13 minute read
Homeward Found
JOHNNY COLLINSON
FREESKIER
Alifetime in the mountains has schooled freeskier Johnny Collinson in adapting to unpredictable conditions. This past year has tested those skills, as Collinson shifted from chasing big-mountain powder runs all over the world to staying fit at home in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Two ACL replacement surgeries had sparked an interest in fitness, and in 2020, Collinson doubled down and began working toward a degree in exercise science.
“It’s been cool to keep learning,” the 28-year-old Collinson says. “It has become a really cohesive thing that’s helped me come up with tangible goals for skiing using this education I’m getting through fitness.”
During the summer, the warm weather meant that Collinson could use his garage as a workout space. “I bought barbells and kettlebells,” he says. “I was really stoked to have a barbell and weight plates for that specific training.” But he found that setup wasn’t especially versatile. In search of a wider range of exercises, Collinson turned to his kettlebells. Less familiar to him, these accessories inspired Collinson to explore new movements, which kept him motivated.
Fall brought colder weather, which forced Collinson to change up his routine. His heated basement offered a more comfortable workout space, but the smaller area limited the equipment he could use. “I can’t really bring my barbell and plates down there,” he says. So Collinson increased his kettlebell workouts and added stretch-rubber bands to his arsenal. He turned it into a game: “What can you do to feel like you’re getting some exercise with the least amount of things?”
Though he has enjoyed the challenge of modifying his workouts to fit whatever space he can find, in December, Collinson began building a weatherproof, indoor gym in his backyard. “I think having that dedicated space is so important,” he says. The new setup will allow him to use everything from barbells to bands. Collinson will also have access to a squat rack for the first time since he canceled his gym membership back in March.
Now that snow has returned to the Wasatch Range, Collinson has turned his energy back to his first love. “More than anything, I’m excited to have snow locally again and just be out exploring,” he says. “My whole professional career has been spent on the road, so there are so many places that I’ve never been, right here at home.” Over the long term, Collinson is determined to keep building on the fitness knowledge he’s gained this past year.
During Collinson’s time at home, his fitness videos on social media have grown in popularity.
SASHA DIGIULIAN
ROCK CLIMBER
Sasha DiGiulian always wanted her own climbing gym; COVID’s arrival sped up the process.
When Sasha DiGiulian set out to transform her garage in Boulder, Colorado, into a climber’s playground, she did not know how much time she would spend at home in 2020. A sport-climbing world champion with more than 30 first female ascents to her credit, DiGiulian, 28, typically spends at least nine months of each year traveling. Though she had planned for some time to build her own climbing gym, COVID’s arrival forced her to speed up the process.
“Even before knowing that we wouldn’t have access to gyms, I wanted to have my own space to focus and train, and to have my coach and my friends come over,” she says. “It was kind of serendipitous.”
Universal gymnastics mats cover the entire floor of DiGiulian’s garage, and climbing holds of various shapes decorate the walls. A campus board, which climbers use to increase finger strength, stands in the middle. “It’s a set of wooden rungs, and you’re supposed to pull your body weight up vertically with the tips of your fingers,” she says. DiGiulian also uses a hangboard, which mounts to the wall and has various ledges that she holds with her fingertips.
These are all elements commonly found in climbers’ gyms, but DiGiulian’s garage goes well beyond the basics. A rotating treadwall allows her to climb as much as 3,000 feet in an hour without leaving her one-story garage.
Then there are her two app-controlled climbing walls. A Kilter Board leans at a 45-degree angle and a series of handholds and footholds dot the wall, similar to a traditional climbing wall. But each hold also has an LED light, and using a phone app, DiGiulian can set up a variety of climbing routes. By following the lights—yellow for footholds, blue for handholds—DiGiulian completes the climb. Her Moonboard uses a similar method to create different routes and adds more variety to her training.
“My coach can be at his house and he can be running my training session from afar,” she says. “It’s based on which climbs he’s putting into the app for me to do.”
As it turned out, the year had more surprises in store for DiGiulian, even beyond the disruptions that COVID has created. In May she underwent the first of four reconstructive surgeries on her hips to correct dysplasia. Since then, DiGiulian has used her basement gym setup for physical therapy, as she looks forward to returning to the towering rock walls she loves most. “One of the things I’ve been practicing this year is learning patience.”
DiGiulian’s gym includes various holds, a rotating treadwall and two app-controlled climbing walls.
Since his SCI, Paul Basagoitia has brought the same energy to his recovery as he did to his freeriding career.
“A set of dumbbells and a workout bench— you can do a lot with just those two items,” Basagoitia says.
PAUL BASAGOITIA
MOUNTAIN BIKER
In October 2015, Paul Basagoitia suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down while competing at Red Bull Rampage, the freeride mountain bike competition. After spending three months in the hospital, Basagoitia prepared to head home. “I got home on my birthday,” he says. “It was a relief, but it was scary at the same time.” He wanted to continue the recovery he had begun in the hospital, so he could live independently. He also hoped to learn to walk again.
On one of his final days at the hospital, Basagoitia went to the gym where he had spent many hours doing physical therapy. Carefully, he cataloged the equipment. Then he bought the pieces he felt had benefited him the most. “When you sustain a spinal cord injury and you have no movement from the waist down, you would do anything to walk again,” he says. The cost of the equipment he ordered felt like a small price to pay.
When he returned to his home in Minden, Nevada, Basagoitia assembled his gym in his trophy room. “I wanted to see all the memories of what I accomplished in the bike world,” he says. “I wanted to bring the same energy to my recovery that I did to my bike career.” Basagoitia finds it helpful to have his home gym in a visible place, too, rather than tucked away in the garage or the basement. Because he sees his workout space every day, Basagoitia is more likely to step inside and do the work.
