Note: This year marks a decade since REP hired our first employee. It’s time to tell our story in a different way than we ever have before -- the real reason we’ve dedicated our lives to bringing high-quality, innovative gym equipment to the world.
Our purpose is to empower people to improve and own their lives.
We created Pursue Your Strength to share real stories about how strength training can change the world, one life at a time. Because when you start to feel strong on the outside, it changes you on the inside, too. That opens more options in life. In that, strength is a type of freedom. That's why we do what we do.
We do this for you.
Now here are your stories.
One month before the CrossFit Games and the pressure is heavier than ever before. But Amanda Barnhart has been training her whole life for this.
Not for the Games.
For being a mom. Overnight.
This isn't how she expected her fifth shot at the world’s most prestigious functional fitness competition to go.
This isn’t how she expected to become a mother either.
Preparing for a Big Win
Amanda isn’t intimidated by pressure. As a lifelong athlete, she’s friends with it.
Now just five weeks out from the 2023 CrossFit Games, Amanda is laser-focused. This year, she’s not just showing up—she’s showing up to make waves, determined to break into the top five. It’s her sixth time qualifying for the Games, and with three top-10 finishes leading up to this meet, it is time.
Her preparation has been relentless. She’s pushed her body to its limits, mastering everything from swimming and biking to handstand walks and gymnastics. Lifting odd objects has become second nature, and the barbell feels like an extension of her own body. Every callus on her hands tells a story of hard-earned strength. And the fatigue that shadows her? She welcomes it. Especially on the hardest days. Those are the ones she loves the most.
But it’s not just physical. When she’s not training, she’s sharpening her mind, visualizing the moment she reaches her goal. She’s been here before, reliving the pain of past Games—when a workout pushed her to the brink or when she found herself finishing last. She’s determined never to feel that way again. This time, she’s leaving nothing to chance.
Ranked 20th in the world and 10th in the U.S. in the CrossFit Open, Amanda’s not just an athlete—she’s a force. Alongside her CrossFit career, she holds a doctorate in physical therapy. Competition is in her blood. From her days as a Division 1 swimmer at Cleveland State to her 10 years as a gymnast, Amanda has always thrived in the pursuit of excellence. CrossFit began as a way to stay in shape during college, but once she started, there was no looking back.
Now, it’s her passion and purpose.
Until one phone call changes everything.
A Worthy Sacrifice
Amanda and her husband Wesley Barnhart always wanted kids. Someday. But they never imagined welcoming a child just one month before the biggest competition of Amanda’s life, or that it would be a young boy in need of a home: a relative’s child who has spent his entire life in the foster care system.
His life is at a tipping point, too. For both Amanda and this little boy, everything over the past five years has led to this moment. It’s either a new life with the Barnharts, or he will be adopted and completely separated from his biological parents.
Becoming a new mom is challenging enough, but for Amanda, there is no time to prepare. The timing is complicated, and the boy’s ADHD and past trauma bring emotional and behavioral struggles. She knows it won’t be easy—but hard things have never stopped her before.
Without hesitation, she welcomes him into her arms as her own, agreeing to take on legal custody and give him the home he needs.
The final month of Amanda’s CrossFit Games training shifts dramatically, as her attention turns from the gym to building a stable life for her new son. The transition is anything but smooth. The boy has never known structure or consequences, and now he’s navigating unfamiliar expectations and a completely new environment—all while trying to trust and bond with his new family.
Amanda’s stress takes a toll, cutting into her recovery and following her into the Games. Still, she shows up to the competition feeling hopeful and ready to give it her best, no matter what.
“But my body had other plans. My ability to recover the last month has been pretty bad,” she writes on Instagram. “So it definitely limited my training leading into the Games and really challenged my overall recovery this weekend.”
She leaves not with a top five finish, but with the worst performance of her career, and to make matters worse, she suffers a shoulder injury.
She continues: “I’m not sharing this to make excuses. I’m sharing this to show that I am human and life happens.”
She says she’s proud of her effort. She’s proud of her sacrifice.
“And I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
A Different Kind of Win
Amanda didn’t qualify for the Games in 2024, for the first time in six years. She’s still training. But she’s tallying up different wins, even bigger than a podium finish.
The 5-year-old boy who grew tired and sore from getting off the couch to walk to the backyard--the child who had never put a toe in a pool before and sustained off video games and Cheetos--was just invited to join a competitive swimming club. And not just for kids of his age. For older kids.
“You’ve got a fighter on your hands,” the coach told Amanda at his tryouts. “He does not give up.”
Like his mama.
She reminds him that sore muscles mean he’s growing stronger and that hard work is a reward in and of itself. She applauds him for being brave and tough when things are uncomfortable—all things that she learned from the gym.
Every day, he asks her to check his muscles to see if he’s stronger. He is, alongside his mother. Yes, physically, but also on a deeper level.
If her years of lifting weights have taught her anything, it’s that discomfort is the seed of growth. And while you can’t avoid aching muscles or control how your competition does at a meet, you can control your perspective and attitude, and in that mental strength, there is a kind of freedom.
She’d visualized a major win for her fifth CrossFit Games, and she got it--in the chance to change a life.
“He was brought to us for a reason: to give him an opportunity to be successful and to have the life he deserves,” she says. “We model for him a healthy lifestyle with healthy food. We never make him join us, but he wants to. He’s seeing there are different options.”
That’s what she wants to show her new son: that yes, sometimes life is tough. Real tough. But he always has choices.
Today, Amanda is choosing family.
