What happens as an athlete when your own body becomes its own worst enemy? In this raw and powerful conversation, CrossFit athlete Laura "Legit" Romanek @mcskins opens up about her journey with rheumatoid arthritis, a diagnosis that threatened to redefine everything about her athletic identity.
From waking up with a mysteriously swollen wrist on Open Quarterfinals day to navigating a complex web of medications, Laura shares the physical and emotional challenges of living with an unpredictable autoimmune disease. Her story reveals the frustrating paradox of an "invisible" illness – how someone can perform bar muscle-ups and heavy lifts one day, then struggle to open a door the next.
Laura's brutal honesty about her condition cuts through common misconceptions about chronic illness. She doesn't sugarcoat the reality of flare-ups. Yet her approach to living with RA challenges conventional wisdom about chronic disease management. Rather than completely overhauling her lifestyle or letting her diagnosis become her identity, she follows a philosophy of "do everything you can when you can do it."
The conversation delves into the complex relationship between stress and autoimmune disease, the grief of losing physical capacity, and the challenge of maintaining relationships when energy must be carefully rationed. Through it all, Laura's resilience shines through – not in a sanitized, inspirational way, but in her unflinching determination to remain herself despite everything her body throws at her.
Whether you're living with chronic illness, supporting someone who is, or simply interested in stories of human resilience, Laura's journey offers valuable perspective on what it means to adapt without surrendering your core identity. Subscribe now and join the conversation about strength in all its forms.
#AutoimmuneWarrior #RheumatoidArthritis #FitnessJourney #CrossFitLife #ChronicIllnessAwareness #AthleteLife #MentalHealthMatters #StrengthInStruggle #InspiringStories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Rhee (00:04):
All right, welcome to another episode of Botox and
Burpees.
I'm here with Laura Romaneklegit.
She's my special guest todayand we're going to be talking
about her experience.
She is a longtime verydedicated fitness enthusiast,
athlete, crossfit athlete,recently diagnosed with
rheumatoid arthritis, and Iwanted to talk to her about her
(00:25):
life, her experiences with that.
This is something that I think,honestly, a lot of people, more
than I think we probably knowout in the surface.
You know shallow area that dealwith autoimmune issues, things
that are very difficult tohandle, and so I really
(00:46):
appreciate you, legit, forcoming and willing to share and
speak.
I know you're like, oh, time tobe vulnerable, and I was like,
yeah, I know it's not easy.
So I want to thank you, legit,for coming on and talking today.
Yeah, no problem, okay, so I'veknown you for a long time I
want to say at least 10 years orplus, maybe.
Legit Romanek (01:03):
Yeah, it's been a long time I've been in CrossFit
too.
Sam Rhee (01:05):
Yeah, so tell me your um your background.
So what do you want to sharewith people about you, um like
who you are, um your life?
Legit Romanek (01:15):
Yeah, I mean, we could just start from CrossFit
right Started CrossFit in 2013.
Sam Rhee (01:18):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (01:19):
Um, I actually lost a bet to my brother and I
had to end up trying the class.
Sam Rhee (01:24):
He's a pretty good CrossFitter himself.
He used to be.
Legit Romanek (01:26):
I'm kidding.
I had to end up trying theclass and I never looked back
2015,.
I got my L1.
I got my L2.
I coached for seven years and,yeah, it's just been my life
ever since.
I was like an athlete growingup.
Sam Rhee (01:47):
I played every single sport.
Legit Romanek (01:48):
You know, no to man.
Then in my 20s I moved and Ijust kind of lived my life and
did what I wanted to.
And then I came back and I gotright back into it.
And here I am 11 years later,you know, at Bison.
Sam Rhee (02:01):
Where did you grow up?
Legit Romanek (02:02):
I grew up in Fairlawn.
Sam Rhee (02:03):
Oh, okay, so not far.
Legit Romanek (02:05):
No, not far at all.
Sam Rhee (02:07):
And do you remember your first CrossFit workout that
you ever did?
Legit Romanek (02:11):
Oh God, it was kettlebell swings.
I think I used like a 20-poundkettlebell.
I could barely lift it over myhead.
Burpees, maybe, and lungesSomething easy.
It burpees, maybe and lungessomething easy.
It was like an on-ramp class.
Sam Rhee (02:26):
Um so it wasn't anything crazy, but and what
appealed to you that first time.
When you were doing it Likewhat was it?
They were like ah, this issomething I like.
I like it just felt like a gymclass, yeah.
Legit Romanek (02:34):
You know, everybody was together,
everybody was doing the samething.
Yeah, yeah, you were coachingat Hawthorne and you were there
for a long time.
I was there for a long time,yeah.
Sam Rhee (02:48):
And actually I think the guy who, one of the guys who
owned it, is now part of.
Legit Romanek (02:54):
Station Athletics .
Sam Rhee (02:54):
Yeah, station, and I actually see him he's podcasting
.
He's doing a great job there.
Do you miss that?
Like that old gym, like youknow Hawthorne, and the full
crew?
Legit Romanek (03:06):
like that old gym , like you know Hawthorne, and
the full crew, becauseCrossFit's changed over the past
10 years.
Yeah, I definitely think that.
Um, I wouldn't be the coach Iam if I didn't coach there.
Um, dave was awesome.
He was an awesome guy.
Dave Whitson right, yeah, yeah,um and I definitely met, like
the most amazing people there,um, so I so I definitely, uh, I
(03:26):
definitely miss it, um, but yeah, it definitely uh brought me to
to be who I am now, for sure.
Sam Rhee (03:33):
What are the proudest moments?
That or the things that you, acouple moments you remember most
vividly about your CrossFitsort of experience so far.
Legit Romanek (03:41):
I mean like anybody can say like oh, I PR'd
my snatch or I got first placein a competition.
Sam Rhee (03:47):
Like awesome.
Right.
Legit Romanek (03:49):
Yeah, I think for me, like, some of my proudest
moments are just being able tosee people that I coached
accomplish things that theycouldn't accomplish before,
inside and outside the gym.
I think that's what kept megoing all the time is just
seeing other people thrive andbe able to better themselves
just made me happy.
So it wasn't always about me,you know.
(04:12):
It was a lot of times aboutjust other people and what they
can do.
Sam Rhee (04:19):
So.
So let's talk about.
You've been at Bison for howmany years now?
Like three, four.
Legit Romanek (04:27):
I think we're going on four.
Wow, yeah, that's really.
Sam Rhee (04:29):
Yeah, you're.
You've been here for a longtime and I've watched you and
you move so well, like obviously, I think probably barbell
movements, I mean you're good ateverything.
Mean you're good at everything,like I've seen you with your
bar muscle ups and you know yourgymnastic work and you have a
motor and and um, obviously youhave a mental push and drive, uh
(04:51):
, which you really need toperform well in crossfit
workouts.
But like I really think yourbarbell movements you're really
good at lifting snatch work.
You know super fast in terms ofaccelerating and all that.
Thank you.
What division are you competingat?
Legit Romanek (05:07):
I am now in 40.
Sam Rhee (05:10):
Wow, that's crazy.
Does that feel weird?
Legit Romanek (05:12):
Being 40?
.
Sam Rhee (05:18):
Absolutely.
Legit Romanek (05:19):
This is my second open in the 40 category.
Does it feel weird?
Does it feel different?
I thought I was going to be atthe top.
Sam Rhee (05:26):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:26):
And I was.
Sam Rhee (05:27):
Yeah, the worst yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:31):
And then this year wasn't so bad.
Sam Rhee (05:33):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:34):
But it definitely wasn't the trail I wanted to go
on.
Sam Rhee (05:39):
So you were diagnosed you just told me with rheumatoid
arthritis in March, which islike two months ago.
Legit Romanek (05:45):
No, no oh.
Sam Rhee (05:46):
March of last year.
Yeah, wow, so it's been like 14months.
Yeah, when did you first noticethat there was something going
on with your body?
Legit Romanek (05:57):
So I mean we all have like aches and pains.
I've been in CrossFit 11 yearsright, you're telling me.
So you know a little biceptendonitis or elbows Right,
right, right.
Something like that.
But one day it was the day ofthe quarterfinals, the first day
of the quarterfinals, and Iwoke up and my wrist was blown
up and it didn't feel like aninjury, you know.
(06:18):
So I immediately texted Daveand I'm like Dave, I don't think
I can do quarterfinals.
Sam Rhee (06:23):
Dave Syvertson.
Legit Romanek (06:24):
Yeah, and I did so good in the open and I'm like
, okay, here's the here's thenext step, um, but I'm like an
all or nothing person, right,like oh yeah.
Even if I'm not feeling great,I'm still going to push it.
I know it's going to be worthsomething for day.
I'm like praying, like pleasego down, please go down, please
(06:44):
go down.
It doesn't.
So at nighttime I'm about to dothe workout and I wrap my wrist
and then I wrap it with a wristwrap and I think the workout
was snatches and I'm like thisis gonna be great for me yeah.
Right.
It's not gonna be great for meif I don't have a wrist Right,
so I sore.
Sam Rhee (07:01):
Yes.
Legit Romanek (07:02):
And that I go to sleep, wake up the next morning
it's like it never happened.
But then my left wrist blew upand I'm like OK, something's
wrong.
Right Like I can't have pain inmy hand for or my wrist for 16
hours.
Sam Rhee (07:18):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (07:18):
And then all of a sudden it goes away like never
happened.
And now it's on this wrist.
Sam Rhee (07:22):
That's really freaky.
Legit Romanek (07:24):
Right.
So I'm like hello Google, likelet me see what's going on.
Sam Rhee (07:27):
Yeah, so what did Dr Google say for?
Legit Romanek (07:29):
you that I'm dying?
Sam Rhee (07:33):
No, that's what it always says.
Legit Romanek (07:36):
I mean, I really like I get into things when I
need to figure things out.
Sam Rhee (07:39):
Okay, you know what I mean.
Legit Romanek (07:40):
Like I'm going to get to the nitty gritty bottom
of it, and the first thing thatpopped up was like rheumatoid
arthritis.
Sam Rhee (07:46):
Really, yeah Migrating like joint pain, wrist pain.
Legit Romanek (07:50):
Yeah, Once it pops from one side to the other
side, it's pretty well knownthat it would be RA.
But of course you have to gettons of blood work and tons of
tests and rheumatologists andthe whole nine to really get a
full diagnosis.
Sam Rhee (08:02):
So just from the fact that you had an episode of wrist
pain that migrated to the otherside, you're like I need to go
get evaluated for this.
Legit Romanek (08:10):
My aunt and my uncle both had autoimmune
diseases.
Okay, so I knew it ran in thefamily.
Sam Rhee (08:16):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (08:16):
So I'm like okay, well, if it runs in the family,
let me see if Google says itruns in the family.
You know what I mean.
Sam Rhee (08:28):
And then I was like, yeah, it's probably that I
wanted to prep myself before Iwent there.
And he told me Right, or I gotthe blood work and they told me,
oh, so you, so did you make the?
Appointment with the doctor, oryeah, and then and get blood
work at the same time, yeah itwas all like.
Legit Romanek (08:35):
I went to my primary.
Sam Rhee (08:36):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (08:37):
Primary was like all right, we got a
rheumatologist in the samebuilding.
Let's go to him.
Went to him, told him mysymptoms.
He's like let's go get bloodwork.
Sam Rhee (08:44):
And there were no other symptoms at that time.
Legit Romanek (08:47):
Not that I could really recall in like that type
of pain.
I know that like the beginningsorry, the end of 2023, I was
getting sick a lot and it wastaking me a long, long time.
Sam Rhee (08:58):
Like colds and stuff.
Legit Romanek (08:59):
Yeah, colds and like ear infections and stuff.
That's just like crazy and Iwas just not getting better.
I would be on bouts and boutsof like even prednisone and
antibiotics and I just wouldn'tget better.
So that's the only thing that Icould think of that like was
the beginning that I didn'treally notice.
