Though 34-year-old Michael Moh has lived in Brownwood less than five years, he’s already made an impact on the community thanks to CrossFit Longma.

Located at 800 Greenleaf Street, CrossFit Longma celebrated its one-year anniversary in May.

“I’ve been doing crossfit for a little over 10 years now,” said Moh, who moved to Brownwood in 2019. “I just believe in it so much in terms of what it can provide to the community and what it does for each person individually. It just has so much potential to help people live better, move better overall and improve their quality of life.”

At first, Moh swore off crossfit but once he gave it a try he became hooked.

“Originally I was pretty hesitant all throughout college,” he said. “It wasn’t until one of my buddies who was in the military kept trying to get to go and fully I gave in. This was in Florida. I was open to it at the time so I decided to try it out and I’ve never looked back.”

Michael’s wife Rachel, a lifelong Brown County resident, helps with the marketing and day-to-day operations at CrossFit Longma and also runs FEAT Studios.

“Primarily we offer classes, which is a big component of what crossfit provides just because there is that community aspect to it,” he said. “You’re going through the workouts with people around you so there is a little bit more of a competitive aspect to it if people want it. But in general, what we’re trying to do is create variations in the workouts so that you’re able to continue to make progress and not hit a plateau. All the movements we do are functional movements and that phrase is throw around a lot, but we’re trying to reinforce quality movement and make sure people are moving properly and safely so what we do in the gym can be transferred to everyday life.”

The most rewarding aspect of opening CrossFit Longma, according to Moh, is “Just seeing people make such progress and realizing it’s simple, not necessarily easy, but being able to regain functionality, regain certain movements they weren’t able to do. I’m happy just seeing that progress over time and people reaching goals they’ve been working on but haven’t been able to reach.”

Regarding future plans for Crossfit Longma, Moh said, “I want to grow the gym but not necessarily expand too much. What we’re really trying to do is more along the lines of getting crossfit out there and showing people what crossfit really is. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what crossfit is based on what people see on TV and what they might see on social media.”