Former M-ette Lynn stands out in Crossfit realm

Though a small town in the grand scheme of things, Malta has had a bevy of world class athletes graduate through its school system and Stephanie Lynn a 2001 graduate, is still making an impact outside of Phillips County.

Lynn, the daughter of Donnie and Pam Lynn of Malta has been making a splash in the crossfit world in the past few years. Her ultimate goal is to reach the nationally televised Reebok Crossfit Games.

"My ultimate goal is to go to the games and do well at the games," Stephanie Lynn said. "I know that once I make it there, I can make it back. I just need to do it the first time."

Crossfit, according to Crossfit.com is, "constantly varied functional movements performed at relatively high intensity. All crossfit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements reflect the best aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing and more."

Today Lynn lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn. and she has been making quite the splash with the Crossfit Rutherford team, qualifying for regional competition in 2013 with a team, and individually in 2014 before sitting the 2015 season out due to shoulder injury.

This season Lynn has her sights refocused on her goal and the goal is looking attainable.

Lynn started the first round of the 2016 Open Workouts in the last week of February. The workout was named Workout 16.1 and it consisted of 25 feet of overhead walking lunges, eight burpees, 25 feet of overhead walking lunges and eight chest to bar pull ups. After that was completed once she repeated the workout until twenty minutes had elapsed.

Lynn had made it through ten rounds and halfway through the eleventh round, which is no easy task.

In order to qualify for regionals, Lynn will have to survive five weeks of competition and post her totals against over 8,000 women in the Central East Region. After the first workout she was ranked thirty-ninth in the region.

Each athlete is given four days to post the required workout which is monitored by a judge that keeps track of each movement.

Crossfit.com posts the required workout every Thursday night and will do so until Thursday March 24. The workouts end on March 28.

So how did Lynn end up in such a grueling sport? She figures she was born for this.

"It feels like I was born to do this," Lynn said. "I've always trained at high intensity and this gives me an outlet for it."

Her athletic career started in Malta, where she was a standout in basketball and track and field.

As a basketball player, Lynn played under the late legendary coach, Del Fried and helped Malta win state championships both the 1999 and 2000 seasons as a point guard. She was on both the freshman and jv team in 1998, when the M-ettes won another title her freshman year.

The 2000 title meant the most to her.

"We had pretty big senior class," Lynn said noting that there were eight seniors. "I played basketball every single year, all year long, not taking summers off. I was at the Edgewater, the Malta City Hall or wherever I could get in (to practice) after the school burned down. There weren't any breaks in basketball for me."

Former M-ette Head Coach Terry Lindgren, who was the team's assistant coach during Lynn's high school career shared words about the former M-ette.

"Steph Lynn played for Fried and I in the late 90's and 2000," Lindgren said. "She was a good little point guard, who handled the ball very well. She played good defense. She was just a good all around player for her size and I enjoyed coaching her and having her with us."

Though being an M-ette shaped her athletic career, she gives one man credit for being the backbone of her athletic endeavors, her father Donnie, who still coaches Malta's swim team.

"If I was going to give credit to anybody for my attitude, my athlete spirit and never quitting, that would be my dad," Lynn said. "He coached me in little league, basketball and swim team. He's always been that rock, that person in my life that has been there."

Though physically and mentally tough, Lynn gives credit to her mother Pam, who she resembles in demeanor.

"She is the sweetest person, I think I have ever met," Stephanie said. "My mom and dad are just great people."

Lynn also gave credit to another coach, Tad Schye, who had been her track coach throughout high school.

She stated that she has been a long-time fan of Michael Jordan and like many in that time wearing his number 23 was a big deal. Early in her career, Lynn was slightly disgruntled that she had to wear number four.

"I remember really not being happy about it," she said noting that she said something about it to Schye.

That's when Schye said something that made a lasting impact.

"I don't remember what he said specifically but I remember the feeling that I got from it," she said. "It was like, 'hey, you know what, you're number four. You can wear it proudly and you can make something of it.'"

Since her motivational talk with Schye, she has been proud to wear the number, a number that she took with her to Dawson Community College, where she earned an Associates of the Arts Degree, in basketball, music and choir scholarships.

While she loved the workout aspect of playing college ball, it simply wasn't the same as playing in high school.

