CrossFit Horsepower owner Dan Wells will find out how fit he really is when he competes in the Reebok CrossFit Games this month at StubHub Center. Photos by Pete Henze
Seventeen years ago, CPA Dan Wells set aside his spreadsheets and stepped away from his cubicle to focus on his health. His decision was triggered by seeing his father suffer a fatal heart attack at age 52.
“I was that guy who took the job as an accountant and I was spending 70 to 80 hours a week clicking through spreadsheets and focusing very little on my health,” he said. “In my third and final year as an accountant, my father passed away. I realized that I needed to take care of myself to live a longer life than he did.”
Today, Wells is a partner in CrossFit Horsepower in Hermosa Beach and one of the top ranked CrossFit athletes in the world in the 40- to 44-year-old division.
Later this month, he will find out just how good he is when he competes in the Reebok CrossFit Games at the StubHub Center in Carson. The 6-day event begins July 21 and culminates in the crownings of the fittest athletes in the world. The competition includes weight lifting, gymnastics, foot races and swimming. Often, the disciplines are combined, such as running with dumbbells. Competitors are not told in advance what events they will be competing in.
The 5-foot-9, 168 pound Wells was selected for the games based on his performance in a qualifier, in which the top 200 competitors in his age group submitted video evidence of completing four events over the course of a weekend in April, including box jumps and Olympic-style weightlifting. He placed fifth.
“I’ll hopefully inspire someone to say, ‘Damn, that dude was 37 when he started CrossFit, and he was a skinny yoga guy and he transformed himself into a Games athlete in the top 0.1 percent of the world?’ If a handful of people feel like that, then that’s bigger than me getting a Reebok CrossFit jersey with my name on it,” he said.
CrossFit emphasizes functional fitness, attained through grueling workouts that include weight lifting, pull-ups, push-ups, running and equipment such as rowing machines. CrossFit began just 15 years ago. The first Reebok Games was in 2007.
The sport has grown rapidly due to enthusiastic word-of-mouth, social media and the relative ease of opening a franchise. Gyms pay $3,000 a year for the right to use the CrossFit name.
Wells was a competitive wrestler growing up in Orange County. But in his 20s, he was out of shape and overworked, he said, and more on the track to upper management than competitive athletics.
After working for a few years as an accountant, he went to Cornell University for an M.B.A. in 1998 and after graduating became a Wall Street investment banker for a year. Then, seeking to engage the right side of his brain, he moved back to L.A. in 2001, where he worked as an actor, with stints on “Days of our Lives” and “Will & Grace,” while also making money fixing up apartments.
In that time he also vacillated between workout and diet fads.
He met his wife Rachelle while attending an acting workshop and began taking a spin class she taught. After a few months, he worked up the courage to ask her out, he said. The couple now has three kids, ages 9, 7 and 5, who do kids’ CrossFit.
“Thank God I took those side tracks,” Wells said. “I wouldn’t have met my wife and have my three kids, the most important things in my life.”
Wells was introduced to CrossFit four years ago by friend Jed Sanford, who owns restaurants and nightspots in Hermosa Beach, including Dia de Campo and Abigaile. Wells and Sanford met when they were working at Price Waterhouse Cooper in downtown L.A.
Wells was transfixed by the level of fitness displayed at the West Hollywood “box,” or CrossFit gym, where he first trained. He was still heavily into yoga and about 20 pounds lighter than he is now. He couldn’t make it through his first CrossFit class’ “workout of the day,” or WOD. But he became hooked on the challenge.
“I love CrossFit. I also hate it. But I love it,” Wells said at the start of a lengthy Facebook post in May, announcing he had qualified for the Reebok Crossfit Games.
In 2012, he opened his first CrossFit Horsepower gym in Studio City, where he and his family live. Last summer, Wells and Sanford opened the Hermosa location.
He said he has invested about $350,000 in the two gyms and hopes to make a good return. But even if he doesn’t, he said, he’ll be content having helped people improve their lives by helping them lose weight and attain other health goals.
