Gerardo Hurtado, Owner & Coach
Even though I tried almost every sport out there, from motorcycle to snowboard, for almost 15 years I mainly focus on rugby. I was lucky enough to represent Chile at international level, in u19, u21 and senior level, and to play in one of the most successful teams in Chile in a time when we were the dominant force in the country. I strongly believe in the power of sports for building better persons; they make us resilient, disciplined, committed, stronger in failure and humble in success. All in all, they make us believe in ourselves and work hard for our goals. Crossfit is not different; it takes a lot of character not to quit during a hard workout, when your head and every muscle is telling you to do so. It´s painful, grueling and exhausting...but it is totally worth it! I have been living in Berlin since 2011, and think that it is one of the best places in the world. Before starting the box, I worked as an investment advisor and in consulting projects related to agribusiness in Africa. Coaches in: German, Spanish and English
Rickard Björnekärr, Owner & Head Coach
'My sports background is quite wide all from football, tennis, basketball, judo to floor hockey, but my experience lies firstly within ice-hockey, which I played for 22 years, and at best in first league for juniors in Sweden. I believe sport saves us from all the bad stuff out there and I think CrossFit is one of the best things you can do to prevent bad habits and procrastination - it’s a game changer even for pro athletes!” Born 1984 in Stockholm as a finnish citizen and grew up with a passion for sports, and dreamt of playing in the NHL as a kid. Now the rink has turned into a box, and it’s stanley cup final every night! Before working with sports Rickard has been working internationally with business development, design development and project management. Coaches in: German, English, Swedish, Finnish and some Jibberish.
What we both had was a large sports background, in rugby and ice hockey, and we really missed the thrill we had from sports.
After starting crossfit, it was like an epiphany for us and we were hit by a train. This was just insane! Wow! What is this!?
This thing just started to change our lives and we felt so much more alive and in peace with ourselves. Stress symptoms vanished and we saw the progress among other people and were blown away by the results.
Fortunately both of us, Rickard and Gerardo, were training at the same gym and we became good friends. We talked about how nice this sport was and “what if we’d work with it ourselves?”
A year later the urge to work with this had only grown bigger and we decided to educate ourselves and try to make this dream come true.
So we worked for days and nights, travelled to boxes in Europe, Africa and Latin America, spent +10 months searching for a location and a concept that would bring the same passion and joy we felt to others as well.
So here we are, ready to present you with a couple of options to make it easy for you to start your journey and at the same time support the Escapist CrossFit.
Things to expect:
1) Stress relief
2) Move with safety
3) Gain Strength, Stamina, Flexibility, Coordination, Happiness
4) Lose fat
5) Become more organized and self aware