WellcommDC [6.17.24]

WellcommDC is the email newsletter bringing you the best of the DMV’s wellness community. Transform your self, transform your community, and transform your world. Join the list, and get WellcommDC sent directly to your inbox. Have a friend who would love WellcommDC? Then please forward our email or tag them on one of our IG posts. Email your tips to [email protected] or slide into our DMs.

[HIGH FIVE] We gave a High Five to Craig Hoffman (@craig_hoffman), a trainer and performance coach in the DMV.

WellcommDC: Where do you work…out?

Craig Hoffman: My primary home is Elevate Interval Fitness where I mix all of our classes into my training. When I’m doing my own thing, I workout at VIDA, and you’ll also find me most weekends running or biking in Rock Creek Park or one of the other amazing trails in and around DC. I coach at Elevate and lead our Elite Athlete program. Elite Athlete takes the high performance concepts I've used for years with college and pro level athletes and makes them accessible to everyone to apply to their own goals. A lot of our athletes are HYROX athletes, but we've also got tennis players, runners, soccer players, and more who have come through in the first few months of the program. We just launched our off-season training, which is a chance for athletes to improve in the areas they don't get to work on with a race around the corner. It's an essential part of the calendar where strength and conditioning can help make the biggest leap in an athlete's performance. We'd love to see you on a Tuesday or Friday morning! You can sign up on MindBody or on Elevate's website. For my day job, I host the afternoon drive show on The Team 980 talking all things DC sports and beyond. I also host a Commanders podcast called Take Command and a fitness podcast called Train With The Best with Chris Gorres (@trainergorres).

WDC: Who are some people who inspire you, motivate you, or keep you accountable when it comes to your wellness?

CH: I’m the luckiest person in the world in this category. My wife, Rachel Hoffman (@rachel.s.hoffman) and who WellcommDC recently featured, is all of the above. She knows me so well and is unbelievable at providing what I need whether that be motivation, inspiration, or genuine kindness to get me in a better place. It doesn’t hurt that she’s an amazing fit pro who is studying the intersection of psychology and fitness so we can bounce ideas off each other and talk about all kinds of fitness and wellness related topics. I also got incredibly lucky in the mentor category: Chris Gorres (@trainergorres) is one of the best trainers and fitness educators on earth. We’ve been hosting the Train With The Best for over 8 years, which means I’ve gotten to pick his brain on an endless amount of topics. We’ve also developed a family level relationship, and it’s impossible to ascribe a value to what he means to me in and out of this space. I’m also constantly inspired by our community at Elevate. It’s a place people come to work, and you can’t help but be inspired. What David Magida (@davidmagida), Eric Williams (@runricrun), and Jamel Clark (@jameltc78) built is special. It’s an inclusive space with high levels of expertise that’s drawn a caring, fun, hard working community. They’ve enhanced it with tremendous coaches, including my dear friends Alex Shabo (@alshabes) and Sarah Cotter (@sarahcttr), both of whom push me as coaches and inspire me as athletes. The last piece I’ll add is the most unique to me. Covering professional athletes for the last 15 years (when did I get this old?) also provides a lot of inspiration and motivation. I’ve had the chance to regularly talk and interact with the absolutely highest achievers in athletics. While I have my reporter/media hat on when doing that, I often am asking questions from a place of curiosity about how they’ve gotten where they are. I’ve learned a lot from the athletes and (especially) coaches that I’ve covered, and I think my own coaching background gives me a sharper eye to what actually makes a good or bad coach as a member of the media giving opinions on such things. One quote that’s stuck with me recently that encapsulates all of this is from new Commanders Head Coach Dan Quinn (@dn1qn). DQ said, “You can only coach someone to the depth of your relationship with them,” and I think that’s brilliant. If you don’t understand an athlete as a person, you can’t connect with them and, thus, you can’t get the most out of them. I find more fulfillment from coaching than anything else I do. I took a hiatus from coaching last fall, and my wellness suffered because of it. I can’t thank David and the team at Elevate enough for letting me launch the Elite Athlete program, which is a concept I’ve been toying with for years. Elevate is the perfect space for it, and the results have been magical. Our athletes have not only seen tremendous results in their performance, but we’re also having a blast. This motivates me to continue pushing and continue learning. It keeps me accountable on my own fitness because it’s important to me to practice what I preach. The work our athletes put in inspires me. There have been hundreds of studies proving that people are more successful when they feel like they're working towards something bigger than themselves. Shoutout to my friend, Washington Spirit forward Ashley Hatch (@ash_smash33), who talked about this on a recent episode of her podcast, Ditto. For some people, that's religion. For some, it's their nuclear family. For me, it's the community we (Rachel and I) are lucky enough to be a part of.

WDC: What does “wellness” mean to you?

