Finding fitness

Carolyne Prevost is at the point in her competitive hockey career where she
knows the days are numbered, with scores of younger players coming into the
fold each year.

But to say she’s hanging on would do her a disservice. Prevost, 31, is one
of the older players on Team Sonnet, the Toronto-based club in the
Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, but it’s safe to say she’s
also the fittest.

Hockey has been a part of Prevost’s life since she was six. The Team Canada
alumnus helped Canada win silver at the inaugural IIHF World Women’s U18
Championship in 2008 and attended various camps and events with Canada’s
National Women’s Development Team.

Prevost also spent four years at the University of Wisconsin and six
seasons in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League with Montreal and Toronto.
She has had success playing with and against some of the best players in
the world.

“I love the team aspect of [hockey],” the London, Ont., native says. “I
love going to the rink, seeing people, that family atmosphere in hockey;
you get a bunch of sisters right away on a team. I’ve always loved that.
Just kind of working towards a common goal and seeing everyone day in and
day out. That’s what keeps me loving the game, is the people I’ve met.

“I’m on the way out as I’m getting older, but CrossFit has been what has
allowed me to continue to play at a high level as I’m getting older; it’s
because of my fitness level.”

Ah, yes. CrossFit. That is Prevost’s relatively new-found passion. About
eight years ago, as Prevost was wrapping up her college career, she
discovered CrossFit and has quickly become one of the best in Canada.

CrossFit is a form of high-intensity interval training that incorporates
movements that are performed in day-to-day life – squatting, pulling,
pushing.

When she found the sport, Prevost had been let go by the Hockey Canada
national program and, with her being at the tail end of a college career,
she was looking for something else to stay in shape.

“I fell in love with it because, as an athlete, we like challenges. I just
felt like everything I was doing with CrossFit was challenging me and I
wanted to get better at it and it was different all the time,” she says.
“It wasn’t repetitive, it wasn’t boring. I got to try something new every
day. I just wanted to get better at it. Then the whole community aspect of
it made it really fun. You got to work out alongside other people and that
created that team atmosphere that I was missing after university. That was
really attractive to me.”

What started as an interest to stay fit and work out with others turned
into much more. Prevost now competes regionally, nationally and
internationally; she was the No. 1 ranked woman in Canada in 2018, and a
year later finished 12th at the CrossFit Games, an event with the goal of Finding the Fittest on Earth.

Unlike traditional athletic events like swimming and track and field, the
CrossFit Games test athletes from around the world in a variety of
unannounced events. Among events held in the past are distance swims,
obstacle courses, one-rep maximum lifts, handstand walking and rope climbs.
Athletes are challenged in terms of strength, speed, endurance and skill.

“The last part that I really loved about it is that you can work on many
things,” says Prevost. “CrossFit is known for being general fitness in
everything. You’re working on being well balanced, essentially. You’re not
only focusing on speed or power or strength but you’re also trying to work
on your endurance. Coming from a multi-sport background, that drew me in.
The fact I didn’t have to specialize in just one thing and I wanted to get
better at every discipline of fitness.”

Prevost has played many sports in her life, and actually also competed for
Canada internationally in taekwondo.

That background is something she tries to use to motivate and inspire the
next generation of Canada’s athletes and leaders. Prevost is a high school
teacher at Gaétan-Gervais Secondary School in Oakville. She teaches Grade 9
and 10 math, Grade 10 science and, not surprisingly, physical education
classes for Grades 9 through 12.

“I was passionate about so many sports and I want to get those kids exposed
to different sports because you don’t know what they’ll like,” says
Prevost. “I want them to start moving. A lot of kids are not active enough.
Just getting them the love of individual sports and team sports because
there are great things that come out of both of those. Specifically for
women, there are a lot of girls who quit sports in high school and start
focusing a lot more on school and their jobs because they don’t see that
future professional level like the males do.”

Prevost is all-in on CrossFit and continues to train for the 2021 Games.
Her goal is to continue getting fitter and pushing the boundaries on what
her body can accomplish. And though CrossFit takes up a lot of her time and
focus, there will always be room for hockey.

“I will always love the friendships I’ve made at these camps, whether it
was developmental camps or U18 camps, and some of the senior camps,” she
says. “You meet people from across the country and you learn a lot from
them. I got to travel to Europe and had some great experiences playing
against some great European teams. I cherish those memories.”