Meet Chris “ Stouty” Stoutenburg”- The man with the heart of a Lion

Stout of Mind

When fate changed his game, Chris Stoutenburg changed his fate

By Angela Rose

Sometimes life takes you in an unexpected direction. For 35-year-old Chris “Stouty” Stoutenburg, an enthusiastic athlete who spent his youth playing basketball and football—with hockey, track, skiing, skateboarding, and BMX thrown in for good measure—the left turn came on June 18, 1997.

Slated to play football for the University of Guelph that fall, Stoutenburg was spending the weekend with a friend. “He rented a chalet for the season up at Blue Mountain,” he says. “I was leaning against the balcony railing when I heard a snap. Suddenly, I was on my back two stories down.” The fall pulverized three thoracic vertebrae, instantly paralyzing Stoutenburg from the waist down. “I landed in a patch of grass between a cement staircase and a metal bike rack. A few inches in any direction and I would have been impaled or smashed to bits.”

Rushed to Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital by helicopter, Stoutenburg underwent numerous surgeries and spent several days in critical condition. “They had to fuse rods to hold my back together,” he says. “When I woke up, I couldn’t figure out why I was unable to move. Then the surgeon came in and told me I wouldn’t be able to walk again.”

Stoutenburg was in shock. “At first, I’m not sure I even believed it,” he says. “But as soon as they got me out of the critical ward I asked for a wheelchair.” Fearing complications from the surgery, hospital staff told him it was too early. He didn’t listen. “I remember swinging my legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. I told them either they could bring me a wheelchair or I was going to jump down on the floor. Then they’d have more complications to worry about.” Within seconds, he was wheeling his way through the hallways.

“I could see very clearly the way my life would go if I allowed myself to sit around and cry about [the accident]. Nothing was going to change, no matter how I felt about it. The situation was the situation,” he says. So he threw himself into physical rehabilitation, transferring to the Lyndhurst Spinal Cord Centre where he regularly visited the nurses’ station. “I spent a lot of time in the gym and out on the grounds in my wheelchair,” says Stoutenburg. “I knocked myself out of my chair quite a bit, trying to hop up and down curbs. I even learned how to do stairs on my own. The nurses were always bandaging me back up, but no one ever told me to stop.”

By August, Stoutenburg was home, packing for school. He entered the university in September, where he met a student with cerebral palsy who played wheelchair basketball for a local sports association. After attending one practice, Stoutenburg was hooked. “I fell in love with the sport,” he says. “Basketball was the easiest way for me to reintegrate in society.”

Stoutenburg made the Canadian junior team his first year and earned a Division 1 scholarship the next. He quickly advanced to the Canadian Men’s National Team, where he won two gold medals and a silver medal during three trips to the Paralympic Games. “It was amazing,” says Stoutenburg. “I’ve been through Europe, Asia, Africa, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, travelling all the time and seeing amazing things. It’s an experience I would not trade for anything, able-bodied or disabled.”

After ten years of overwhelming success, Stoutenburg retired. “I finally had time to relax,” he says. “I even got married. But after a year, I started to get a little stir crazy. I knew I didn’t want to play basketball again, so I was basically doing nothing.” That’s when he found CrossFit.

Stoutenburg visited CrossFit Indestri in Collingwood with his cousin. “She had talked to the coaches about me coming in,” he says. “I went in for an assessment to determine what I could do.” To say he blew them away with his athletic ability and determination is an understatement.

“I knew immediately that [CrossFit] was the perfect fit for him,” says Scott Thornton, Indestri owner and one of the assessment coaches. “Everything he said led me to believe that nothing was off limits for him. He would try anything and was very enthusiastic to get started.”

Stoutenburg returned for his first official workout the next day. “By the end I was barely able to breathe, exhausted, and couldn’t believe it took only 30 minutes for me to feel like that,” he says. “I was ruined but in love with what I had just done. I knew right away that I would be doing CrossFit forever.”

The WODs have changed his life in significant ways. “Chris will try anything, and he’s not afraid to fail or fall down,” says Thornton. “His attitude is ‘try it first; then we’ll see if it works.’ That has allowed him to learn and grow in a lot of different ways. We’ve seen dramatic improvement in the way he moves.” This includes movements doctors told Stoutenburg he’d never be able to make.

“I’d never been able to bring my chest to my knees, bend over, and then sit back up without using my hands. But a month into CrossFit that changed,” says Stoutenburg. “Now, ten months in, I can even do weighted back extensions, picking up two, 20-kilogram kettle bells and sitting back up. I spent 12 years thinking I’d never be able to do something like that. But now I’m doing it.”

Fran is one of Stoutenburg’s favourite workouts. He can complete the 21-15-9 repetitions of 95-pound thrusters (substituting shoulder presses) and pull-ups (weighted by his 38-pound wheelchair) in less than nine minutes. He can also make a 12-foot climb up a 15-foot rope, again with his chair—a feat that has attracted a great deal of attention on his YouTube channel. He’s even designed a custom workout, aptly named “Stouty,” for CrossFit Indestri.

“It’s a one-arm 1000-metre row while seated on a box, then a 12-minute AMRAP of five weighted pull-ups, 10 back extensions, and 15 seated wall balls,” he says. “After the gym tried this, a lot of people told me they were completely crushed. They couldn’t move their arms and were still sore days later. But they had fun.”

Tyson Hornby, Indestri co-owner and coach, says Stoutenburg is inspiring legions of followers. “He is leading the charge in growing the numbers and awareness of CrossFit for adaptive athletes like himself,” he says. “There are now athletes all over the world requesting workout ideas and advice on scaling WODs.”

“I think it comes from his team leader background in basketball, but he is always trying to inspire and help others reach their full potential,” adds Bill Pain, another Indestri coach. “The daily motivational quotes he puts on Facebook, his commitment to the programming and trust in our coaching, and his coaching of others in the gym all highlight his natural leadership abilities. When Stouty gives advice or tips, everyone listens.”