"It wasn't as much fun as my last few years of high school were," she said. "Malta was just kind of special. We just had this habit of winning everything. It just had a certain feel to it and college basketball wasn't as fun."

She admitted that she met some nice people, who were great friends, but things were different and after college burnout, she was done with basketball by her sophomore year.

But she wasn't done with sports and she eventually with some help from her father, found fast-pitched softball, a sport she hadn't played since she was 12 in little leagues.

"My sophomore year in college was the first year in my life that I had not played basketball and it was very strange," she said admitting that she missed it. "Softball was pretty fun. It was a good change after so many years of doing the same thing."

After her graduation she moved back to Malta for a few months. After her short return to Malta, she decided to move down to Tennessee to be closer to a friend of hers, that friend would later become her boyfriend in a seven year relationship.

The relationship is now over, but she and her friend are still friends and Lynn still proudly resides in Murfreesboro.

"I love the area," she said. "The people are really friendly, I love the weather, and it's warm and humid. During the summer the heat is insane but I actually really like that."

The world of crossfit has really setup a nice situation for Lynn.

"Over the years I've set up a nice base here with friends, with training and it's just a really nice community, I really like living here," Lynn said. "It's about the size of Billings. There's stuff to do. If you want to go see a movie there are a few theatres and there are several malls."

Though her father is from Los Angeles, Cali. she always knew in her heart that she would be a southern girl per vacations with her family as a kid.

"I remember driving through Georgia and it being warm, lush and green and every time we would leave, I just wanted to cry," she said. "I was looking for an opportunity and wanted to move south, to live in a bigger city with a different culture... and make my own way."

She kept in shape always challenging her body to experience new things like veganism and she ultimately became a competitor in bikini figure competitions, volleyball tournaments and she eventually started Crossfit in 2012.

"I've always tried to keep my body healthy," she said. "I've always been a fanatic of working out. I love the way I feel when I feel and look fit."

Her longest span of not lifting weights was three months, but in that time she participated in yoga and running events.

Upon starting crossfit workouts, Lynn still ate a clean diet, but she reintroduced her body to meat for muscle recovery.

She eats six protein packed meals a day for recovery, a trend that she started in 2009.

Though her five foot-three inch frame is currently at 140, she is in the best shape of her life.

"I've never felt more fit than I do now," she said.

The decision to join Crossfit Rutherford's gym was slightly stuttered with Lynn admitting she wish she had joined years sooner. Then one day her friend asked her if she would be interested in joining.

"I was like, 'it's Saturday morning, I really just want to chill," she said.

She went to the gym just to see what it was about and she was amazed.

"We ended up going and checking out this crossfit gym and I remember walking in think what is this stuff?" she recalled. "I just thought crossfit was just tire flips and I had no idea what it was."

After seeing the vast amount of equipment, she was sold.

"I remember just being enamored with it and it was kind of like a kid in a candy store," Lynn said. "I met the owners and they were really nice."

She was amazed after watching a session of crossfitters doing a group workout.

"They've got a timer on the board," she said. "3,2,1 go! And then everybody was throwing down, throwing these balls up against the wall and then squatting with it and doing double under jump roping. I remember it looking fun and competitive."

She knew that it would be the next big thing in her life.

Since her friend introduced her to the sport, Lynn has been one of Crossfit Rutherford's toughest competitors, setting records in the gym and even winning her first competition.

Though she is more acclimated to the sport today, it didn't start easy for her and it still pushes her to her limit every time.

Her first ever workout had the nickname "Fran," and Fran made her blackout in only a few minutes.

"After I recovered from that workout, I did another workout with the owners, which was probably really stupid at the time but I couldn't get enough of it," Lynn said. "I remember thinking, did I kill myself? My lats were all stuck together. I went back and I didn't quit."

In one of her first outdoor competitions, she found out another rough side to the sport one that bloodied her hands.

"I think it was around 100 degrees but we had to do these dead lifts out in the sun and I remember the bar being so hot that we had to tape our hands up because the bar has been sitting in the sun for two hours," she said. "It got tough, but it was fun. I wasn't not going to do it."

It is not a pretty sport, but her goal remains the same. She wants to make the Rebook Crossfit Games whether by herself or with her team, which consists of three men and three women.

"I have high expectations," she said. "I want to go as an individual but I would definitely go with my team."