Photo by Lester Smith
Jenna Salter, a sophomore at Suffield High School who exercises at the gym on Ffyler Place, poses with noted CrossFit athlete Jacinto Bonilla. The aged athlete, 77 and still impressively fit, was visiting the Land Warrior CrossFit gym in Suffield to set a good example and motivate the hard-working enthusiasts who work out there.
That’s what Jacinto Bonilla said in a recent interview. And he’s a great example. At age 67, he discovered CrossFit, a style of vigorous work-out that improves general fitness. Bonilla has become so successful at the various CrossFit routines that he has placed well in three world-wide CrossFit competitions. At age 77, he is considered the world’s oldest CrossFit competitor. Now that he has retired from his career as an X-ray technician, he runs a small gym in the basement of his home in Brooklyn, N. Y. – and makes inspirational visits.
On February 25 he was visiting the Land Warrior CrossFit gym down at the end of Ffyler Place. He had been invited by manager Kevin Salter to come and advise and inspire the athletes working out there, and close to a full house of glistening, dripping, sometimes grunting, enthusiasts were active at the various work-out stations around the big space. CrossFit involves routines calling for certain numbers of reps (repetitions) at specified weight-lifting, rope-climbing, ball-tossing, skip-roping, chin-upping and other activities. At Land Warrior, Manager Kevin Salter, a buff thirty-something, said Bonilla easily outdid him in one demanding routine.
This reporter-photographer, who arrived and departed unsweaty, was exhausted even at the thought.