Sam Rhee (09:20):
I see.
Legit Romanek (09:21):
Yeah, but it came on very quick.
Sam Rhee (09:24):
And then you got the blood work and what did it show
you?
Legit Romanek (09:27):
So I had gotten blood work in December of 2023.
I got blood work in 2023, inDecember of 2023.
And I don't know why.
I mean I think it might've beenjust a routine blood work.
Um, my life had been awhirlwind in the last year and a
half, so, like timing is just alittle off for me.
Sam Rhee (09:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (09:51):
And it said that I had a low positive ANA.
Sam Rhee (09:57):
Okay, which is the antibodies like anti-nuclear?
Legit Romanek (10:01):
antibodies.
Sam Rhee (10:01):
Antibodies which show that your body is sort of
attacking itself.
Legit Romanek (10:04):
So that pretty much told him that something's
hanging out right, but we don'tknow what it is Right, right.
Sam Rhee (10:10):
Some sort of self-inflammatory condition, but
that's very nonspecific.
Right, could be all sorts ofstuff and you can have that and
be healthy.
Right, right.
Legit Romanek (10:17):
You can have a positive ANA and not have
anything Right.
So March comes, I get bloodwork and my anti-CCP level Right
.
You should be under 20, Ibelieve, to be negative.
Right Over 60 is positive.
My number was over 250.
Sam Rhee (10:38):
Wow, and that's a pretty specific test, that's not
a general like non-specifictest and with that test came
like the RF factor.
Right Rheumatoid factor, whichwas negative.
Legit Romanek (10:49):
Okay, but because my anti-CCP level was so high.
That's what they really use todiagnose RA with.
Is that number?
It has nothing to do with theRF, or a lot of times.
Sam Rhee (11:01):
Right, because that's variable.
It can be up, it can be down.
Legit Romanek (11:04):
Right.
Sam Rhee (11:04):
Yeah, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm remembering
this stuff from like 30 yearsago in med school.
Legit Romanek (11:09):
So it was over 250.
Yeah, but some tests will giveyou the number.
Sam Rhee (11:14):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (11:14):
Right and other tests won't.
So if you're over 250, it'smore progressive Right, it's
faster onset and it could bemore erosion.
My last blood work I got I gotan actual number which is 597.
Sam Rhee (11:32):
Whoa, that's pretty high.
It's really high, yeah, it'sreally high.
So when you got thisinformation, how did you feel?
What was going through yourhead at that point?
Legit Romanek (11:42):
I was like this sucks Okay yeah, yes, for sure.
Yeah, I didn't really know whatto think of.
I knew that I was havingterrible flare-ups.
Right?
Is this going to be my life?
For the rest of my life?
How am I going to feel better?
I'm not feeling better, right?
And when it first happened,they put me on prednisone, right
, because that's the only thingthat they can really put you on
(12:04):
until they start putting on allthe other things.
Sam Rhee (12:05):
Right, yeah, they got to put out the fire first.
Legit Romanek (12:08):
Right.
So it was on prednisone andobviously it didn't work.
Sam Rhee (12:13):
Yeah, okay.
Legit Romanek (12:14):
And then that's when I started my whole journey
of all the medicines that I takenow.
Sam Rhee (12:20):
So you got diagnosed.
You're having these symptoms,you're feeling terrible.
Legit Romanek (12:25):
Terrible.
Sam Rhee (12:27):
Was there anything that helped you sort of get
through this phase in terms ofsupporting you or feeling like
you know you had things to relyon, people, anything Like.
What was it that sort of was inyour life at that point?
Legit Romanek (12:42):
I think like the scariest part for me was that,
like you can have predisposedright, you can be predisposed to
RA for sure, but somethingneeds to trigger that in order
to come out right.
Really emotional time at thebeginning of last year and the
beginning of this year, whichset off RA, which I still
(13:05):
haven't come to terms with, thatthe stress and the emotional
turmoil that I went through, iswhat brought this all out.
So I was in fight or flightright, and when you're in fight
or flight right, your cortisollevels are usually an
anti-inflammatory.
Sam Rhee (13:24):
Correct, right yeah.
Legit Romanek (13:25):
But when your body is in fight or flight for
so long, right, it does thecomplete opposite, correct.
So now my body is attacking mybody, right.
And how do you tell your mind?
Right, to tell your body tocalm down when your mind's
thinking one thing and yourbody's doing another, right?
So that's what brought on allthe flare ups was the stress.
(13:45):
So once I could bring thestress down right, the flare ups
start to go away a little bit.
So that's kind of how that is.
Sam Rhee (13:52):
How do you deal with the stress?
No idea, I'm still working onit Okay, because you're a
fighter, like I know you, likeI've known you, and it's not
easy to get to know you.
Let's put it that way likeyou're I won't say you're
prickly, but like thanks you'regood, you're a good needler,
like every time.
Uh, I see you, like I know younow and so like I take
everything.
(14:13):
Uh, well, but you always gotthat little like you know.
Uh, you know you jab peoplethat you love.
I know that, I know that, andso so it's but, but if people
don't know you.
It's.
I know that, I know that and soso it's.
But but if people don't knowyou, it's not always so easy to
get to know you.
So and I know that you are afighter, you are a pusher, you
are someone who takes thoseprisoners a lot of times and so
(14:35):
like that's not a calming, zenkind of mentality to have, of
mentality to have so but you nowknow that stress, you know of
all forms, can be very unhealthy.
Right, so you've got to bedoing something to help yourself
.
Legit Romanek (14:54):
No, I mean, when you're in it, it's hard right,
because you could be stressedout about one thing.
And then you're stressed out,that you're stressed out, right,
right, and then you're like youknow, how do I, how do I get
out of this?
Sam Rhee (15:06):
Right, stop stressing out.
Legit Romanek (15:07):
Stop stressing out, right?
So I mean, unfortunately, I'vebeen in like a two and a half
month flare up this year already.
Okay, and like I told youbefore we started the podcast, I
think the last five days havebeen good for me.
I haven't really felt any pain.
(15:28):
Um, I always have tingly pinkiesand fingers, but yeah, uh,
there's always something brewing, Um, but yeah, I've, I haven't
been in much pain, I've beenable to really like execute at
the gym, um, which is awesome.
Um, but yeah, I, I mean I I'mfalling off track.
What was the question?
Sam Rhee (15:44):
Oh, so other things to deal with the stress.
Legit Romanek (15:47):
I know gym helps you yeah the gym is great but
unfortunately sometimes, youknow, I go to the gym and I
can't do everything.
Sam Rhee (15:52):
Right, and then it's frustrating.
Legit Romanek (15:54):
Yeah, talking to my friends is great.
Still very hard for them tounderstand.
It's very hard for people tounderstand.
Sam Rhee (16:01):
It's a complicated issue.
Legit Romanek (16:03):
And sometimes you know it's like oh yeah, my
grandma has arthritis.
I'm like I am.
I'm not going to go into whatit is, you know yeah.
Sam Rhee (16:15):
So have you changed other parts of your life?
I mean, I want to get into themedications a little bit, but I
want to talk about, like, whatother parts of your life have
you changed, like diet or sleepor anything like you know?
What else do you find helpfulor not helpful in terms of
trying to manage, like, youroverall health at this point?
Legit Romanek (16:35):
Yeah.
So getting to the gym, you know, excites me, makes me happy,
which brings my stress leveldown.
Sam Rhee (16:40):
OK.
Legit Romanek (16:42):
I eat very plain, like rice and meat.
I don't even eat a happy, whichbrings my stress level down.
Okay, I eat very plain, likerice and meat.
I don't even eat a vegetable,which I probably should.
Sam Rhee (16:47):
Yeah, you should.
Legit Romanek (16:48):
Every now and again, but a lot of times it's
just salmon or steak or chickenor you know the normal things.
Yeah, I don't really.
Sam Rhee (16:58):
Do you do anything else outside of, like, what are
your interests outside of?
Legit Romanek (17:01):
Oh, I mean I love hanging with my friends, okay,
music, but like I'm very simple,you know, I'm like a very like
go with the flow kind of person,but it's like the gym it's eat,
sleep, gym and repeat.
You know, when you get to thisage it's like you know you can't
go play with your friends.
You can know you can't go playwith your friends.
I can't bring a doorbell andtell your friends, you know so
(17:23):
uh.
Sam Rhee (17:23):
So what medications have you started and are you on
now, and what have you foundthat has been helpful for you,
because there's so many newmedications out there?
Legit Romanek (17:31):
yeah, when I first got diagnosed um, they put
me on prednisone.
Yeah, very, very high dosesyeah, how high.
Sam Rhee (17:38):
Just do you remember how high is?
It 40 yeah that's pretty solid20 20 in the morning, 20 at
night.
Legit Romanek (17:43):
Yeah, and then I got put on Plaquenil.
Sam Rhee (17:47):
Yeah, that's pretty, like almost everyone I know on
here.
Legit Romanek (17:49):
Two times a day.
Yeah, and Methotrexate pills.
Sam Rhee (17:52):
Also fairly toxic.
Legit Romanek (17:56):
Like there's some side effects to that.
Yeah, and that's the problem,right, is I mean?
Sam Rhee (17:59):
it's literally an anti-cancer drug, Like it's
chemo.
Legit Romanek (18:03):
Right.
Sam Rhee (18:03):
Both of them are yes yes, methotrex is a little more
toxic, I would say, than thePlaquenil that I've seen, but go
ahead.
Legit Romanek (18:09):
And then I got diagnosed with high blood
pressure because of theprednisone.
Yeah, so I'm on high bloodpressure meds.
Sam Rhee (18:16):
Which one are you on now?
Legit Romanek (18:18):
I am on amlodipine.
Sam Rhee (18:19):
Okay, I think it's called yeah, yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:21):
Yeah, and I also have to take folic acid now.
Sam Rhee (18:25):
Yeah, for yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:26):
It's always, you know, take this for that.
Sam Rhee (18:28):
Right yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:29):
And then so the methotrexate pills.
Yeah, bothered me, Reallybothered me.
I think I was like four daystapped out at a seven, feeling
crummy.
Sam Rhee (18:39):
Like just crummy overall or GI symptoms.
Legit Romanek (18:41):
Yeah, GI symptoms tired, just aggravated you know
, so I got put on injections.
Sam Rhee (18:48):
Oh, okay.
Legit Romanek (18:49):
So now I do a methotrexate injection every
Monday.
Okay, every week and I takeHumira now, okay.
Sam Rhee (19:03):
Injections every two weeks, self, or you go someplace
.
I do it all myself.
Okay, you found that scary toinject yourself.
Legit Romanek (19:07):
No, okay, no, in your belly or I can't do my
belly, I do my legs.
Sam Rhee (19:09):
Oh, like your quad.
Legit Romanek (19:10):
Yeah, my quad.
It's not bad, it's really.
It's better to do it myselfthan to have somebody do it, I
think.
Sam Rhee (19:17):
Really yeah.
Legit Romanek (19:18):
Okay, yeah, and then now I'm of course, back on
the whole time I was stilltaking.
We were trying to wean myselfoff the prednisone, because I
really shouldn't be on that along time, of course.
So I got myself down to likefive milligrams.
Okay, at the beginning of thisyear, everything ramped back up
(19:39):
and I had emailed my doctor andsaid we got to get on something
else and I need to up thisprednisone because I need to get
out of this.
Like it was mentally andphysically exhausting being in a
flare up every day.
Sam Rhee (19:48):
What is the worst symptoms with a flare up, when
you're really flaring Like whatdo you feel?
Legit Romanek (19:54):
This is like the hard part.
This is like the hard thing toexplain to people.
Sam Rhee (19:57):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (19:59):
I've never broken a bone, but I've, like,
sprained my ankle like playingbasketball and stuff like that,
or I jammed my finger, thatinitial feeling where you have
no stability.
Sam Rhee (20:07):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (20:07):
Right and your finger, your ankle, swells up,
yeah Right.
It feels like that.
