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Athlete of the Month for July 2019

By July 2, 2019July 12th, 2019No Comments

It is time to announce the Athlete of the Month for July 2019.  This month, the coaches chose a member who regularly attends the 4:30pm class.  He stood out to us because of some recent fitness progress he achieved.  Like a quiet storm, he’s been doing banded pullups and box pushups for a long while.  In an effort to push him along, we encouraged him to start to work off of those scales.  Turns out, he could do unbanded pullups and full plank pushups with no problem.  With some hesitancy, he has started to move away from these scales and has accepted our encouragement on other movement as well.  After joining, he brought along his husband during our Buddy System in January.  They two of them have been regulars at our IA Community Events. The Athlete of the Month for July 2019 is:

Gyuri Fekete

1. Where are you from originally?

From a town called Székesfehérvár, and hour southwest from Budapest – the capital of Hungary. “Fun” fact: Székesfehérvár loosely translates to Royalwhitecastle and it used to be the coronation site of medieval Hungary. Sadly very little of that shows today.

2. If not from Pittsburgh, what brought you to Pittsburgh?

After college I worked for the Hungarian subsidiary of Alcoa Inc for almost a decade. Alcoa is headquartered in Pittsburgh and brought me over here for a one year exchange program in 2009. Half way in that year I met my future husband and Alcoa generously agreed to make my stay permanent.

3. Where do you work?

In Moon township at the North American financial shared services center of Hydro. Hydro makes quite a lot of things globally, here in the US mostly aluminum extruded profiles. The local office does accounting and finance for US, Canada and Mexico. And I am a change manager for this accounting operation. If you can’t picture what that means day to day… nor can my parents. Mostly talking to accountants and IT and writing procedures. I am an accountant by degree.

4. What is your favorite hobby?

I don’t get to do it nearly enough to call it a hobby, but I do like hiking. Since we adopted dogs last year we do a lot more city walks, and not enough parks, but looking forward to do more proper hiking this summer.

5. How did you discover CrossFit?

It was a crossover from diet. I was initially interested in Paleo diet, and a lot of blogs about that also recommend CrossFit as an ideal way of exercising so gave it a try.

6. When did you start CrossFit?

2016 at Alpha athletics in Blawnox, and at Industrial since 2018.

7. Why did you start CrossFit?

Was looking for a way to introduce more variety into working out and pushing me to do things outside of my comfort zone.

8. What is your favorite thing to do in CrossFit?

In general bodyweight exercises. To call it “favorite” does not describe exactly how I feel about it precisely, but I am always surprised how little I hate doing burpees – compared to other things.

9. What is your least favorite thing to do in CrossFit?

Any weight lifting with arms above head does not feel stable. Least favorite of them all is the Snatch.

10. What is the number 1 thing you want to get better at?

If I could perform a muscle up I could die happy.

11. What is your favorite part about coming to CrossFit at Industrial Athletics?

I like it that we warm up together, and really appreciate that the scaling is not completely left up to me. But if I had to name a singular part that would be tough love from Jen.

12. What is your favorite CrossFit WOD?

 12 Days of Christmas