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The CrossFit Podcast

[Staff Pick] You Need To Hear Their Story About CrossFit in Prisons

The CrossFit Podcast

CrossFit LLC

Health & Fitness

4.3 • 757 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Congrats on making it to the end of the 2026 CrossFit Open, presented by Air National Guard! 

Stay tuned for an update on the CrossFit Podcast over the coming weeks. Until then, enjoy this episode with of our community favorites, Nick Wells and Gino Aviles. 

—

Redemption Road CrossFit started inside Colorado’s prison system, where a small group of men turned CrossFit workouts into the first affiliate behind bars. Today, it’s a nonprofit changing prison culture through mentorship, accountability, and community — cutting recidivism to just 1.6% compared to the national average of 80%.

This week, we welcome Redemption Road CrossFit’s founder Nick Wells and founding member Gino Aviles to the show. Nick and Gino share their journey, from addiction and life sentences to freedom, sobriety, and leadership, and show how CrossFit’s methodology can transform not just fitness, but lives.

Topics Covered

  • Personal journeys from addiction, incarceration, and transformation
  • The origins of CrossFit in Colorado prisons
  • Building Redemption Road: the first affiliate inside a correctional facility
  • Overcoming stigma, violence, and systemic barriers through community fitness
  • Partnerships with CrossFit HQ and the broader community
  • Redemption Road’s measurable impact on recidivism and prison culture

Resources Mentioned

Transcript

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0:00.0

I was sentenced to life in prison. I was 21. I got my case back into court.

0:05.0

And last November, I gave back my life sentence. They changed it to 48 years.

0:12.0

I'd been in prison for 28, so I was parole eligible. And I got out.

0:26.6

The game is rigged and not in your favor. You've been sold the idea that health insurance has your back,

0:29.6

but you're not a person to them.

0:31.6

You're a number, a stat.

0:34.6

It was never about your health.

0:35.6

It's about their profit margins. But there's another way.

0:39.3

It's community care. A health care system powered by the same values that may crossfit more than just a workout.

0:45.3

A community that helps each other, covers each other, and rises together through sickness and life's most unexpected challenges.

0:52.3

It's time to rethink health care to stop relying on the system that's failed us.

0:56.5

They sell sick care.

0:57.7

We power health.

0:59.2

Community care.

1:00.4

For more information, visit crossfitmedicalsociety.com.

1:04.1

All right, Nick, we were just talking before we got rolling out.

1:07.0

Give me some of your story, your background.

1:09.6

Well, you know, I grew up in California, Southern California,

1:12.8

to a really, really wonderful family.

1:16.2

I moved to Colorado when I was 14 and everything kind of just changed.

1:19.5

I didn't fit in.

1:20.6

I talked different, looked different.

...

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