It's like a deep throbbing painand sometimes it feels fiery,
like your joints are on fire,and as the flare up continues,
as the hours go on, you loseyour range of motion or your
(20:31):
mobility.
You get a lot like pinchingright Because the swelling is
now pinching on everything else.
Sam Rhee (20:33):
Right, because the tissue is so swollen at that
point.
Legit Romanek (20:35):
Yeah, so that's yeah.
Sam Rhee (20:38):
And which joints does it affect the most for you?
Legit Romanek (20:40):
So in the beginning it was just my wrists
and my fingers which I was likeall right, this isn't terrible,
but it's not great, right, likeI have very good range of motion
in my wrist.
When I'm in a flare up, it'slike this you can't turn a knob
or anything.
As it progressed it goes to myhips now my knees, my ankles, my
(21:01):
shoulders, any joint that's ajoint.
I think I've probably had aflare up in.
Sam Rhee (21:08):
Yeah, and this disease can be erosive.
So do you feel like you'relosing function?
Legit Romanek (21:14):
I was so scared about that, yeah, so how do?
Sam Rhee (21:16):
you feel about that?
Legit Romanek (21:17):
So every time you're in a flare-up right, it's
eroding at like the synovialfluid which is around your
joints.
Sam Rhee (21:22):
Right, the fluid that's cushioning your joint and
it's like lubricating the joint.
So that's why, like back in theday, you see a lot of people
with their fingers because therewasn't medicine to like help
that.
Oh no.
I remember doing surgery wherewe did joint replacements for,
like, finger digits and stufflike that.
Right.
Legit Romanek (21:38):
Yeah, I am very hypermobile too, which is more
susceptible to joint issues.
Sam Rhee (21:46):
So I lost my track, so you're losing function.
You're afraid of losing yeah.
Legit Romanek (21:53):
I'm really afraid of losing function every time
I'm in a flare up, and sinceI've been in a flare up for two
and a half months, I'm like whatis happening?
Sam Rhee (22:00):
Have you noticed loss of function yet though?
Legit Romanek (22:10):
you know, one day you feel like absolute crap,
right, right.
And then the next day you'relike well, nothing happened.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know, and the onlyway to really tell is to do like
x-rays and stuff like that,yeah, yeah, to see what the
joint looks like yeah and havethey looked not yet when I'm
they haven't taken any yet.
Um, but when I feel good, Ifeel good, so maybe there's
nothing wrong.
Like I, I don't want to Right.
Sam Rhee (22:29):
Check until you, until I yeah, I'm sort of the same
way.
I don't want to look Any morestuff.
Right, I don't want to look,unless I actually have to do
something about it.
Right, right, I don't want toknow.
So then, at the gym, how hasyour movement patterns been?
What's your performance beenlike?
Legit Romanek (22:54):
been like like, what have you been doing?
With that, so I try to bike onthe c2 a little bit before and
after the workout.
Okay, just because I've had alot of like hip and like groin
pain in the joints, yeah, so Ijust try to keep my legs moving
yeah and stretch a little bit.
But like, honestly, like do Ineed to do that?
Like I don't know, you know Idon't, because it's not an
injury.
So like I don't want to treatit like an injury I see you know
(23:15):
right um, scaling like.
I think I scaled so much and Iwas still in a flare-up that I
eventually just said I have torest, I can't do anything right,
because when you work out yourbody gets inflamed.
And if I'm already inflamed,right now I'm inflaming my body
even more.
Sam Rhee (23:31):
Right.
Legit Romanek (23:32):
That's just a recipe for disaster, so I rest
usually.
Sam Rhee (23:36):
Do you take NSAIDs or anything else at all?
I can't.
I can't with all the medicine.
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (23:40):
I think I'm already destroying my liver and
my kidneys with everything I'mtaking Right, and that's just
going to do more damage.
Sam Rhee (23:47):
Did you work out this week?
Legit Romanek (23:48):
I did.
Sam Rhee (23:49):
How many days?
What day is it today?
Today is Thursday.
Legit Romanek (23:53):
Two days.
I took yesterday off.
Sam Rhee (23:55):
Okay, so you worked out Monday and Tuesday and you
did both workouts and did you RXthem, did you scale them?
Legit Romanek (24:03):
Oh, I RXed them yeah.
Sam Rhee (24:04):
Yeah, and how did it feel Monday?
Legit Romanek (24:05):
was great.
Yeah, and how'd it feel?
Monday was great.
Sam Rhee (24:08):
Yeah, I loved Monday's work.
Which one was Monday againDouble unders.
Oh yeah, the 75 double unders.
Was it burpees?
Legit Romanek (24:15):
No double unders, dumbbell snatches, Double
snatches and bar muscle ups yeah.
Sam Rhee (24:21):
And you did all of it.
Legit Romanek (24:22):
I did, yeah, not level one, level two.
Sam Rhee (24:24):
Right the bar muscle-ups and 35-pound dumbbell
snatches and you got through it.
Yeah, and your time was good.
Legit Romanek (24:31):
I think so.
Sam Rhee (24:37):
So that's where someone would be like okay, you
have RA, you're dealing with allthis stuff, but you're not
flaring up.
Right now You're feeling prettygood and I don't think I would
finish that workout and I don'thave any autoimmune issues.
So someone might look at youand be like not really
understanding what's going on.
Like how do you deal with that?
Like that you could actuallyperform on a high level like
(24:59):
that, because I don't think Iwould say half the gym, would RX
ever finish it?
Legit Romanek (25:03):
I think a lot of people don't think it's
believable, right?
They don't believe me.
Sam Rhee (25:06):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (25:07):
Which is fine, right, you can see my medicine
cabinet if you like, all myneedles and all of that stuff.
But, like I said, it's not aninjury, right, and you might not
see it on the outside, butinternally that's where it is
right, that's what's going on.
So you can't really judgesomebody by their performance
(25:29):
one day, because there's beentimes that I've done a workout
and I pushed it too hard and Iwas in a little flare up and I
was out for like a week, right.
So you really can't, you can'ttell, and I think that's the
scary part and that's why I kindof like give up sometimes
talking to people about it,because it's I, I can't drill in
in your mind enough Like, yes,I know that I'm a good athlete,
(25:53):
right, and and I'm pretty highin the chain at the gym, right,
in performance wise.
Sam Rhee (25:59):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (25:59):
Right, but that's maybe just on one day, right.
It's not an everyday thinganymore.
Sam Rhee (26:05):
Has that been important to you your whole life
in terms of how good you arecompared to everyone else at the
gym?
I think it is.
Legit Romanek (26:13):
I wouldn't say like compared to everybody else.
Everybody has their ownstandards where they're at
across the career.
I think I'm hard on myself andthere are people that I push to
go against.
But I think, as I've grown up,I'm not so much about let me be
the top scorer, it's more aboutmoving well and knowing what I
(26:36):
can do.
And just because I could do itdoesn't mean that I'm snotty
about it in a way.
Sam Rhee (26:41):
Yeah, but let's suppose you get to the point
where you're sort of havingchronic issues, can only do
single unders, 20 pounds,snatches 15, and ring rows, and
that's sort of where you areevery day.
Would you come to the gym?
Would you do what you do likein terms of working out?
(27:03):
I'm just saying because, likethat's the mental part of it.
I mean, eventually we're allgoing to get there at some point
, but we think it's not going tobe until we're 80 or 90 or
something like that.
Legit Romanek (27:13):
No, I mean you're right, right.
So the other day we had frontsquats, right, I think my old
one rep max was 190, 195, right,I was also 140 pounds when I
got.
Sam Rhee (27:24):
RA, where are you now?
Legit Romanek (27:25):
120.
Sam Rhee (27:26):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (27:27):
When?
How old are you now?
120.
Okay, when I got RA, I lost 20pounds within a month.
Okay, just depleted everything,yeah, yeah.
Right.
So the workout which was thewall balls and the burpees I
crushed, right, get me on aheavy barbell now.
And I couldn't even front squat165 pounds, and so for me
that's like wow, right, lookwhat this has done to me.
Right, and people will come tome and be like, oh well, pound
(27:49):
for pound, you could still liftmore than me.
It's like great.
But right, where you thoughtyou were at, and now where
you're at now is like acompletely different.
Sam Rhee (28:02):
That's where the mind games come into play.
You don't know how thiscondition is going to progress.
It could remit Right, and youcould have a complete like
remission right, you could.
It could be much worse.
Like is that uncertainty?
Legit Romanek (28:17):
like it's scary.
Sam Rhee (28:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's really scary because so much of
your, uh, who you are is tied upwith your ability to perform,
and you're basically not knowingwhether or not you could
perform a month from now, rightmonths from now, six months from
now it's like the beingunreliable, in a way too right,
(28:39):
like I don't know, I don't knowwhat the next day is going to
bring, right, right, and it's.
Legit Romanek (28:45):
it's frustrating and it's like mentally
exhausting and emotionallyexhausting Because, like I said,
it's a lot of the stress thatbrings it on too, like how do I
stop that?
You know what I mean.
Like you could meditate and youcould take a walk and you could
do all this.
Sam Rhee (28:57):
Do you do those?
Legit Romanek (28:58):
I do, but when you come back, it's still all
there.
Sam Rhee (29:00):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (29:01):
You know what I mean.
Sam Rhee (29:02):
Right.
So it's just getting yourselfout of that mental, that mental
thing.
If I was a psychologist, I Imean, or I imagine a
psychologist would say, okay,legit, but maybe you need to
like not have your self-esteemand and your identity bound up
in what you're doing with at thegym and maybe you need to find
(29:22):
other ways to define yourself.
Like, have you thought aboutthat in some way?
Like who am?
Who am I?
And if I am not a crazy eliteRX athlete at this point, maybe
I have to find something elsethat really validates me at me
as just an athlete at the gym.
Legit Romanek (29:51):
So there's definitely depth in me.
Outside of the gym there'sdefinitely a legit.
There's definitely a Lauraoutside of the gym.
Legit's in the gym, Laura'soutside of the gym.
Sam Rhee (30:01):
I almost forgot.
Why are you nicknamed legit?
That was something that I thinkI asked a long time ago.
I forgot, maybe, what theanswer was yeah.
Legit Romanek (30:09):
So, like you said before, like I hone in on my
technique and and my movementpatterns and standards, and
early early on in my CrossFitcareer I was snatching at night.
And I'm snatching and I put itdown, somebody goes that's legit
.
And I'm like what they're like,that's it, that's your name,
that's what we're gonna call youfrom now on.
And I'm like legit.
They're like that's it, that'syour name, that's what we're
(30:30):
going to call you from now on.
And I'm like legit.
They're like yeah, legit, I'mlike okay, and it's just stuck
the whole time.
I mean, there's times still now, 11 years later, where people
will go hey, laura, this andthat who Legit?
Oh, legit, okay.
Sam Rhee (30:43):
So nobody calls you Laura anymore.
Your mom, dad, I don't know,family, I mean half the time my
brother calls me legit.
Legit Romanek (30:49):
You know it just depends People that have known
me for my whole CrossFit careerand inside and outside they'll
call me Laura.
Sam Rhee (30:57):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (30:57):
But yeah, it doesn't really matter what I go
by.
You know I like legit though.
Sam Rhee (31:01):
You do yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (31:02):
Yeah, but I didn't think it was going to
carry all the way to 41 yearsold.
Sam Rhee (31:05):
But it sticks out, I mean it's memorable, nobody
forgets that nobody forgets, doyou?
Care if they give you shit forit or anything like that.
You never care.
I know you don't, I you do andyou don't.
Legit Romanek (31:15):
Sometimes yeah, yeah okay.
Sam Rhee (31:17):
So, um, what is it that you think people don't
effing know about ra that theyreally ought to know, like Like
you know, because I figurepeople would be like you know
what it's autoimmune.
Have you tried this?
Have you tried this nutritionaltherapy?
Have you tried this alternative?
(31:39):
You know way of doing things.