CH: Wellness means controlling what I can control in ways that help me live a better, happier life. That means identifying the things that bring me happiness and the things that take away from my happiness, then leaning into the things and people that bring joy and minimizing or avoiding the things and people that take it away.

WDC: What are your wellness goals over the next twelve months?

CH: My ongoing goal is to do well with work/life balance. We all wish we had more hours in a day, and while work is important, we’re always going to wish we had more time with our loved ones. So I’m continually refining the way I work to be more efficient and be able to hold my boundaries on my personal time so I can spend it with my wife, our friends, and our loved ones. I always try to put things in terms of priorities. Sometimes work has to take priority because of a deadline, but if we say we value our family over work, why do so many of us not live that way? Less existentially, and more specifically, I’ve got two goals: be less online and find a fitness goal for the back half of the year. My day job means I have a lot of interaction with people from radio callers to social media mentions and comments, and sometimes it isn't very fun: people on the Internet not being their best selves? I don’t like how much I’ve let some of those get to me over the last year, and I want to find a better way to balance engaging with my listeners and viewers while keeping my sanity. Fitness-wise, I always train better when I have a goal, and I’m currently looking at a few races for the fall: HYROX? Half Marathon? 10 Miler? Once I have that goal, I can come up with a training plan. As a performance coach, I enjoy that challenge of seeing how well I can prepare myself.

WDC: What advice would you share with someone looking to change their wellness routine?

CH: My number one answer sadly isn’t possible for everyone, but if you can afford to, pay someone and pay the right someone. Whether a trainer, a psychologist, or a physical therapist, we’re professionals. We’ve undergone training in our field and have a level of expertise that can be applied to help achieve your personal goals, and we want to help! Do your homework, as there are a lot of options out there. Some people don't have said training and expertise despite their social media followings and proclamations, and you want to make sure you’re optimally putting your money towards your goals. If you find the right person for your needs, mental, physical, or both, that person can change your life. It’s an investment in yourself, and what could be more worth investing in than your own wellness? Realistically, that’s not within the budget for a lot of folks. Investment comes from disposable income, and most of us are overworked, underpaid, and tired of being yelled at and told that we should spend less on avocado toast. If that’s the case, use the quality free resources that are available. Follow the right people on Instagram, and read the right people online. Ask questions where you can of whom you can. Be curious. We have a saying on Train With The Best: “Keep the main thing the main thing.” That involves understanding what the main thing is in the first place. Correctly identify what it is you’re really after, then using whatever resources you have, work backwards to create a realistic and attainable game plan from there. Lastly, be kind to yourself. Setting goals is great, but you get to set them. Set something realistic, then get to work. If you find that maybe you were too ambitious or not ambitious enough, it's okay to change course after you've given it an honest chance. There are no bonus points for pessimism. There are no bonus points for beating yourself up. It's okay to not meet a goal. Be kind to yourself, assess what happened, recalibrate, and keep moving. If you do that, you'll never fail. You'll just not have gotten there quite yet!

Know someone who deserves a High Five? Click here to submit your nomination so we can feature them in a future WellcommDC High Five profile.

[CONGRATS] Congratulations to Jasmine Bowden (@jasminebowdenfitness) on being named a lululemon Train Ambassador for the DC Metro Market. You can find Jasmine in the Red Room at Barry’s where she’s a Senior Instructor. [Here We Goooo]

[FAREWELL] Two BASH legends, Caroline Campisi (@carolinecampisi) and Christina Georgia (@christina.georgia10), are both saying goodbye after solid five year runs. WellcommDC wishes both of them well and looks forward to their continued contributions to the DMV fitness community. [Didn’t Hear No Bell]

[YOGA DAY] International Yoga Day arrives Friday, June 21st, and you can celebrate with a free outdoor yoga class at The Yards in Washington, DC from 7 to 8 am. Join fellow yogis on The Sundeck for a session led by the great Carlyn Nordeman (@calmwithcarlyn). Bring your yoga mat, water, and positive attitude to begin your morning right, and be sure to register here. [Go With The Flow]

[CHALLENGE] We see all of you in Barry’s crushing your United We Barry’s Challenge this month! Let us know: which themed class are you crushing down the final stretch: Christopher Scruggs (@christopher.scruggs)’s Gemini Season Closer or Lydia Pappas (@lcpappas)’s It’s Britney B*tch? Check the schedule to book your pick, and let us know how Joe Finedore (@finedore)’s Meduza x James Hype was! [Red Room Rumble]

That’s this edition of WellcommDC. Like what you read? Join the list, and get future editions sent directly to your inbox. Have a friend who needs WellcommDC? Then please forward our email or tag them on one of our IG posts. Got tips? Drop us a line at [email protected] or slide in. Until next time, take care of yourself, and take care of each other.

Go For It,

Your WellcommDC Team (@wellcommdc)

Transform Your Self. Transform Your Community. Transform Your World.