CrossFit Rising Oaks: Raising the Bar for CrossFit in South Africa

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9 months ago

Imagine being a gym owner and having the power at your gym shut off sporadically, sometimes for two hours, during your busiest classes of the day.

It sounds absurd, but this is very much the reality for affiliate owners Abigail Keats and Darren Sanders of CrossFit Rising Oak in Fourways, South Africa.

The frequent, scheduled power outages, sometimes multiple times in one day, are caused by South Africa’s ongoing energy crisis. Ultimately, the electricity demand is close to the available supply level, so to prevent catastrophic grid failures and extended outages, the country practices load shedding. This means there are regular blackouts to preserve power.

“This has been happening for a number of years, but it has gotten progressively worse in recent years,” Sanders tells the Morning Chalk Up, just as the power goes out in the middle of our Zoom call with them.

At least now, though, there’s an app that tells them exactly what days and times the power will be cut in their area, Keats explains.

“Sometimes it’s eight to 10 hours without power…but being in South Africa, you just kind of roll with it and make the best out of it,” Keats adds.

Raising the Bar Despite the Challenges

Load shedding is just one unique challenge South African gym owners face, but it wasn’t enough to stop the two long-time CrossFit coaches from pursuing their dream of becoming affiliate owners and opening a top-of-the-line training facility in the country. They realized this dream when they opened their doors in December 2023.

Their gym doesn’t look like most other CrossFit affiliates in the country. They have 3,800 square feet, which isn’t noteworthy by North American standards but is large compared to others in South Africa.

Because rent is so expensive, most CrossFit gyms in South Africa open in the basements of buildings, but Keats and Sanders didn’t want to do that.

“We took the leap and the risk in opening up in a full retail center [where] there’s a lot of foot traffic…to make sure that we’re at the forefront in being involved in the community,” Sanders says.

The gym sports high-quality equipment and floors, and the pair hopes to “push the boundaries” and provide a world-class training facility and experienced coaching.

Ultimately, they hope this type of training environment brings enough value to their clients to overcome what might be the biggest challenge many South Africans are going through at the moment: huge inflation-related costs increases in their lives, making it difficult to prioritize an expensive gym membership.

[Related: An Ode to the CrossFit Garage Gym]

“Life is tough at the moment for a lot of people. Financially, there are a lot of people who are taking strain…People are working the same, or some people are even working twice as hard, to try to make ends meet but are not getting anything more for it,” Sanders says.

That being said, this also means there’s an even bigger demand for people to take care of their physical and mental health, which they aim to provide.

“We are not in the business of selling memberships. We are investing in people’s lives. There’s so much more to this than physical strength. There’s the mental side that also helps their day-to-day lives,” Keats says.

“We do so much more than just coach CrossFit, and South Africans are very open to that…We have a mindset of, ‘Let’s try this.’ In terms of health, they’re prepared to invest in it,” she adds.

Two-and-a-Half Months Later

So far, so good. After around three months of being in business, CrossFit Rising Oaks has 125 members who are committed to improving their lives through CrossFit.

Keats and Sanders both agree having Semifinals in South Africa has helped increase interest in CrossFit in the last couple of years, as the social media content it produces has helped “generate this wider reach to the general public,” Sanders explains. But their real strength lies in the value they’re committed to giving their athletes, including how they handle routine blackouts.

Unlike other small businesses in their country, which close down during the blackouts, Keats and Sanders refuse to shut their doors. They invested in a generator, which allows them to keep the lights and music on, and, of course, keep the clock going so they can continue to help their members get fit.

“Nothing will stop us from running our classes,” Keats says. “And nothing will stop South Africans from their pursuit of improved health and fitness. We are a resilient bunch.”

Raising the Bar Despite the Challenges

Two-and-a-Half Months Later

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