Have you tried all sorts ofoffbeat type things?
Legit Romanek (31:44):
I think there are a lot of people that get
diagnosed with autoimmune andimmediately are like what are
all the things I can do that areanti-inflammatory and that will
help me so I never have to takemedicine?
Sam Rhee (31:53):
and this and that.
Legit Romanek (31:55):
I don't want to define my life saying I have RA.
Unless I really need to changesomething in what I'm doing, I'm
not going to change it.
Sam Rhee (32:05):
I don't think my diet's that bad, so I'm not
going to change so you're notgoing to be like doing the green
smoothie floated with like this.
Legit Romanek (32:14):
That, unless I want one, just to have one right
right, but I'm not gonna umbase my whole life on it.
I can't.
Right, then you become consumedin your disease.
I don't want to come becomeconsumed right, because then it
takes over, right, and that'sthat's what I don't want it to
do is take over my life.
Sam Rhee (32:32):
So what else have you done to sort of live a quote
normal life at this point,anything else?
Legit Romanek (32:43):
No, not really.
I mean, I'm still living mylife the way I am, I'm just,
unfortunately, Do you godrinking, do you?
Yeah, I definitely go out andenjoy myself, for sure, but I
know I'm still living my lifethe way I am.
Sam Rhee (32:53):
I'm just, unfortunately.
Do you go drinking, do you?
Yeah, I definitely go out andenjoy myself, for sure, but I
know I'm going to pay the price,do?
You pay it more now.
Wait, do you wear a whoop?
By the way, I don't anymore.
Legit Romanek (33:01):
Yeah, you know you used to like shit on me for
my whoop because I had the worststats always.
I probably would have the samestats as you had back in the day
.
Now I think I got rid of itbecause I was like I've been in
the red for two months.
I don't want to keep being inthe red.
Sam Rhee (33:12):
Right.
Legit Romanek (33:12):
You know I'm paying $30 a month and I'm not
doing anything with it anyway.
Yeah, and I'm still doing thesame thing that I do every day
and it's not changing, so nopoint.
Sam Rhee (33:22):
How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
Legit Romanek (33:24):
Now, um, now that I'm on prednisone, not much.
Sam Rhee (33:28):
Really yeah, why it gets you all jittery and stuff.
Legit Romanek (33:30):
Oh yeah, it gets me jacked up.
I think this morning I woke upat 510.
Sam Rhee (33:34):
Wow, and I was ready to go Really.
And what time did you go to bed?
Uh, 1130.
Wow, yeah, that's not awesome,and I used to go to bed at like
you're a fighter, so you'realmost resisting the fact that,
like you don't want these thingsto change.
Like you are, like you'retaking all the medications,
you're doing all the things thatyou need to do, but you're also
(33:56):
like not going to like ifthere's a pot.
Like you don't know if some ofthese alternative things might
help or not, but you're notgoing to try them.
Legit Romanek (34:07):
I just want it to go away.
To be honest, you know what Imean.
Can I manifest it to go awayLike totally?
Sam Rhee (34:14):
You think you could.
Legit Romanek (34:15):
No, absolutely not.
Okay, it was brought on mystress.
You think I could manifest itout of me.
Absolutely not.
Yeah, I mean I don't want tochange anything, you know, and
like maybe that's defiant of me.
Sam Rhee (34:28):
It is defiant of you.
Legit Romanek (34:29):
Right, and that's fine.
But you know I'm a singleperson, I live on my own.
You know healthy stuff costs alot of money too.
Right, and I don't know.
I just I don't like failing, soI don't have to try something
and it fails, and try somethingand it fails.
Sam Rhee (34:45):
You know what I mean?
Legit Romanek (34:46):
Yeah, I get that if I can stick to what I know
and it's working right now, thenlike, let's just continue on
with that.
You know, uh do you have pets Ido.
Sam Rhee (34:55):
I have a dog oh yeah, and has that dog been a rock for
you uh, he's lazy oh, okay yeah, he just, she's just chilling,
he's just hanging, you know sohas there been anything bright
like in the past year and twomonths that you could say you
know what this was like?
One of the best things, thatlike not RA, but like something
(35:19):
within it that, like you, werelike you know what this, this
was.
Out of all the crap I had todeal with, this was something
that really stood out as good.
Nothing.
Legit Romanek (35:32):
You know I'm alive, right I'm.
I'm dealing with this.
I've been so intertwined withwhat's going on and like trying
to figure it out and trying toget myself better.
Sam Rhee (35:51):
That like just being able to wake up on a day and not
feel pain is like is good forme I don't want to get into your
personal life, uh, butobviously a lot of emotional
stress is due to relationshipsand other issues.
Has how have your relationshipswith people changed?
Do you have anything that youcould give in terms of advice in
(36:12):
terms of people withrelationships or how you've
coped with that, like what?
What could we learn from yourexperience in terms of that,
because I know that that getssuper complicated.
Legit Romanek (36:23):
I mean, I think number one be kind to people,
right?
You don't know what somebody isgoing through at all.
I think that I'm going to losemy train of thought here.
You can only control what youcan control, right, right, so I
(36:45):
think the best thing is just tonot to let things get to you.
I'm still losing my train ofthought.
How?
Sam Rhee (36:53):
do you approach your relationships with people
differently?
Now, because of that, Likebecause you know, obviously some
of this is all the stress dueto all of that.
So do you do anythingdifferently?
Do you approach peopledifferently?
Do you see people differently?
I don't know Anything that fromthis experience that you would
give advice to.
Legit Romanek (37:11):
Yeah, so I think that was always a go big or go
home, right, put everything Ihave into somebody or something
and don't keep anything formyself, right, and that's blown
up Right, because when you losethat, you just lost your whole
self Right, because you put somuch into that Right, whatever
it is.
Sam Rhee (37:25):
Right.
So I'm definitely learning tolose that.
You just lost your whole selfright because you put so much
into that right, whatever it isright.
Legit Romanek (37:29):
So I'm definitely learning to.
I think it's bad right.
I was very anxious inrelationships and I think now
I'm very like I don't.
I'm very dismissive about itnow, right is that good?
No, it's terrible, right you?
You want to be able to givesomebody something of you Right.
Right, and I used to do thatall the time, right, but now I
(37:53):
just feel like I got to focus onmyself.
Sam Rhee (37:55):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (37:55):
Right and I have to have or keep some things to
myself.
Sam Rhee (37:58):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (37:59):
Right, because when you give it all out, yeah.
And you get.
Sam Rhee (38:03):
Right you know, right you know, and you lose it and
you lose it.
Legit Romanek (38:05):
You're like, wow, where's my right?
Sam Rhee (38:08):
you know so do you feel like at some point in your
life you're going to get back tothat point where you can do
that?
Legit Romanek (38:15):
yeah, I mean, I would hope so, right, but I'm
really just focusing on myselfright now.
Yeah, um, I can't worry aboutother people.
Like I really can't worry aboutwhat other people think of me
or what they've heard about me,or or or, if you want to be in
my life, right, like I havefriends that are really there
for me and have been therethrough everything, right, and
(38:36):
those people are my rocks right.
If you want to come into mylife, come into my life.
Right.
And this is where you're goingto say I'm like brash right.
If you want to come into mylife, come into my life.
But if you don't, I don't care.
Right, I don't have.
I don't have the mental andemotional capacity right now to
deal with anybody else by myself.
Right, and that might soundreally bad, but no, absolutely
not.
Sam Rhee (38:56):
I don't think anyone who's dealing with something
like this would have thebandwidth to like be a Mother
Teresa or like somehow, like beexpansive to every one of them.
Legit Romanek (39:06):
I mean there's some people that really don't
like me, and that's fine, right.
But I am probably one of thenicest people you'll ever meet,
right, and I'm very just, openand honest and real with people.
You know that's just who I amand that's how I was raised, you
know.
So if you don't like me, likethat's on you.
(39:26):
That's how I look at it.
Sam Rhee (39:29):
Yes, your personality is such.
Like I said, you're prickly tobegin, so you got to kind of
kind of push through some ofthat.
Legit Romanek (39:36):
I mean, I think that's how it's been my whole
life.
You know, like I I obviouslyI'm gay, right?
So growing up is very hard aswell.
Sam Rhee (39:42):
Of course yeah.
Legit Romanek (39:43):
And you have to make people like you Like.
Why don't you like me?
Because of this, this and this,you give up at a point.
Yeah, you know.
Sam Rhee (39:50):
I think that's the biggest part that I have found.
That makes me angry is that ifpeople judge people, especially
about sexual orientation or justbecause they're different, and
I think the thing that I haveliked about you is like you
didn't hide that you wereprickly, like you didn't cover
it up or try to say somethingjust to get people to like you,
like I mean, you are veryprickly but that's who you are
(40:13):
and you just sort of like leaveit out there.
And so I kind of knew what Iwas getting when I would talk to
you about stuff and it was open, honest and, like you said,
it's like olives, like you caneither like them or not like
them, but we're not trying topretend that the olive is like
we're not buttering it up withlike honey and trying to make it
(40:36):
taste good.
Like you're just, you just arewho.
Legit Romanek (40:40):
You are no problem taking accountability.
Right, and I think a lot ofpeople don't do that nowadays.
Right, and they run from it.
Right, it's not going to solveyour problems.
I'm that person that's likelike like, let's nip it right
now and then move on Right, andI think that's how I've always
been.
Sam Rhee (41:02):
So at this point, for someone let's suppose someone
was just recently diagnosed withRA like they just had it, like
they're scared, they got the,they got the test, the blood
work, and they're like you knowwhat.
This is starting to happen forme at this point.
What would your advice be, nowthat you've sort of dealt with
it for a year plus at this point, I mean, everybody's going to
(41:24):
go about it their own way, right?
Legit Romanek (41:26):
So I don't want to tell people like what they
should.
It doesn't matter.
Sam Rhee (41:29):
Just give your advice, the way you would do it and
like or if you went back and hadto do it, like is there
anything differently?
Is there different that youwould do?
Or or tell people, make sureyou do this.
Legit Romanek (41:40):
No, I would literally say don't change your
life.
Do everything you can when youcan do it Right, and unless you
have to change it, just keepdoing you Right.
Don't let it define you Right.
Even though I have RA, I'mstill an athlete.
You know what I?
Sam Rhee (41:56):
mean Right.
Legit Romanek (41:57):
I'm not an athlete with RA Right.
Sam Rhee (42:02):
At some point you're going to possibly deal with the
fact that it's never going toget better.
Legit Romanek (42:07):
No.
Sam Rhee (42:07):
And you're on these, possibly deal with the fact that
it's never going to get betterand you're on these medications
for a lifetime and you're young,you're 40.
So what are your goals in thefuture?
Even though you don't knowwhat's going to happen, you must
still have goals right For yourlife, for what you want
personally, relationship, wise,professionally, anything like
athletically.
So what are your goals?
(42:27):
Even though you have this thingsort of obscuring your future
at this point, what is it thatyour goals are right now, at
this second?
What are you working towards?
Legit Romanek (42:38):
I mean, right now I'm really focusing on just
getting better.
Sam Rhee (42:41):
OK.
Legit Romanek (42:42):
Right, I'd like to get back into the gym.
I'd like to go, be able to gohard again.
Yeah get back into the gym.
I'd like to go, be able to gohard again.
Yeah, um, I just friends andfamily and love and all of that.
That's what I want, right?
I was brought into the world tolove somebody and love people
and be there for people and like, if I can keep doing that, I'm
going to keep doing it andthat's what makes me happy and
(43:02):
that's what makes me keep going.
You know, um, it's not about ajob, it's not about like any of
that.
You know, it's just being there, showing up and doing what I
can when I can do it.
Sam Rhee (43:15):
I don't think that's any more than what anyone else
could ask for at this point.
Yeah, laura, legit, romantic.
I really appreciate the timethat you spent.
I know it wasn't easy to shareand I've learned a lot just
listening to you sort of talkingto you about your life.
