CrossFit Program Brings Fitness and Rehabilitation to Incarcerated Ohio Youth

A jump rope slammed against the gym floor at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility in central Ohio as about a dozen older teens and young men warmed up and stretched their arms. When a coach shouted "Pushups, everybody!" the group dropped to the floor nearly in unison. They were participating in CrossFit, a grueling high-intensity workout program that was introduced to Ohio's juvenile corrections facilities three years ago.

Three years ago, the Ohio Department of Youth Services brought the program into the state's youth prisons, including Circleville. The program behind that expansion is called Expanding Horizons, co-founded by Matt Shindeldecker, who also co-owns CrossFit Crave. Youth at the Circleville Juvenile Corrections Facility participate in CrossFit twice a week.

The class at the juvenile corrections facility is just as rigorous as any offered at an outside gym, with jumping jacks, squats, and burpees among the movements, but its goals go far beyond muscle gain. Shindeldecker said coaches are "trained to work with the individuals, not just physically but mentally" through Expanding Horizons, a program that brings CrossFit into Ohio's juvenile corrections facilities.

Expanding Horizons started eight years ago with kids who had left juvenile detention in Mercer County in western Ohio, with the program's first participants being kids out on probation who went to counseling with their probation officers, then worked out alongside them four days a week. Shindeldecker said the CrossFit curriculum allowed for young people to bond with adults in a different way. "Most of these kids have never had somebody beside them going through something difficult," he said. "They've always gone through something difficult on their own."

The early results in Mercer County were striking. In that first year, Mercer County's juvenile recidivism rate dropped significantly. Co-founder Debbie Wagner attributes that largely to the program's community aspect, saying participants reap all the intangible benefits of exercise: weight loss, better sleep, and lower stress levels. As Wagner put it, "If you're changing the life of a youth in [corrections], they're gonna go home differently than what they came in."

That track record caught the attention of state officials. Circleville JCF superintendent Bill Stout noted, "There's a lot of strife in the community, but, in [Expanding Horizons], they're all on one team," adding that participants "are very much engaged with each other in a positive way." At the facility, young men helped spot one another as coaches demonstrated correct form to groups of eager lifters.

Coaches are required to undergo trauma-informed training before they enter the facility, a necessity given that more than three-fourths of youth in Ohio's juvenile correctional facilities have a diagnosed mental or behavioral condition. The philosophy driving the coaching staff is direct: "If they can do the hard stuff in here, and they can build that mental capacity of tough work, that they can do that in anything in life."

Around 500 young people currently reside in Ohio's three juvenile corrections facilities, according to data from Ohio's Department of Youth Services, and just like adults, it can be difficult for youth to readjust to their communities upon release. For the coaches, probation officers, and administrators behind Expanding Horizons, a barbell and a metcon are not the end goal; they are the method.