Lucas Parker

With a full body suit of thick red hair and possibly the manliest beard around, it’s hard to miss Lucas Parker at a CrossFit competition, especially when he busts out his weightlifting singlet (he likes “the tight feeling of spandex”). The 23-year-old “teen wolf” has represented Canada West at the CrossFit Games two years running (he finished 26thin 2011, 15th in 2012), and has built a fan base that spreads across our border. It may be the grizzly appearance and lumberjack five-foot-seven physique that draws us in, but it’s his sense of humor (“I follow the see-food diet,” he says in his Rogue Fitness athlete profile) that will keep us cheering as he aims for the podium in 2013.

The 185-pound Victoria, BC native continued to study kinesiology at the University of Victoria full-time as he prepared for this year’s competitions. In addition to four hours of training at CrossFit Zone every day, he holds three part-time jobs. It’s this incredible drive and dedication to the sport that enabled him to finish sixth in the Open and should serve him equally well at the Canada West Regional in Vancouver in June.

With a background in rugby and weightlifting, Parker is a bit of a CrossFit natural. As the Games leaderboard showed last year, he excels at fast and explosive workouts. His approach to training allows him to play on his strengths while working to improve his weaknesses. “CrossFit means different things to different people and everyone does a slightly different version of it,” he said in a recent CrossFit.com interview. “My CrossFit is systematically varied, effective movement, performed a reasonable intensity.”

Why the lush, beautiful beard? It’s a symbol of his commitment to training. “When I looked at myself in the mirror I was reminded each day how long I had looked like that,” he told The RX Review last August. “It grows every day, and I hope that I improve my fitness every day towards a goal.” His ultimate goal is to place in the top five at the Games this year, and then win in 2014.

Name: Lucas Parker
Age: 23
Affiliate: Crossfit Zone, Victoria BC

Before CrossFit:

I played rugby through high school – our strength and conditioning coach got me into crossfit-style training at a relatively young age, which I attribute much of my athletic success to. I also played soccer and practiced Kenpo karate.

Best WOD:

I don’t really do many benchmark WODs and I don’t time most of my workouts. I’ve done Fran once in my life, when I first started CrossFit a couple years back, in about 2:40