Can I post your Instagramhandle if anyone wants to talk
(43:36):
to you about like RA or anyother experiences that they have
?
I'll put that up there.
And, like I said, you're stillbeating 90% of the people at the
gym on a good day and I've seenyou and I always love watching
you move at the gym.
You are a great mover.
Your mental attitude in the gymis as good as anyone bar none
(44:03):
Like I've seen you push and Ireally, really hope that the
future holds good things for you.
That's, you know.
That's what I you know.
That would make me so happy tobe able to see you do what you
do at the highest level.
Legit Romanek (44:18):
Thank you, I would hope that too, for sure.
Sam Rhee (44:20):
Yeah, thanks, all right, thank you legit.
Legit Romanek (44:22):
Thank you, Sam.
All right, welcome to another episode of Botox and
Burpees.
I'm here with Laura Romaneklegit.
She's my special guest todayand we're going to be talking
about her experience.
She is a longtime verydedicated fitness enthusiast,
athlete, crossfit athlete,recently diagnosed with
rheumatoid arthritis, and Iwanted to talk to her about her
(00:25):
life, her experiences with that.
This is something that I think,honestly, a lot of people, more
than I think we probably knowout in the surface.
You know shallow area that dealwith autoimmune issues, things
that are very difficult tohandle, and so I really
(00:46):
appreciate you, legit, forcoming and willing to share and
speak.
I know you're like, oh, time tobe vulnerable, and I was like,
yeah, I know it's not easy.
So I want to thank you, legit,for coming on and talking today.
Yeah, no problem, okay, so I'veknown you for a long time I
want to say at least 10 years orplus, maybe.
Legit Romanek (01:03):
Yeah, it's been a long time I've been in CrossFit
too.
Sam Rhee (01:05):
Yeah, so tell me your um your background.
So what do you want to sharewith people about you, um like
who you are, um your life?
Legit Romanek (01:15):
Yeah, I mean, we could just start from CrossFit
right Started CrossFit in 2013.
Sam Rhee (01:18):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (01:19):
Um, I actually lost a bet to my brother and I
had to end up trying the class.
Sam Rhee (01:24):
He's a pretty good CrossFitter himself.
He used to be.
Legit Romanek (01:26):
I'm kidding.
I had to end up trying theclass and I never looked back
2015,.
I got my L1.
I got my L2.
I coached for seven years and,yeah, it's just been my life
ever since.
I was like an athlete growingup.
Sam Rhee (01:47):
I played every single sport.
Legit Romanek (01:48):
You know, no to man.
Then in my 20s I moved and Ijust kind of lived my life and
did what I wanted to.
And then I came back and I gotright back into it.
And here I am 11 years later,you know, at Bison.
Sam Rhee (02:01):
Where did you grow up?
Legit Romanek (02:02):
I grew up in Fairlawn.
Sam Rhee (02:03):
Oh, okay, so not far.
Legit Romanek (02:05):
No, not far at all.
Sam Rhee (02:07):
And do you remember your first CrossFit workout that
you ever did?
Legit Romanek (02:11):
Oh God, it was kettlebell swings.
I think I used like a 20-poundkettlebell.
I could barely lift it over myhead.
Burpees, maybe, and lungesSomething easy.
It burpees, maybe and lungessomething easy.
It was like an on-ramp class.
Sam Rhee (02:26):
Um so it wasn't anything crazy, but and what
appealed to you that first time.
When you were doing it Likewhat was it?
They were like ah, this issomething I like.
I like it just felt like a gymclass, yeah.
Legit Romanek (02:34):
You know, everybody was together,
everybody was doing the samething.
Yeah, yeah, you were coachingat Hawthorne and you were there
for a long time.
I was there for a long time,yeah.
Sam Rhee (02:48):
And actually I think the guy who, one of the guys who
owned it, is now part of.
Legit Romanek (02:54):
Station Athletics .
Sam Rhee (02:54):
Yeah, station, and I actually see him he's podcasting
.
He's doing a great job there.
Do you miss that?
Like that old gym, like youknow Hawthorne, and the full
crew?
Legit Romanek (03:06):
like that old gym , like you know Hawthorne, and
the full crew, becauseCrossFit's changed over the past
10 years.
Yeah, I definitely think that.
Um, I wouldn't be the coach Iam if I didn't coach there.
Um, dave was awesome.
He was an awesome guy.
Dave Whitson right, yeah, yeah,um and I definitely met, like
the most amazing people there,um, so I so I definitely, uh, I
(03:26):
definitely miss it, um, but yeah, it definitely uh brought me to
to be who I am now, for sure.
Sam Rhee (03:33):
What are the proudest moments?
That or the things that you, acouple moments you remember most
vividly about your CrossFitsort of experience so far.
Legit Romanek (03:41):
I mean like anybody can say like oh, I PR'd
my snatch or I got first placein a competition.
Sam Rhee (03:47):
Like awesome.
Right.
Legit Romanek (03:49):
Yeah, I think for me, like, some of my proudest
moments are just being able tosee people that I coached
accomplish things that theycouldn't accomplish before,
inside and outside the gym.
I think that's what kept megoing all the time is just
seeing other people thrive andbe able to better themselves
just made me happy.
So it wasn't always about me,you know.
(04:12):
It was a lot of times aboutjust other people and what they
can do.
Sam Rhee (04:19):
So.
So let's talk about.
You've been at Bison for howmany years now?
Like three, four.
Legit Romanek (04:27):
I think we're going on four.
Wow, yeah, that's really.
Sam Rhee (04:29):
Yeah, you're.
You've been here for a longtime and I've watched you and
you move so well, like obviously, I think probably barbell
movements, I mean you're good ateverything.
Mean you're good at everything,like I've seen you with your
bar muscle ups and you know yourgymnastic work and you have a
motor and and um, obviously youhave a mental push and drive, uh
(04:51):
, which you really need toperform well in crossfit
workouts.
But like I really think yourbarbell movements you're really
good at lifting snatch work.
You know super fast in terms ofaccelerating and all that.
Thank you.
What division are you competingat?
Legit Romanek (05:07):
I am now in 40.
Sam Rhee (05:10):
Wow, that's crazy.
Does that feel weird?
Legit Romanek (05:12):
Being 40?
.
Sam Rhee (05:18):
Absolutely.
Legit Romanek (05:19):
This is my second open in the 40 category.
Does it feel weird?
Does it feel different?
I thought I was going to be atthe top.
Sam Rhee (05:26):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:26):
And I was.
Sam Rhee (05:27):
Yeah, the worst yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:31):
And then this year wasn't so bad.
Sam Rhee (05:33):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (05:34):
But it definitely wasn't the trail I wanted to go
on.
Sam Rhee (05:39):
So you were diagnosed you just told me with rheumatoid
arthritis in March, which islike two months ago.
Legit Romanek (05:45):
No, no oh.
Sam Rhee (05:46):
March of last year.
Yeah, wow, so it's been like 14months.
Yeah, when did you first noticethat there was something going
on with your body?
Legit Romanek (05:57):
So I mean we all have like aches and pains.
I've been in CrossFit 11 yearsright, you're telling me.
So you know a little biceptendonitis or elbows Right,
right, right.
Something like that.
But one day it was the day ofthe quarterfinals, the first day
of the quarterfinals, and Iwoke up and my wrist was blown
up and it didn't feel like aninjury, you know.
(06:18):
So I immediately texted Daveand I'm like Dave, I don't think
I can do quarterfinals.
Sam Rhee (06:23):
Dave Syvertson.
Legit Romanek (06:24):
Yeah, and I did so good in the open and I'm like
, okay, here's the here's thenext step, um, but I'm like an
all or nothing person, right,like oh yeah.
Even if I'm not feeling great,I'm still going to push it.
I know it's going to be worthsomething for day.
I'm like praying, like pleasego down, please go down, please
(06:44):
go down.
It doesn't.
So at nighttime I'm about to dothe workout and I wrap my wrist
and then I wrap it with a wristwrap and I think the workout
was snatches and I'm like thisis gonna be great for me yeah.
Right.
It's not gonna be great for meif I don't have a wrist Right,
so I sore.
Sam Rhee (07:01):
Yes.
Legit Romanek (07:02):
And that I go to sleep, wake up the next morning
it's like it never happened.
But then my left wrist blew upand I'm like OK, something's
wrong.
Right Like I can't have pain inmy hand for or my wrist for 16
hours.
Sam Rhee (07:18):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (07:18):
And then all of a sudden it goes away like never
happened.
And now it's on this wrist.
Sam Rhee (07:22):
That's really freaky.
Legit Romanek (07:24):
Right.
So I'm like hello Google, likelet me see what's going on.
Sam Rhee (07:27):
Yeah, so what did Dr Google say for?
Legit Romanek (07:29):
you that I'm dying?
Sam Rhee (07:33):
No, that's what it always says.
Legit Romanek (07:36):
I mean, I really like I get into things when I
need to figure things out.
Sam Rhee (07:39):
Okay, you know what I mean.
Legit Romanek (07:40):
Like I'm going to get to the nitty gritty bottom
of it, and the first thing thatpopped up was like rheumatoid
arthritis.
Sam Rhee (07:46):
Really, yeah Migrating like joint pain, wrist pain.
Legit Romanek (07:50):
Yeah, Once it pops from one side to the other
side, it's pretty well knownthat it would be RA.
But of course you have to gettons of blood work and tons of
tests and rheumatologists andthe whole nine to really get a
full diagnosis.
Sam Rhee (08:02):
So just from the fact that you had an episode of wrist
pain that migrated to the otherside, you're like I need to go
get evaluated for this.
Legit Romanek (08:10):
My aunt and my uncle both had autoimmune
diseases.
Okay, so I knew it ran in thefamily.
Sam Rhee (08:16):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (08:16):
So I'm like okay, well, if it runs in the family,
let me see if Google says itruns in the family.
You know what I mean.
Sam Rhee (08:28):
And then I was like, yeah, it's probably that I
wanted to prep myself before Iwent there.
And he told me Right, or I gotthe blood work and they told me,
oh, so you, so did you make the?
Appointment with the doctor, oryeah, and then and get blood
work at the same time, yeah itwas all like.
Legit Romanek (08:35):
I went to my primary.
Sam Rhee (08:36):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (08:37):
Primary was like all right, we got a
rheumatologist in the samebuilding.
Let's go to him.
Went to him, told him mysymptoms.
He's like let's go get bloodwork.
Sam Rhee (08:44):
And there were no other symptoms at that time.
Legit Romanek (08:47):
Not that I could really recall in like that type
of pain.
I know that like the beginningsorry, the end of 2023, I was
getting sick a lot and it wastaking me a long, long time.
Sam Rhee (08:58):
Like colds and stuff.
Legit Romanek (08:59):
Yeah, colds and like ear infections and stuff.
That's just like crazy and Iwas just not getting better.
I would be on bouts and boutsof like even prednisone and
antibiotics and I just wouldn'tget better.
So that's the only thing that Icould think of that like was
the beginning that I didn'treally notice.
Sam Rhee (09:20):
I see.
Legit Romanek (09:21):
Yeah, but it came on very quick.
Sam Rhee (09:24):
And then you got the blood work and what did it show
you?
Legit Romanek (09:27):
So I had gotten blood work in December of 2023.
I got blood work in 2023, inDecember of 2023.
And I don't know why.
I mean I think it might've beenjust a routine blood work.
Um, my life had been awhirlwind in the last year and a
half, so, like timing is just alittle off for me.
Sam Rhee (09:49):
Yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (09:51):
And it said that I had a low positive ANA.
Sam Rhee (09:57):
Okay, which is the antibodies like anti-nuclear?
Legit Romanek (10:01):
antibodies.
Sam Rhee (10:01):
Antibodies which show that your body is sort of
attacking itself.
Legit Romanek (10:04):
So that pretty much told him that something's
hanging out right, but we don'tknow what it is Right, right.
