Is CrossFit Greendale Owner 'Fittest on Earth?'

About two years ago, Frank Colavita had just opened his new CrossFit Greendale gym in the village’s industrial loop.

For days, he sat in the gym, broke, having sunk his life savings into the gym, waiting for business.

“I had a couch and coffee table here and would wait here all day,” Colavita said. “Sometimes I wouldn’t leave at night.”

Now, CrossFit Greendale, one of 5,500 affiliated gyms like it across the country, has about 200 members and is a bustling hub for those who are trying to get healthy with “optimized fitness through constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity.”

And leading them is the 49-year-old Colavita, who will be competing in the Reebok CrossFit Games in Los Angeles July 22-28.

'Living large'

It wasn’t all that long ago Colavita was “living life, living large.” An athlete his whole life, Colavita had let his body get away from him, spending more time drinking beer, riding motorcycles and smoking cigarettes than working out.

But a car crash that killed his father down in Florida changed all that. His dad was a world-class runner who had been invited to the Senior Olympics just before the accident. In his father’s honor, Colavita ran in the memorial division of the games in California.

While there, he saw thousands of senior citizens competing in all sorts of sports, doing things Colavita wasn’t sure he’d be able to do if he kept living the way he was.

“I had an epiphany. I had a moment,” Colavita said. “I wanted to change my life and get healthy.

“I’ve been changing lives ever since.”

All walks of life

Among CrossFit’s members are firemen, policemen, housewives, children as young as 8 and grandmothers in their 60s. Heck, there’s even a priest.

“I can show my people that a 50-year-old can do it,” said Colavita, who turns 50 in October. “So don’t use that as an excuse. They’ve seen my (before) pictures and saw I was a fat pig. Now I’m not.”

And now the once out-of-shape Colavita is striving for the title of “Fittest on Earth.”

A year after not qualifying for the games in his first attempt, Colavita was ranked third worldwide out of more than 5,000 competitors who began the 5-week long qualification process. He’s been training four times a day, five days a week for the last two months. His body is tired, but he pushes through.

“CrossFit isn’t just about strength,” Colavita said. “It’s about many aspects of fitness. I’m good at three or four of them. Everyday, I work on what I’m good at and I tell myself I’m better than (his competitors) at this.”

The 205-pound, 5-foot-10-inch Greendale resident will be up against 19 of fittest 45-49-year-old men in the world, and he is the only Wisconsin resident in the games in any sex or age category. But Colavita and his counterparts aren’t even sure what they are training for.

The Games have been around since 2007, and change every year. Details of the events are not announced until right before each one begins. Last year, among the events were a 700-meter ocean swim, an 8-kilometer bike ride across rocky terrain and soft sand and more. But there’s no guarantee those events will be in this year’s competition.

“We check in Sunday and we get our uniforms and on Monday, we find out what we’ll be doing Tuesday,” Colavita said. “You have no time for practice.”

Possible expansion?

Regardless of what happens next week, Colavita is proud of what he’s built in Greendale and has begun exploring the idea of opening a CrossFit in Menomonee Falls.

And not just because business is good and keeps him from sitting on the couch, waiting for someone to walk through the door.

“I’m a passionate coach,” he said. “I want everyone to have a goal and I want everyone to attain it. People literally physically change in 2-3 weeks. You come in, we work you hard. They know we love them and they know we care.”