By Richard Smith
Independent Newsmedia

Kawika Henderson’s road to the regional CrossFit championships began with what appeared to be a dead end.

It seemed a ruptured bicep in the latter half of 2016 would sideline the 30-year-old Surprise resident. Instead, he worked around it and tried to qualify.

“It was pretty bad, a strange injury that came out of nowhere — a really freak accident. I was really down about everything but I got a lot of encouragement from adaptive athletes, like amputees. I started training around it after the surgery. I didn’t really have much of a push to start the qualification process for the CrossFit Games. I wasn’t even going to do it in the first place. I couldn’t even do a pull up,” Mr. Henderson said.

To qualify, contestants have to get one of the top 20 scores in the region from five weeks of intense workouts. He said he was focused on just having fun and did not realize he was in contention until the fourth week.

Mr. Henderson won his spot to compete in the CrossFit Regional Games in San Antonio May 20 and 21. The top three will be invited to the CROSSFIT Games, which is a world event competition to be held in Wisconsin and shown on ESPN this summer.

“It was crazy. I didn’t know I was actually going to recover that fast. God was good about that, helping me recover that fast in five months after the surgery. I really attribute that to a lot of the yoga we do. The more flexible you are, the stronger you are and the faster you recover,” Mr. Henderson said.

Yoga is just one unique aspect of his DIY approach to CrossFit. The discipline, started to gain popularity about a decade ago, Mr. Henderson said. And CrossFit has grown in part due to its flexible workout approach.

Mr. Henderson had a fairly conventional strength and fitness regimen while growing up, playing football and growing into a world-class powerlifter. He has been into CrossFit training for four years.



Since then, he opened CrossFit Golden Titan in Surprise to mix in his Barbell Empire Programming across several disciplines

Golden Titan, 13343 W FoxFire Drive, is not a typical CrossFit gym or anything like a regular gym, Mr. Henderson said. It mixes Olympic weightlifting with CrossFit circuit training and the work of yogi Julie Christopher.

Her dynamic yoga warm up prepares people for both the CrossFit and powerlifting program.

“We do a lot of yoga, which a lot of people don’t do. Our goal is to try and incorporate all the different fitness disciplines,” Mr. Henderson said.

He said networking with others in the fitness industry brought him to this point. Hearing their philosophies helped him understand his own.

Mr. Henderson helps his alma mater, Dysart High School as its football strength and conditioning coach.
Modern technology allows him to provide his programming for a Russian fitness gym as well as smaller groups in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ecuador and Mexico.

“Luckily nowadays we have FaceTime and everyone has an iPhone. I’m up at all times of the night talking to these different athletes because the time difference is so crazy. It’s pretty cool learning different cultures but being able to come together through fitness,” Mr. Henderson said.

His father, George, said his son takes personal pride in his work like an artist, engineer or designer would. He said Kawika has poured training and instruction into the lives of people that had no athletic background and are beginners, those who are overweight, to people that are handicapped, all the way to elite athletes. They all improved in strength, confidence, stamina and overall health.

“Kawika is more of a fitness/athletic engineer. Each individual member at the gym is like a friend or family member and personal project,” George Henderson said. “It’s more like how a building designer would personalize a project or an architect would take pride in a given project. They would see it, stay committed and focused from its initial development to the eventual functionality from beginning to the end. That is Kawika’s level of commitment.”



Kawika Henderson said the atmosphere at CrossFit Golden Titan helped his recovery, as did his Christian faith.

For now, Mr. Henderson said he likes the hands on work with the gym’s smaller base of 50 to 60 members. Of those, 20 are competitive athletes.

There are three pilot programs worldwide with 15 to 20 people in each. He said expansion, both locally and globally is in the plans.

CrossFit brings in beginners as well as elite athletes. The goal is to help with natural, functional movements like squatting and picking up objects.

“We really have good, encouraging coaches. Our whole goal is to make sure we get stronger together. I tell our coaches along with our members … as soon as you walk in the door, leave your ego out the door,” Mr. Henderson said.

He said he will take this same approach to San Antonio next weekend. The CrossFit Games will feature world class athletes, and it will be an ideal opportunity to learn from them.

“With this experience I’ll be able to train even better from now on. It will give me a brighter view on my training,” Mr. Henderson said