Sam Rhee (10:10):
Some sort of self-inflammatory condition, but
that's very nonspecific.
Right, could be all sorts ofstuff and you can have that and
be healthy.
Right, right.
Legit Romanek (10:17):
You can have a positive ANA and not have
anything Right.
So March comes, I get bloodwork and my anti-CCP level Right
.
You should be under 20, Ibelieve, to be negative.
Right Over 60 is positive.
My number was over 250.
Sam Rhee (10:38):
Wow, and that's a pretty specific test, that's not
a general like non-specifictest and with that test came
like the RF factor.
Right Rheumatoid factor, whichwas negative.
Legit Romanek (10:49):
Okay, but because my anti-CCP level was so high.
That's what they really use todiagnose RA with.
Is that number?
It has nothing to do with theRF, or a lot of times.
Sam Rhee (11:01):
Right, because that's variable.
It can be up, it can be down.
Legit Romanek (11:04):
Right.
Sam Rhee (11:04):
Yeah, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm remembering
this stuff from like 30 yearsago in med school.
Legit Romanek (11:09):
So it was over 250.
Yeah, but some tests will giveyou the number.
Sam Rhee (11:14):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (11:14):
Right and other tests won't.
So if you're over 250, it'smore progressive Right, it's
faster onset and it could bemore erosion.
My last blood work I got I gotan actual number which is 597.
Sam Rhee (11:32):
Whoa, that's pretty high.
It's really high, yeah, it'sreally high.
So when you got thisinformation, how did you feel?
What was going through yourhead at that point?
Legit Romanek (11:42):
I was like this sucks Okay yeah, yes, for sure.
Yeah, I didn't really know whatto think of.
I knew that I was havingterrible flare-ups.
Right?
Is this going to be my life?
For the rest of my life?
How am I going to feel better?
I'm not feeling better, right?
And when it first happened,they put me on prednisone, right
, because that's the only thingthat they can really put you on
(12:04):
until they start putting on allthe other things.
Sam Rhee (12:05):
Right, yeah, they got to put out the fire first.
Legit Romanek (12:08):
Right.
So it was on prednisone andobviously it didn't work.
Sam Rhee (12:13):
Yeah, okay.
Legit Romanek (12:14):
And then that's when I started my whole journey
of all the medicines that I takenow.
Sam Rhee (12:20):
So you got diagnosed.
You're having these symptoms,you're feeling terrible.
Legit Romanek (12:25):
Terrible.
Sam Rhee (12:27):
Was there anything that helped you sort of get
through this phase in terms ofsupporting you or feeling like
you know you had things to relyon, people, anything Like.
What was it that sort of was inyour life at that point?
Legit Romanek (12:42):
I think like the scariest part for me was that,
like you can have predisposedright, you can be predisposed to
RA for sure, but somethingneeds to trigger that in order
to come out right.
Really emotional time at thebeginning of last year and the
beginning of this year, whichset off RA, which I still
(13:05):
haven't come to terms with, thatthe stress and the emotional
turmoil that I went through, iswhat brought this all out.
So I was in fight or flightright, and when you're in fight
or flight right, your cortisollevels are usually an
anti-inflammatory.
Sam Rhee (13:24):
Correct, right yeah.
Legit Romanek (13:25):
But when your body is in fight or flight for
so long, right, it does thecomplete opposite, correct.
So now my body is attacking mybody, right.
And how do you tell your mind?
Right, to tell your body tocalm down when your mind's
thinking one thing and yourbody's doing another, right?
So that's what brought on allthe flare ups was the stress.
(13:45):
So once I could bring thestress down right, the flare ups
start to go away a little bit.
So that's kind of how that is.
Sam Rhee (13:52):
How do you deal with the stress?
No idea, I'm still working onit Okay, because you're a
fighter, like I know you, likeI've known you, and it's not
easy to get to know you.
Let's put it that way likeyou're I won't say you're
prickly, but like thanks you'regood, you're a good needler,
like every time.
Uh, I see you, like I know younow and so like I take
everything.
(14:13):
Uh, well, but you always gotthat little like you know.
Uh, you know you jab peoplethat you love.
I know that, I know that, andso so it's but, but if people
don't know you.
It's.
I know that, I know that and soso it's.
But but if people don't knowyou, it's not always so easy to
get to know you.
So and I know that you are afighter, you are a pusher, you
are someone who takes thoseprisoners a lot of times and so
(14:35):
like that's not a calming, zenkind of mentality to have, of
mentality to have so but you nowknow that stress, you know of
all forms, can be very unhealthy.
Right, so you've got to bedoing something to help yourself
.
Legit Romanek (14:54):
No, I mean, when you're in it, it's hard right,
because you could be stressedout about one thing.
And then you're stressed out,that you're stressed out, right,
right, and then you're like youknow, how do I, how do I get
out of this?
Sam Rhee (15:06):
Right, stop stressing out.
Legit Romanek (15:07):
Stop stressing out, right?
So I mean, unfortunately, I'vebeen in like a two and a half
month flare up this year already.
Okay, and like I told youbefore we started the podcast, I
think the last five days havebeen good for me.
I haven't really felt any pain.
(15:28):
Um, I always have tingly pinkiesand fingers, but yeah, uh,
there's always something brewing, Um, but yeah, I've, I haven't
been in much pain, I've beenable to really like execute at
the gym, um, which is awesome.
Um, but yeah, I, I mean I I'mfalling off track.
What was the question?
Sam Rhee (15:44):
Oh, so other things to deal with the stress.
Legit Romanek (15:47):
I know gym helps you yeah the gym is great but
unfortunately sometimes, youknow, I go to the gym and I
can't do everything.
Sam Rhee (15:52):
Right, and then it's frustrating.
Legit Romanek (15:54):
Yeah, talking to my friends is great.
Still very hard for them tounderstand.
It's very hard for people tounderstand.
Sam Rhee (16:01):
It's a complicated issue.
Legit Romanek (16:03):
And sometimes you know it's like oh yeah, my
grandma has arthritis.
I'm like I am.
I'm not going to go into whatit is, you know yeah.
Sam Rhee (16:15):
So have you changed other parts of your life?
I mean, I want to get into themedications a little bit, but I
want to talk about, like, whatother parts of your life have
you changed, like diet or sleepor anything like you know?
What else do you find helpfulor not helpful in terms of
trying to manage, like, youroverall health at this point?
Legit Romanek (16:35):
Yeah.
So getting to the gym, you know, excites me, makes me happy,
which brings my stress leveldown.
Sam Rhee (16:40):
OK.
Legit Romanek (16:42):
I eat very plain, like rice and meat.
I don't even eat a happy, whichbrings my stress level down.
Okay, I eat very plain, likerice and meat.
I don't even eat a vegetable,which I probably should.
Sam Rhee (16:47):
Yeah, you should.
Legit Romanek (16:48):
Every now and again, but a lot of times it's
just salmon or steak or chickenor you know the normal things.
Yeah, I don't really.
Sam Rhee (16:58):
Do you do anything else outside of, like, what are
your interests outside of?
Legit Romanek (17:01):
Oh, I mean I love hanging with my friends, okay,
music, but like I'm very simple,you know, I'm like a very like
go with the flow kind of person,but it's like the gym it's eat,
sleep, gym and repeat.
You know, when you get to thisage it's like you know you can't
go play with your friends.
You can know you can't go playwith your friends.
I can't bring a doorbell andtell your friends, you know so
(17:23):
uh.
Sam Rhee (17:23):
So what medications have you started and are you on
now, and what have you foundthat has been helpful for you,
because there's so many newmedications out there?
Legit Romanek (17:31):
yeah, when I first got diagnosed um, they put
me on prednisone.
Yeah, very, very high dosesyeah, how high.
Sam Rhee (17:38):
Just do you remember how high is?
It 40 yeah that's pretty solid20 20 in the morning, 20 at
night.
Legit Romanek (17:43):
Yeah, and then I got put on Plaquenil.
Sam Rhee (17:47):
Yeah, that's pretty, like almost everyone I know on
here.
Legit Romanek (17:49):
Two times a day.
Yeah, and Methotrexate pills.
Sam Rhee (17:52):
Also fairly toxic.
Legit Romanek (17:56):
Like there's some side effects to that.
Yeah, and that's the problem,right, is I mean?
Sam Rhee (17:59):
it's literally an anti-cancer drug, Like it's
chemo.
Legit Romanek (18:03):
Right.
Sam Rhee (18:03):
Both of them are yes yes, methotrex is a little more
toxic, I would say, than thePlaquenil that I've seen, but go
ahead.
Legit Romanek (18:09):
And then I got diagnosed with high blood
pressure because of theprednisone.
Yeah, so I'm on high bloodpressure meds.
Sam Rhee (18:16):
Which one are you on now?
Legit Romanek (18:18):
I am on amlodipine.
Sam Rhee (18:19):
Okay, I think it's called yeah, yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:21):
Yeah, and I also have to take folic acid now.
Sam Rhee (18:25):
Yeah, for yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:26):
It's always, you know, take this for that.
Sam Rhee (18:28):
Right yeah.
Legit Romanek (18:29):
And then so the methotrexate pills.
Yeah, bothered me, Reallybothered me.
I think I was like four daystapped out at a seven, feeling
crummy.
Sam Rhee (18:39):
Like just crummy overall or GI symptoms.
Legit Romanek (18:41):
Yeah, GI symptoms tired, just aggravated you know
, so I got put on injections.
Sam Rhee (18:48):
Oh, okay.
Legit Romanek (18:49):
So now I do a methotrexate injection every
Monday.
Okay, every week and I takeHumira now, okay.
Sam Rhee (19:03):
Injections every two weeks, self, or you go someplace
.
I do it all myself.
Okay, you found that scary toinject yourself.
Legit Romanek (19:07):
No, okay, no, in your belly or I can't do my
belly, I do my legs.
Sam Rhee (19:09):
Oh, like your quad.
Legit Romanek (19:10):
Yeah, my quad.
It's not bad, it's really.
It's better to do it myselfthan to have somebody do it, I
think.
Sam Rhee (19:17):
Really yeah.
Legit Romanek (19:18):
Okay, yeah, and then now I'm of course, back on
the whole time I was stilltaking.
We were trying to wean myselfoff the prednisone, because I
really shouldn't be on that along time, of course.
So I got myself down to likefive milligrams.
Okay, at the beginning of thisyear, everything ramped back up
(19:39):
and I had emailed my doctor andsaid we got to get on something
else and I need to up thisprednisone because I need to get
out of this.
Like it was mentally andphysically exhausting being in a
flare up every day.
Sam Rhee (19:48):
What is the worst symptoms with a flare up, when
you're really flaring Like whatdo you feel?
Legit Romanek (19:54):
This is like the hard part.
This is like the hard thing toexplain to people.
Sam Rhee (19:57):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (19:59):
I've never broken a bone, but I've, like,
sprained my ankle like playingbasketball and stuff like that,
or I jammed my finger, thatinitial feeling where you have
no stability.
Sam Rhee (20:07):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (20:07):
Right and your finger, your ankle, swells up,
yeah Right.
It feels like that.
It's like a deep throbbing painand sometimes it feels fiery,
like your joints are on fire,and as the flare up continues,
as the hours go on, you loseyour range of motion or your
(20:31):
mobility.
You get a lot like pinchingright Because the swelling is
now pinching on everything else.
Sam Rhee (20:33):
Right, because the tissue is so swollen at that
point.
Legit Romanek (20:35):
Yeah, so that's yeah.
Sam Rhee (20:38):
And which joints does it affect the most for you?
Legit Romanek (20:40):
So in the beginning it was just my wrists
and my fingers which I was likeall right, this isn't terrible,
but it's not great, right, likeI have very good range of motion
in my wrist.
When I'm in a flare up, it'slike this you can't turn a knob
or anything.
As it progressed it goes to myhips now my knees, my ankles, my
(21:01):
shoulders, any joint that's ajoint.
I think I've probably had aflare up in.
