West LA Athletics

🎉 Congratulations to Dutch and Chris on their incredible performances at the 2026 Masters CrossFit Games last week in San Jose!

Chris finished 13th in the world in the 55–59 division—at 59 years old—and Dutch finished 9th in the world in the 60–64 division. Over three days, they competed in six events.

Chris’s highlights included crushing the row and handstand-walk workout and coming from behind to win his heat in the final DT workout on Day 3.

Dutch started the competition with an impressive 4th-place finish in Workout 1 and took 1st place in the handstand portion of Workout 3.

July Member Spotlight: Cat Rogers Q&A 👇

When did you start Crossfit?
I started Crossfit in 2015. My friend had a groupon and asked if I wanted to join her for a class. Not knowing much about Crossfit, I showed up. I never thought 11 years later I would be here still doing what I love. 

When did you join WLA? 
When I joined WLA in April 2022, I recently moved to LA for a change and needed to get back into the gym asap lol. After a few trials and searches, I came across WLA and knew from the first class this would be the gym for me.

Favorite movement? 
My favorite movements would be heavy power cleans, rope climbs and/or any gymnastic movements really. I wouldn’t even mind doing a workout with burpees.

Least favorite workout? 
Anything with heavy squats, dual dumbbell workouts, wall balls and cals on the bike ( #1 least favorite lol).
 
What do you love about WLA? 
Community is what I love about WLA. It’s the number one reason why I joined this gym. I’ve created life long friendships these last four years and am so grateful for all the memories/future fun to come. But also Jess’ programming and the coaches help, it’s nothing like I’ve had before and I personally feel that I have improved so much (but still have so much to learn and work on).

June Member Spotlight: Michael Drell Q&A 👇

When did you start CrossFit?
You usually wouldn’t know it from the leaderboard (particularly on Mondays), but I started CrossFit 15 years ago in July 2011 when I joined the UCLA Cheer Squad, as our team trainer was a CrossFit coach (thanks, Stacey!).  I’ve continued CrossFit almost non-stop since then, including after graduating from UCLA, through law school on the East Coast, and after moving back to LA.

When did you join WLA? 
I (finally) joined WLA at the end of January 2024.  My old gym, DogTown, shut down in October 2022, and I spent a little over a year after that primarily trying out a non-CF strength gym.  I wasn’t happy with the (lack of) results, so after a drop-in (with Coach Chris) and hearing everyone’s favorite fist-bumper talk up WLA for a year and a half, I dove back into CrossFit and have no plans to stop. 

Favorite movement?
Gymnastics (particularly RMU, BMU, pull-ups, HSPU, and pistols…plus pull-overs), Olympic lifting (in the 1-2 rep range), and double unders. 

Least Favorite workout? 
Anything with wall balls, thrusters, or double DB box step-overs.  I’m working on hating the bike less, mostly through exposure therapy from how often we use it…