The Early Days on Hawaii…

On what might have otherwise been another sunny day on Oahu in the summer of 2006, a young, wandering soul from Portage, Indiana, found himself perplexed by a small group of people working out in a park near Waikiki. Never willing to let his curiosity get the best of him, Marcus Dedina – the Badger – approached the group and met Bryant Powers and Craig Cates; the original founders of CrossFit Oahu. After quickly becoming an integral part of CrossFit Oahu, Marcus soon realized that CFO – and most Affiliates – had barely scraped the surface of their potential in terms of web presence. After this realization, Marcus took the same intensity he demonstrates in his workouts and applied it to creating a web system for Affiliates that is functional and constantly varied in both content and design. The result was a partnership with long-time friend Kyle Posey and the beginning of SitesAsRx. Thanks to the help of our first clients – Brian Mackenzie of CrossFit Endurance and John Welbourn of CrossFit Football – SitesAsRx began some serious name-dropping, quickly earned a ton of street credit and has grown to provide web services to over 75 CrossFit Affiliates worldwide.

The Early Days in Montana…

While all this was going on in Hawaii, back on the main land, Alex Kurz, a native of Austin, TX, was getting ready to jump out of a plane. Alex – the Ice Tiger – was living in Montana, studying hard to earn his degree in Exercise Science and making his living as a sky diver. When the rush of jumping out of planes began to no longer satisfy his thrill-seeking urge, he soon found himself learning how to fly helicopters in his spare time. Realizing his new-found skills could take him anywhere, the Ice Tiger came down from the mountains of Montana and migrated West to the island of Oahu where he began picking up regular hours as a commercial helicopter pilot. In fact, he had just gotten off shift and was doing a simple surf check when he caught a glimpse of the Badger coaching an outdoor group class in the same park he would regularly visit to mediate and ponder the direction of his life. While watching this group get after an incredibly intense workout and push themselves to the extremes of physical performance, every thought in young Alex’s mind with regard to what he thought he knew about working out was instantly challenged. Nearly every single day for the next month, Alex would land his helicopter and hustle over to CrossFit Oahu after work to join Marcus, Bryant and the CFO community in their endless pursuit of fitness.

Forging An Elite Apparel Company…

While looking for creative ways to introduce the world to the idea that fitness itself is a sport, the crew found themselves continually frustrated in their attempts to create rad designs and print them on high quality t-shirts at a reasonable price. Within this fitness community they helped create, they very quickly discovered they were not alone in their passion for the sport of fitness, nor were they alone in their frustration to produce high quality apparel specific to this new lifestyle and community of athletes who share their value of prioritizing fitness first and foremost in life. Together, Marcus, Alex and Bryant formed Life AsRx with a commitment to environmentally safe printing on the highest end materials and cuts and a mission to forge an elite line of apparel for CrossFitters, by CrossFitters.

Paths Cross…

Not soon after Life AsRx was born, an opportunity to become head coach at a small, but growing Affiliate in north San Diego County led Alex to jump on a jet back to California. While not coaching classes, Ice Tiger spent time building relationships with many key players in the local apparel industry and helped grow the company from the ground to almost over his head. As luck would have it, one fine autumn day, Brian Spangle – the Factor – met up with Alex while on vacation in southern California. The two had been friends since the days of their reckless youth as college roommates in Santa Barbara and quickly reverted back to their youthful ways; Alex offering Brian a quick, seventeen minute workout to try out CrossFit. The next morning, what started out as a joke, took nineteen minutes to elicit copious amounts of projectile vomit about the courtyard. Brian thanked Alex for the introduction, flew back to Chicago and began training daily at CrossFit Chicago. Six short, hard months later, in July, 2009, the Factor ditched his suit-and-tie, diet-coke-and-a-smoke career and returned to Southern California to partner with Ice Tiger and establish CrossFit Counter Culture in Encinitas.

The Long Winter of 2010…

In early 2010, Badger begrudgingly left his posh one-bedroom high-rise apartment overlooking his boat in Waikiki harbor to relocate to a 2300 sq. ft. industrial loft in Encinitas. Together again, Badger and Ice Tiger started to do work. And as much as both hoped their work would produce results, neither could have predicted how all consuming this venture would become become. The two brought Factor into the equation and BOOM – Life AsRx hit the circuit of CrossFit Sectional and Regional competitions, leaving bar tabs, broken hearts and t-shirts across the country.

The Present Day…

Life AsRx is proud to be the only line of apparel designed exclusively for CrossFitters. Our clients and customers recognize us as the source for any and all apparel related needs in the CrossFit community. Through the spring, other talented athletes and good friends joined the team including ellbie, the Cub and Dirty. Considering the combined amount of work capacity across the Life AsRx team, you can be sure that we will not stop working towards our mission to produce the highest quality apparel for the CrossFit and fitness communities. Today, Badger continues to manage all web, apparel and graphic design. He officially retires from coaching each time the subject comes up, claims to still live in Hawaii and strives to one day use the semi-colon in sentences without fear or hesitation. Ice Tiger continues to oversee all production and hopes to complement the baby blue tiger tattoo on his arm with a sleeve of every other animal he has ever shot out of the air with his AK-47 from a helicopter. The Factor works tirelessly on as many other duties as possible while still finding time to coach. It is safe to say that he continues to be more stoked about where life has led him each time he watches the sun come up during the 5am class.