Growing up in Ireland, Holly Tynan played all the sports she could get her hands – and feet – on.
Football, sprinting and golf loomed large in her life. She especially loved camogie, a women’s version of shinty that sat well with Holly’s love of the extreme.
Common camogie injuries – like getting the shovel-like stick straight to the face – put some people off. But it didn’t scare Holly.
She relished it.
“I tried hockey for a year and kind of hated it,” says Holly, who now lives in Aberdeen. “It wasn’t physical enough.”
Then, at the age of 16, Holly discovered a new sport that combined her love of competing with her enjoyment of the extreme.
The sport was Crossfit, a fitness-focussed event that plays out like an endurance decathlon, mixing elements of cardio, power lifting and gymnastics.
What are Crossfit and the Crossfit Games?
Streaming channels carry numerous documentaries covering the annual Crossfit Games that show elite athletes performing incredible feats of strength and technique while crossing far over the line of what most people define as the limits of endurance.
For example, a competition workout can see athletes rowing for half a mile before doing 100 pullups followed by any number of barbell lifts.
Other movements can be thrown in – handstand push ups, perhaps, or double-under skipping where the rope has to travel around twice per jump.
The sport’s multi-discipline nature (workouts can be anything, and are kept secret until just before competition starts) is why the organisers crown each year’s Crossfit Games men and women’s champions “the fittest people on Earth”.
Holly heads from Aberdeen to Berlin for Crossfit Games semi-finals
Now 22, and about three years since she took up the sport full-time, Holly is about to take an important next step on her Crossfit journey.
On Thursday June 1, she will be in Berlin where she has qualified for the European semi-finals of the Crossfit Games.
Together with her Aberdeen training partner Ross Low, who has also made it to the semi-finals, Holly is vying to be one of just 80 athletes – 40 men and 40 women – to make it to the global finals in the US this August.
“We didn’t actually think we’d get to the semi-finals until next year,” Holly says. “We’re actually a little bit ahead of schedule.”
Behind Holly’s success is a grueling training regime. In January, she moved to the Granite City to train with Ross at Crossfit Aberdeen, a gym on Urquhart Road run by the pair’s coach, Rob Lawson.
With the semi-finals on the horizon, Holly and Ross are training five days a week.
A typical day starts at 9am for a morning session before breaking for lunch at noon. They are back in the gym at 2pm for another session, this time for two to three hours.
Even on Mondays and Thursdays recovery days they jump in the pool for an hour for a fast-paced swim.
“It’s just that feeling of how far you can push your body,” Holly says. “That’s what keeps me going at it.”
‘She had this grit and determination’
Holly’s will to win was evident when coach Rob first met her at a gym in Ireland.
“She was young, but she had this grit and determination,” he says. “At first, I was worried that she was doing too much but she was just lapping it up.
“And the development she has made over the past couple of years has been tenfold.”
Holly remembers her early days of Crossfit when she was “fit but not strong”.
It took her two years to master a muscle-up – a movement that starts as a pull up but ends with the athlete on top of the bar.
“I didn’t really have any of the gymnastic movements, so it did take me a while,” she says. “Then I started taking it a little bit serious and I wanted to actually get better at things like the gymnastic side of it and the weightlifting side of it.”
How Crossfit turned Holly into a formidable contender
Her physical transformation has been remarkable, going from a self-described skinny teenager to a formidable athlete that can lift a 100kg barbell from the ground to above her head.
But while Holly admits the Crossfit body helped attract her to the sport when she first got into it through documentaries on Netflix, she says that at the top level “getting shredded” or bulking up is not a priority.
“People are more focused on how how strong they get, rather than trying to look a certain way,” she says.
“It’s definitely more about what weight you can lift, and then next year being able to lift something heavier.”
Holly praises training partner Ross for helping her get to where she is today. The 23-year-old South African will take part in the African semi-finals in Johannesburg starting May 19 and knows what it takes to compete at the top level.
“Ross is my savior during training,” Holly says. “Even on a bad day, we can pick each other up and get on with a workout.”
Holly’s pain and gain to reach the Crossfit semi-finals
As their big days loom, both athletes are ramping up the training. Holly is eating 3,000 calories a day just to fuel her increasingly demanding workouts, and all non-training activities are out the window.
It’s a lifestyle she says she sometimes feels guilty about because of the sacrifices she has made.
Even her family back in Ireland come second to the relentless training programme, though Holly says they understand what it means to her.
“Everything I do is about benefitting me training-wise,” she says. “It is very selfish. But you have to be selfish to try and make it.”
Her current goal is to crack the Crossfit global top 40, which would allow her to fund more training.
After that, the sky’s the limit. Top Crossfitters have millions of social media followers and earn good money through endorsements. Once they retire from the elite level, there are masters tournaments for older athletes.
For now, training is about testing the limits of endurance, and entering the pain zone Holly calls “The Dark Place”.
True to form, she’s enjoying the challenge of “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable”.
As to why she’s better at this than mere mortals, Holly has a simple answer.
“I think I just like pain more,” she says.
For more inspirational stories, check out our My Health Journey archive.