Sam Rhee (21:08):
Yeah, and this disease can be erosive.
So do you feel like you'relosing function?
Legit Romanek (21:14):
I was so scared about that, yeah, so how do?
Sam Rhee (21:16):
you feel about that?
Legit Romanek (21:17):
So every time you're in a flare-up right, it's
eroding at like the synovialfluid which is around your
joints.
Sam Rhee (21:22):
Right, the fluid that's cushioning your joint and
it's like lubricating the joint.
So that's why, like back in theday, you see a lot of people
with their fingers because therewasn't medicine to like help
that.
Oh no.
I remember doing surgery wherewe did joint replacements for,
like, finger digits and stufflike that.
Right.
Legit Romanek (21:38):
Yeah, I am very hypermobile too, which is more
susceptible to joint issues.
Sam Rhee (21:46):
So I lost my track, so you're losing function.
You're afraid of losing yeah.
Legit Romanek (21:53):
I'm really afraid of losing function every time
I'm in a flare up, and sinceI've been in a flare up for two
and a half months, I'm like whatis happening?
Sam Rhee (22:00):
Have you noticed loss of function yet though?
Legit Romanek (22:10):
you know, one day you feel like absolute crap,
right, right.
And then the next day you'relike well, nothing happened.
You know what I mean.
So I don't know, and the onlyway to really tell is to do like
x-rays and stuff like that,yeah, yeah, to see what the
joint looks like yeah and havethey looked not yet when I'm
they haven't taken any yet.
Um, but when I feel good, Ifeel good, so maybe there's
nothing wrong.
Like I, I don't want to Right.
Sam Rhee (22:29):
Check until you, until I yeah, I'm sort of the same
way.
I don't want to look Any morestuff.
Right, I don't want to look,unless I actually have to do
something about it.
Right, right, I don't want toknow.
So then, at the gym, how hasyour movement patterns been?
What's your performance beenlike?
Legit Romanek (22:54):
been like like, what have you been doing?
With that, so I try to bike onthe c2 a little bit before and
after the workout.
Okay, just because I've had alot of like hip and like groin
pain in the joints, yeah, so Ijust try to keep my legs moving
yeah and stretch a little bit.
But like, honestly, like do Ineed to do that?
Like I don't know, you know Idon't, because it's not an
injury.
So like I don't want to treatit like an injury I see you know
(23:15):
right um, scaling like.
I think I scaled so much and Iwas still in a flare-up that I
eventually just said I have torest, I can't do anything right,
because when you work out yourbody gets inflamed.
And if I'm already inflamed,right now I'm inflaming my body
even more.
Sam Rhee (23:31):
Right.
Legit Romanek (23:32):
That's just a recipe for disaster, so I rest
usually.
Sam Rhee (23:36):
Do you take NSAIDs or anything else at all?
I can't.
I can't with all the medicine.
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (23:40):
I think I'm already destroying my liver and
my kidneys with everything I'mtaking Right, and that's just
going to do more damage.
Sam Rhee (23:47):
Did you work out this week?
Legit Romanek (23:48):
I did.
Sam Rhee (23:49):
How many days?
What day is it today?
Today is Thursday.
Legit Romanek (23:53):
Two days.
I took yesterday off.
Sam Rhee (23:55):
Okay, so you worked out Monday and Tuesday and you
did both workouts and did you RXthem, did you scale them?
Legit Romanek (24:03):
Oh, I RXed them yeah.
Sam Rhee (24:04):
Yeah, and how did it feel Monday?
Legit Romanek (24:05):
was great.
Yeah, and how'd it feel?
Monday was great.
Sam Rhee (24:08):
Yeah, I loved Monday's work.
Which one was Monday againDouble unders.
Oh yeah, the 75 double unders.
Was it burpees?
Legit Romanek (24:15):
No double unders, dumbbell snatches, Double
snatches and bar muscle ups yeah.
Sam Rhee (24:21):
And you did all of it.
Legit Romanek (24:22):
I did, yeah, not level one, level two.
Sam Rhee (24:24):
Right the bar muscle-ups and 35-pound dumbbell
snatches and you got through it.
Yeah, and your time was good.
Legit Romanek (24:31):
I think so.
Sam Rhee (24:37):
So that's where someone would be like okay, you
have RA, you're dealing with allthis stuff, but you're not
flaring up.
Right now You're feeling prettygood and I don't think I would
finish that workout and I don'thave any autoimmune issues.
So someone might look at youand be like not really
understanding what's going on.
Like how do you deal with that?
Like that you could actuallyperform on a high level like
(24:59):
that, because I don't think Iwould say half the gym, would RX
ever finish it?
Legit Romanek (25:03):
I think a lot of people don't think it's
believable, right?
They don't believe me.
Sam Rhee (25:06):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (25:07):
Which is fine, right, you can see my medicine
cabinet if you like, all myneedles and all of that stuff.
But, like I said, it's not aninjury, right, and you might not
see it on the outside, butinternally that's where it is
right, that's what's going on.
So you can't really judgesomebody by their performance
(25:29):
one day, because there's beentimes that I've done a workout
and I pushed it too hard and Iwas in a little flare up and I
was out for like a week, right.
So you really can't, you can'ttell, and I think that's the
scary part and that's why I kindof like give up sometimes
talking to people about it,because it's I, I can't drill in
in your mind enough Like, yes,I know that I'm a good athlete,
(25:53):
right, and and I'm pretty highin the chain at the gym, right,
in performance wise.
Sam Rhee (25:59):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (25:59):
Right, but that's maybe just on one day, right.
It's not an everyday thinganymore.
Sam Rhee (26:05):
Has that been important to you your whole life
in terms of how good you arecompared to everyone else at the
gym?
I think it is.
Legit Romanek (26:13):
I wouldn't say like compared to everybody else.
Everybody has their ownstandards where they're at
across the career.
I think I'm hard on myself andthere are people that I push to
go against.
But I think, as I've grown up,I'm not so much about let me be
the top scorer, it's more aboutmoving well and knowing what I
(26:36):
can do.
And just because I could do itdoesn't mean that I'm snotty
about it in a way.
Sam Rhee (26:41):
Yeah, but let's suppose you get to the point
where you're sort of havingchronic issues, can only do
single unders, 20 pounds,snatches 15, and ring rows, and
that's sort of where you areevery day.
Would you come to the gym?
Would you do what you do likein terms of working out?
(27:03):
I'm just saying because, likethat's the mental part of it.
I mean, eventually we're allgoing to get there at some point
, but we think it's not going tobe until we're 80 or 90 or
something like that.
Legit Romanek (27:13):
No, I mean you're right, right.
So the other day we had frontsquats, right, I think my old
one rep max was 190, 195, right,I was also 140 pounds when I
got.
Sam Rhee (27:24):
RA, where are you now?
Legit Romanek (27:25):
120.
Sam Rhee (27:26):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (27:27):
When?
How old are you now?
120.
Okay, when I got RA, I lost 20pounds within a month.
Okay, just depleted everything,yeah, yeah.
Right.
So the workout which was thewall balls and the burpees I
crushed, right, get me on aheavy barbell now.
And I couldn't even front squat165 pounds, and so for me
that's like wow, right, lookwhat this has done to me.
Right, and people will come tome and be like, oh well, pound
(27:49):
for pound, you could still liftmore than me.
It's like great.
But right, where you thoughtyou were at, and now where
you're at now is like acompletely different.
Sam Rhee (28:02):
That's where the mind games come into play.
You don't know how thiscondition is going to progress.
It could remit Right, and youcould have a complete like
remission right, you could.
It could be much worse.
Like is that uncertainty?
Legit Romanek (28:17):
like it's scary.
Sam Rhee (28:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's really scary because so much of
your, uh, who you are is tied upwith your ability to perform,
and you're basically not knowingwhether or not you could
perform a month from now, rightmonths from now, six months from
now it's like the beingunreliable, in a way too right,
(28:39):
like I don't know, I don't knowwhat the next day is going to
bring, right, right, and it's.
Legit Romanek (28:45):
it's frustrating and it's like mentally
exhausting and emotionallyexhausting Because, like I said,
it's a lot of the stress thatbrings it on too, like how do I
stop that?
You know what I mean.
Like you could meditate and youcould take a walk and you could
do all this.
Sam Rhee (28:57):
Do you do those?
Legit Romanek (28:58):
I do, but when you come back, it's still all
there.
Sam Rhee (29:00):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (29:01):
You know what I mean.
Sam Rhee (29:02):
Right.
So it's just getting yourselfout of that mental, that mental
thing.
If I was a psychologist, I Imean, or I imagine a
psychologist would say, okay,legit, but maybe you need to
like not have your self-esteemand and your identity bound up
in what you're doing with at thegym and maybe you need to find
(29:22):
other ways to define yourself.
Like, have you thought aboutthat in some way?
Like who am?
Who am I?
And if I am not a crazy eliteRX athlete at this point, maybe
I have to find something elsethat really validates me at me
as just an athlete at the gym.
Legit Romanek (29:51):
So there's definitely depth in me.
Outside of the gym there'sdefinitely a legit.
There's definitely a Lauraoutside of the gym.
Legit's in the gym, Laura'soutside of the gym.
Sam Rhee (30:01):
I almost forgot.
Why are you nicknamed legit?
That was something that I thinkI asked a long time ago.
I forgot, maybe, what theanswer was yeah.
Legit Romanek (30:09):
So, like you said before, like I hone in on my
technique and and my movementpatterns and standards, and
early early on in my CrossFitcareer I was snatching at night.
And I'm snatching and I put itdown, somebody goes that's legit
.
And I'm like what they're like,that's it, that's your name,
that's what we're gonna call youfrom now on.
And I'm like legit.
They're like that's it, that'syour name, that's what we're
(30:30):
going to call you from now on.
And I'm like legit.
They're like yeah, legit, I'mlike okay, and it's just stuck
the whole time.
I mean, there's times still now, 11 years later, where people
will go hey, laura, this andthat who Legit?
Oh, legit, okay.
Sam Rhee (30:43):
So nobody calls you Laura anymore.
Your mom, dad, I don't know,family, I mean half the time my
brother calls me legit.
Legit Romanek (30:49):
You know it just depends People that have known
me for my whole CrossFit careerand inside and outside they'll
call me Laura.
Sam Rhee (30:57):
Okay.
Legit Romanek (30:57):
But yeah, it doesn't really matter what I go
by.
You know I like legit though.
Sam Rhee (31:01):
You do yeah, yeah.
Legit Romanek (31:02):
Yeah, but I didn't think it was going to
carry all the way to 41 yearsold.
Sam Rhee (31:05):
But it sticks out, I mean it's memorable, nobody
forgets that nobody forgets, doyou?
Care if they give you shit forit or anything like that.
You never care.
I know you don't, I you do andyou don't.
Legit Romanek (31:15):
Sometimes yeah, yeah okay.
Sam Rhee (31:17):
So, um, what is it that you think people don't
effing know about ra that theyreally ought to know, like Like
you know, because I figurepeople would be like you know
what it's autoimmune.
Have you tried this?
Have you tried this nutritionaltherapy?
Have you tried this alternative?
(31:39):
You know way of doing things.
Have you tried all sorts ofoffbeat type things?
Legit Romanek (31:44):
I think there are a lot of people that get
diagnosed with autoimmune andimmediately are like what are
all the things I can do that areanti-inflammatory and that will
help me so I never have to takemedicine?
Sam Rhee (31:53):
and this and that.
Legit Romanek (31:55):
I don't want to define my life saying I have RA.
Unless I really need to changesomething in what I'm doing, I'm
not going to change it.
Sam Rhee (32:05):
I don't think my diet's that bad, so I'm not
going to change so you're notgoing to be like doing the green
smoothie floated with like this.
Legit Romanek (32:14):
That, unless I want one, just to have one right
right, but I'm not gonna umbase my whole life on it.
I can't.
Right, then you become consumedin your disease.