“It’s a calculated risk,” he said. “Worst case scenario I help a lot of people and I already have. If that’s what my money did, then my money was well spent. Best case scenario, the gyms are flourishing businesses that can pay the bills.”
Wells splits time between the two gyms, making the Studio City/South Bay commute in his HOV (car pool) legal, electric BMW i3. On a recent Tuesday evening at the Hermosa gym, Wells taught a class of about a dozen students, while about a dozen others milled around the foyer sampling nutritional supplements from tiny cups. Gym member Graham Belton described Wells’ classes as “structured and intense.” Member Sarah Clancy said Wells goes beyond simply leading the exercises to explain why it’s important to do them. “It’s more than the workout,” she said. “It’s well-rounded.”
In a time when a Facebook post can pass for human interaction, Wells said, his box provides a more personal way for people to connect with their neighbors.
“Dan cares more about the overall health and wellbeing [of members] than most affiliate owners,” said Matt Aporta, head of business development at nutritional supplements company SFH in Culver City, who was handing out samples of fish oil supplements at CrossFit Horsepower in Hermosa Beach. “It takes more than being a good businessman to own a successful box.”
Still, the Hermosa gym did not have a smooth launch. Neighbors along Cypress Ave. and Loma Drive protested against the gym at city council meetings, complaining of vibrations from dropped weights.
Wells said the gym has responded by deemphasizing weightlifting exercises, telling gym members to place weights down gently and also by putting mats on the floor to absorb shocks. He noted that the area is zoned for light-manufacturing and some noise should be expected.
“I never thought we’d have to experience anything like this,” he said. “I feel like we should be allowed to drop weights all day long, but we don’t, because we’re cool people … It’s also unfortunate that we can’t operate during our business during the hours that we’d like to.”
He said he is hoping the city conducts vibration tests to prove the neighbors’ complaints are unfounded.
“We’re begging them to test,” he said. “We can’t wait for the results.”
Wells found out that he placed in the top five in his age group in an email in May. He immediately hired a coach to ramp up his training and shore up some of his weaknesses, which include power lifting and swimming. His strengths are gymnastic exercises and those that require lifting one’s own body weight, such as handstand pushups.
In the course of his training, he’s added three hard-fought pounds to his frame, he said. He eats meals rich in fat, protein and nutrients, such as eggs and bacon for breakfast, with a side of sautéed spinach. He swears by fish oil – “it’s the oil that makes the engine run” – and is even trying colostrum, which is milk produced just prior to giving birth, or “mother’s first milk.” He’s not convinced it helps. He’s also completely cut out alcohol and most sugars.
Other staples of his diet are protein shakes and supplements of creatine, which is an organic acid that helps supply energy to muscle cells. He doesn’t count calories, he said, but rather eats as much as he can in a day without feeling sick. He dismisses the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet commonly thought to be healthy.
Wells’ coach Mike Tromello is training him to be ready for whatever challenges come his way. Competitors will be asked to do some combination of weightlifting, gymnastics, track-racing and swimming. The masters events — those for competitors ages 40 and over — will be spaced out over three consecutive days, from July 21 through July 23.
“I don’t know how I’m going to handle three straight days of CrossFit,” Wells said.
Tromello said Wells is unusual in making it to the highest level of competition without a fulltime coach. As the sport has grown more popular, nearly all of the highest-level CrossFit athletes train with coaches year-round, he said.
“Nobody makes the games top five just doing their training at the gym,” Tromello said. “That alone tells you what an amazing athlete he is. With the right coaching he could be a podium contender. We started late. He’s not used to the volume we’re doing but he’s rising to the occasion. Let’s say by next year, if he stays on the plan and does an entire year of training, it’s amazing what he could possibly accomplish.”
The games, for non-masters competitors, begin with team competitions on July 22 in Hermosa Beach, where competitors will presumably swim and compete in events on the sand. Subsequent individual and team events will take place at StubHub’s track and tennis stadium.
First place in each masters division is $10,000, second place is $5,000 and third is $3,000.
Wells said he’s eager for the games to get underway. And eager for them to be over.
“I look forward to the time where I can work out because I want to work out, not because I have to,” he said.