Now almost six years later, Basagoitia, 34, walks into his gym every morning. His equipment ranges from simple dumbbells and foam rollers to more sophisticated machines. His CoreAlign, a Pilates machine, allows him to do a variety of leg and core exercises. A GForce vibration plate helps him work on his balance. “I still have a lot of paralysis on my right side, so my balance is still not there all the time,” he says. Basagoitia has also found the vibration plate helps improve the poor blood circulation his spinal cord injury causes.
More important than fancy machines or equipment, though, is consistency. “A set of dumbbells and a workout bench—you can do a lot with just those two items,” says Basagoitia. He believes that progress comes from putting in the work every day. The reward for Basagoitia’s five years of concentrated effort is winning back the independence that he feared his injury had taken from him. These days, on a typical afternoon, Basagoitia can most likely be found outside, ripping his local trails on his ebike.
“Being patient is the thing I learned the most,” he says. “Once you start putting a time on recovery and you don’t hit those milestones, you start becoming depressed—you just have to be taking it day by day.”
LETICIA BUFONI
SKATEBOARDER
Growing up, Brazilian skateboarder Leticia Bufoni dreamed of having a skatepark in her own backyard. In 2016, she finally got her chance. As she shopped for a house in her adopted hometown of Los Angeles, she studied each backyard carefully. Even before she signed the papers, she had the plans for her skatepark prepared.
Three weeks after she moved into her new place, she began building her dream park. “I didn’t have a bed,” she says. “I was sleeping on a mattress.” From start to finish, the setup took almost two months to build, from ripping up the existing landscaping to pouring concrete to constructing the skatepark’s features. Even before COVID, Bufoni, 27, wanted to be able to do all her workouts at home, so she also built a gym in her garage.
“The main goal was to stay home when I’m not traveling,” she says. “When I’m home, I don’t want to drive 30 or 40 minutes in traffic to go skate— my goal was just to get home and not have to leave.”
A layer of concrete raises the whole installation several feet above ground level, and the skatepark’s highest point stands even with the neighborhood fence lines. The park includes multiple ledges and rails, a short staircase and ramps on either side. Looking slightly out of place, a pool sits between Bufoni’s street course and a mini-ramp that runs along the side of her house.
Bufoni says it has helped her sharpen her skills to have her own skatepark. “I’ve learned new tricks and trained for competitions,” she says. “Before I go out filming in the streets, if I want to practice a trick, I just go to my backyard and practice.” About a year and a half ago, Bufoni updated her backyard park with the help of California Skateparks, who are designing the course for the Tokyo Olympic Games. “Since then, I haven’t changed anything,” she says. “It’s perfect now!”
As a kid in Brazil, Bufoni had a flatbar rail that her father built for her. She would take it out to the street in front of her house and skate for hours. “You can also build a little ledge or a small ramp and put it on the street and skate,” she says. As a street skater, Bufoni finds spots to skate just about everywhere she looks. “If you only skate one place every day you’re going to get bored.” And learning new tricks doesn’t necessarily require a perfect backyard skatepark, either.
“You can just be creative,” she says. “You don’t have to depend on a wave, you don’t have to depend on snow, you don’t have to depend on anything—you just bring your board and you can skate everywhere you go.”
In the backyard of her home in L.A., Leticia Bufoni built the skatepark of her dreams.
TERRY ADAMS
BMX FLATLAND
Terry Adams has spent a lot of time in his garage in Hammond, Louisiana, in 2020. A flatland BMX rider, Adams can do his sport just about anywhere. “All we need is a flat surface, so my garage is my training facility for riding my bike,” Adams says. “It’s just completely flat and there’s nothing in there.” Adams spends four hours each day with his bike, creating his intricate dance-like maneuvers.
This past year Adams added a fitness program to his daily routine, as part of a two-year effort to improve his overall performance on the bike. “After my son was born in 2018, I had the goal that I wanted to be the best I’ve ever been on the bike,” Adams says. Not content to show his son the trophies from past successes, Adams wanted his son to grow up seeing him ride. A minor back injury in January 2020 provided extra motivation for Adams.
In designing his fitness plan, Adams brought a characteristic obsessiveness and a minimalism borrowed from flatland riding. “When the workouts first started, it was very Rocky Balboa style,” he says. Adams did 100 each of push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups. Then he ran a mile.
Terry Adams spent 2020 working on a fitness plan and using his empty garage as a training facility for riding his bike.
Determined to get fit, Adams did not take rest days, and he stripped down his diet as well. He laughs as he describes his initial missteps.
“I was just eating cans of tuna and white rice,” he says. “Thankfully, I had someone pull me back to reality. ‘Wait, you need rest days! And you can’t just eat tuna for the rest of your life.’”
Working with a coach, Adams refined his training plan, while still staying true to the simplicity that appealed to him. “One of the only pieces of equipment I have is a pull-up bar,” he says. Each morning at 4, he meditates for 25 minutes. Then he completes a cardio workout in his backyard pool, before spending 30 to 40 minutes in his laundry room doing pull-ups and push-ups. Finally, he heads to the garage, where he works through a series of core exercises on a mat.
“It’s just me and the ground out here—that’s exactly how I feel when I’m walking out to the garage to do the workout or get on the bike,” he says. “Let me just lock the door on this garage and work on this art form that I fell in love with when I was a kid.”
Now 37, Adams feels like 2020 has been his best year yet. Thanks to his new strength and fitness, Adams feels quicker, more flexible and more creative on the bike. “It’s been definitely one of my best years on my bike and one that I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” he says. His peers agreed. At the end of 2020, Adams received the NORA Rider of the Year Award.
Active Minutes