I don't want to come becomeconsumed right, because then it
takes over, right, and that'sthat's what I don't want it to
do is take over my life.
Sam Rhee (32:32):
So what else have you done to sort of live a quote
normal life at this point,anything else?
Legit Romanek (32:43):
No, not really.
I mean, I'm still living mylife the way I am, I'm just,
unfortunately, Do you godrinking, do you?
Yeah, I definitely go out andenjoy myself, for sure, but I
know I'm still living my lifethe way I am.
Sam Rhee (32:53):
I'm just, unfortunately.
Do you go drinking, do you?
Yeah, I definitely go out andenjoy myself, for sure, but I
know I'm going to pay the price,do?
You pay it more now.
Wait, do you wear a whoop?
By the way, I don't anymore.
Legit Romanek (33:01):
Yeah, you know you used to like shit on me for
my whoop because I had the worststats always.
I probably would have the samestats as you had back in the day
.
Now I think I got rid of itbecause I was like I've been in
the red for two months.
I don't want to keep being inthe red.
Sam Rhee (33:12):
Right.
Legit Romanek (33:12):
You know I'm paying $30 a month and I'm not
doing anything with it anyway.
Yeah, and I'm still doing thesame thing that I do every day
and it's not changing, so nopoint.
Sam Rhee (33:22):
How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
Legit Romanek (33:24):
Now, um, now that I'm on prednisone, not much.
Sam Rhee (33:28):
Really yeah, why it gets you all jittery and stuff.
Legit Romanek (33:30):
Oh yeah, it gets me jacked up.
I think this morning I woke upat 510.
Sam Rhee (33:34):
Wow, and I was ready to go Really.
And what time did you go to bed?
Uh, 1130.
Wow, yeah, that's not awesome,and I used to go to bed at like
you're a fighter, so you'realmost resisting the fact that,
like you don't want these thingsto change.
Like you are, like you'retaking all the medications,
you're doing all the things thatyou need to do, but you're also
(33:56):
like not going to like ifthere's a pot.
Like you don't know if some ofthese alternative things might
help or not, but you're notgoing to try them.
Legit Romanek (34:07):
I just want it to go away.
To be honest, you know what Imean.
Can I manifest it to go awayLike totally?
Sam Rhee (34:14):
You think you could.
Legit Romanek (34:15):
No, absolutely not.
Okay, it was brought on mystress.
You think I could manifest itout of me.
Absolutely not.
Yeah, I mean I don't want tochange anything, you know, and
like maybe that's defiant of me.
Sam Rhee (34:28):
It is defiant of you.
Legit Romanek (34:29):
Right, and that's fine.
But you know I'm a singleperson, I live on my own.
You know healthy stuff costs alot of money too.
Right, and I don't know.
I just I don't like failing, soI don't have to try something
and it fails, and try somethingand it fails.
Sam Rhee (34:45):
You know what I mean?
Legit Romanek (34:46):
Yeah, I get that if I can stick to what I know
and it's working right now, thenlike, let's just continue on
with that.
You know, uh do you have pets Ido.
Sam Rhee (34:55):
I have a dog oh yeah, and has that dog been a rock for
you uh, he's lazy oh, okay yeah, he just, she's just chilling,
he's just hanging, you know sohas there been anything bright
like in the past year and twomonths that you could say you
know what this was like?
One of the best things, thatlike not RA, but like something
(35:19):
within it that, like you, werelike you know what this, this
was.
Out of all the crap I had todeal with, this was something
that really stood out as good.
Nothing.
Legit Romanek (35:32):
You know I'm alive, right I'm.
I'm dealing with this.
I've been so intertwined withwhat's going on and like trying
to figure it out and trying toget myself better.
Sam Rhee (35:51):
That like just being able to wake up on a day and not
feel pain is like is good forme I don't want to get into your
personal life, uh, butobviously a lot of emotional
stress is due to relationshipsand other issues.
Has how have your relationshipswith people changed?
Do you have anything that youcould give in terms of advice in
(36:12):
terms of people withrelationships or how you've
coped with that, like what?
What could we learn from yourexperience in terms of that,
because I know that that getssuper complicated.
Legit Romanek (36:23):
I mean, I think number one be kind to people,
right?
You don't know what somebody isgoing through at all.
I think that I'm going to losemy train of thought here.
You can only control what youcan control, right, right, so I
(36:45):
think the best thing is just tonot to let things get to you.
I'm still losing my train ofthought.
How?
Sam Rhee (36:53):
do you approach your relationships with people
differently?
Now, because of that, Likebecause you know, obviously some
of this is all the stress dueto all of that.
So do you do anythingdifferently?
Do you approach peopledifferently?
Do you see people differently?
I don't know Anything that fromthis experience that you would
give advice to.
Legit Romanek (37:11):
Yeah, so I think that was always a go big or go
home, right, put everything Ihave into somebody or something
and don't keep anything formyself, right, and that's blown
up Right, because when you losethat, you just lost your whole
self Right, because you put somuch into that Right, whatever
it is.
Sam Rhee (37:25):
Right.
So I'm definitely learning tolose that.
You just lost your whole selfright because you put so much
into that right, whatever it isright.
Legit Romanek (37:29):
So I'm definitely learning to.
I think it's bad right.
I was very anxious inrelationships and I think now
I'm very like I don't.
I'm very dismissive about itnow, right is that good?
No, it's terrible, right you?
You want to be able to givesomebody something of you Right.
Right, and I used to do thatall the time, right, but now I
(37:53):
just feel like I got to focus onmyself.
Sam Rhee (37:55):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (37:55):
Right and I have to have or keep some things to
myself.
Sam Rhee (37:58):
Yeah.
Legit Romanek (37:59):
Right, because when you give it all out, yeah.
And you get.
Sam Rhee (38:03):
Right you know, right you know, and you lose it and
you lose it.
Legit Romanek (38:05):
You're like, wow, where's my right?
Sam Rhee (38:08):
you know so do you feel like at some point in your
life you're going to get back tothat point where you can do
that?
Legit Romanek (38:15):
yeah, I mean, I would hope so, right, but I'm
really just focusing on myselfright now.
Yeah, um, I can't worry aboutother people.
Like I really can't worry aboutwhat other people think of me
or what they've heard about me,or or or, if you want to be in
my life, right, like I havefriends that are really there
for me and have been therethrough everything, right, and
(38:36):
those people are my rocks right.
If you want to come into mylife, come into my life.
Right.
And this is where you're goingto say I'm like brash right.
If you want to come into mylife, come into my life.
But if you don't, I don't care.
Right, I don't have.
I don't have the mental andemotional capacity right now to
deal with anybody else by myself.
Right, and that might soundreally bad, but no, absolutely
not.
Sam Rhee (38:56):
I don't think anyone who's dealing with something
like this would have thebandwidth to like be a Mother
Teresa or like somehow, like beexpansive to every one of them.
Legit Romanek (39:06):
I mean there's some people that really don't
like me, and that's fine, right.
But I am probably one of thenicest people you'll ever meet,
right, and I'm very just, openand honest and real with people.
You know that's just who I amand that's how I was raised, you
know.
So if you don't like me, likethat's on you.
(39:26):
That's how I look at it.
Sam Rhee (39:29):
Yes, your personality is such.
Like I said, you're prickly tobegin, so you got to kind of
kind of push through some ofthat.
Legit Romanek (39:36):
I mean, I think that's how it's been my whole
life.
You know, like I I obviouslyI'm gay, right?
So growing up is very hard aswell.
Sam Rhee (39:42):
Of course yeah.
Legit Romanek (39:43):
And you have to make people like you Like.
Why don't you like me?
Because of this, this and this,you give up at a point.
Yeah, you know.
Sam Rhee (39:50):
I think that's the biggest part that I have found.
That makes me angry is that ifpeople judge people, especially
about sexual orientation or justbecause they're different, and
I think the thing that I haveliked about you is like you
didn't hide that you wereprickly, like you didn't cover
it up or try to say somethingjust to get people to like you,
like I mean, you are veryprickly but that's who you are
(40:13):
and you just sort of like leaveit out there.
And so I kind of knew what Iwas getting when I would talk to
you about stuff and it was open, honest and, like you said,
it's like olives, like you caneither like them or not like
them, but we're not trying topretend that the olive is like
we're not buttering it up withlike honey and trying to make it
(40:36):
taste good.
Like you're just, you just arewho.
Legit Romanek (40:40):
You are no problem taking accountability.
Right, and I think a lot ofpeople don't do that nowadays.
Right, and they run from it.
Right, it's not going to solveyour problems.
I'm that person that's likelike like, let's nip it right
now and then move on Right, andI think that's how I've always
been.
Sam Rhee (41:02):
So at this point, for someone let's suppose someone
was just recently diagnosed withRA like they just had it, like
they're scared, they got the,they got the test, the blood
work, and they're like you knowwhat.
This is starting to happen forme at this point.
What would your advice be, nowthat you've sort of dealt with
it for a year plus at this point, I mean, everybody's going to
(41:24):
go about it their own way, right?
Legit Romanek (41:26):
So I don't want to tell people like what they
should.
It doesn't matter.
Sam Rhee (41:29):
Just give your advice, the way you would do it and
like or if you went back and hadto do it, like is there
anything differently?
Is there different that youwould do?
Or or tell people, make sureyou do this.
Legit Romanek (41:40):
No, I would literally say don't change your
life.
Do everything you can when youcan do it Right, and unless you
have to change it, just keepdoing you Right.
Don't let it define you Right.
Even though I have RA, I'mstill an athlete.
You know what I?
Sam Rhee (41:56):
mean Right.
Legit Romanek (41:57):
I'm not an athlete with RA Right.
Sam Rhee (42:02):
At some point you're going to possibly deal with the
fact that it's never going toget better.
Legit Romanek (42:07):
No.
Sam Rhee (42:07):
And you're on these, possibly deal with the fact that
it's never going to get betterand you're on these medications
for a lifetime and you're young,you're 40.
So what are your goals in thefuture?
Even though you don't knowwhat's going to happen, you must
still have goals right For yourlife, for what you want
personally, relationship, wise,professionally, anything like
athletically.
So what are your goals?
(42:27):
Even though you have this thingsort of obscuring your future
at this point, what is it thatyour goals are right now, at
this second?
What are you working towards?
Legit Romanek (42:38):
I mean, right now I'm really focusing on just
getting better.
Sam Rhee (42:41):
OK.
Legit Romanek (42:42):
Right, I'd like to get back into the gym.
I'd like to go, be able to gohard again.
Yeah get back into the gym.
I'd like to go, be able to gohard again.
Yeah, um, I just friends andfamily and love and all of that.
That's what I want, right?
I was brought into the world tolove somebody and love people
and be there for people and like, if I can keep doing that, I'm
going to keep doing it andthat's what makes me happy and
(43:02):
that's what makes me keep going.
You know, um, it's not about ajob, it's not about like any of
that.
You know, it's just being there, showing up and doing what I
can when I can do it.
Sam Rhee (43:15):
I don't think that's any more than what anyone else
could ask for at this point.
Yeah, laura, legit, romantic.
I really appreciate the timethat you spent.
I know it wasn't easy to shareand I've learned a lot just
listening to you sort of talkingto you about your life.
Can I post your Instagramhandle if anyone wants to talk
(43:36):
to you about like RA or anyother experiences that they have
?
I'll put that up there.
And, like I said, you're stillbeating 90% of the people at the
gym on a good day and I've seenyou and I always love watching
you move at the gym.
You are a great mover.
Your mental attitude in the gymis as good as anyone bar none
(44:03):
Like I've seen you push and Ireally, really hope that the
future holds good things for you.
That's, you know.
That's what I you know.
That would make me so happy tobe able to see you do what you
do at the highest level.
Legit Romanek (44:18):
Thank you, I would hope that too, for sure.
Sam Rhee (44:20):
Yeah, thanks, all right, thank you legit.
Legit Romanek (44:22):
Thank you, Sam.
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