signed up for a 5k obstacle course and downloaded a couch to 5K app.  In 2013, was the first time I had ever run more than a mile. I continued to run and do body pump for a few years, did several half marathons in 2015-2016 and 1 full marathon in 2016. 2016 was about the time I heard about CrossFit. I attended a few boot camp classes a week and ran other days.  Until this point, my lifting had been light weight and lots repetition (Body Pump). I felt like I had good baseline athleticism  at this point. The CrossFit methodology has transformed everything I thought I knew about fitness and flipped it upside down.

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I was absolutely humbled by the workouts. The variety of programming - high intensity workouts, to strength days, to long chipper workouts first of all the variety keeps it interesting, but it just brought about the best shape I’ve been in my life. I did my first Open in 2017. The measurability of progress is what motivates.  
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I decided to be a coach after a lot of prompting. I am a very quiet person. However, I love this sport so much and saw so much benefit from it in myself and others around me, that I decided I wanted to be apart of improving the health of others the same way. I know my friends and co-workers probably get tired of me talking about how great this sport is. It’s hard to keep quiet about something that works so well. This is my 3rd year coaching and I love sharing tips and tricks and watching athletes grow. It’s incredibly rewarding.  I hope to be doing this sport and coaching for many years to come.