As a child, Blanco was often called “husky” and always picked last in kickball. He battled with his weight, a struggle that would follow him into adulthood. Fifteen years ago, weighing an impressive 280 pounds, Blanco found himself at a crossroads. In one direction was continued unhappiness and ill health. In the other was the hard road to fitness. After struggling through a series of false starts, including a diet named after a Miami beach and some questionable pharmaceutical remedies, he found CrossFit.

Since then, he has shed 100 pounds and is in the best shape of his life. Blanco is truly happy to share his experience and help other people along the road to transformation!

Blanco has a secret identity as an opera singer… for real!  Never challenge him to a karaoke showdown!

CrossFit Level 2 Trainer
CrossFit Gymnastics
CrossFit Kettlebell
CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting
CrossFit Endurance
CrossFit Kids
USAW Sports Performance Coach
USAW Advanced Sports Performance Coach
USAW Club Coach
USAW National Coach
CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Seminar Staff

The myth of Ariel Fernandez begins in Queens, New York, where he is rumored to have grown up amongst many brothers (perhaps as many as 5!) Details are sketchy, but we hear he attended Baruch College, and played baseball in the minor leagues (a story that may serve to explain his immense strength.) A true New Yorker, Ariel still lives in Queens and subjects himself to the horrors of the LIE and the BQE to bring us his coaching magic.

As a member of Team Virtuosity, Ariel went to the CrossFit Games in 2014. His training regimen is impressively extensive. He claims to be training for this year’s Games season, but we suspect he’s really trying to steal away the strongest+stretchiest coach crown away from Elizabeth: we’ve seen him get absurdly close to full splits, as well as front squat over 400lbs.

Rob is a complete mystery to all of us. One day in about 2010, he appeared out of nowhere and wowed us with his kettlebell skills and uncanny resemblance to Patrick Swayze, so we decided to keep him. As a bonus, he now comes with a hot wife and an adorable kid*.

From our observations of Rob in the wild, we hypothesize that he is very knowledgable in the areas of building strength, gymnastics, working with athletes who are rehabbing injuries or have movement restrictions, and tattoo art.

*If you see a toddler running around doing handstands and l-sits on things, please return him to Rob.

Mike is a CrossFit OG. He’s been doing CrossFit since 2009, working out with us here at CFV since 2010, and coaching for us part-time since 2011 and full-time since 2016.

After competing in wrestling, track, basketball and football in high school, Mike fell upon hard times athletically speaking, spending his college career and several years afterwards “doing nothing, getting fat, and drinking a lot.” His return to form was an uphill battle, not made any easier by his former career in finance: he knows first hand the struggles of all you desk jockeys out there!

Mike particularly enjoys coaching new athletes because he gets to see them discover how fun and amazing CrossFit is both physically and mentally, and lend a helping hand when things seem a little daunting!

CrossFit Level 1 Trainer
CrossFit Kettlebell

Reggie has been a Virtuosity fixture since he joined our youth athletic program as a bright young 16-year-old looking to supplement his wrestling training with a strength and conditioning program.

After competing in wrestling throughout high school (and reaching a rank of 3rd in NYC!) Reggie turned his attention to Olympic Weightlifting. His passion and natural aptitude for the sport has led him to great success: he ranked 9th at Junior Nationals in 2014, and 11th at University Nationals in 2015, in addition to winning several local competitions.

Reggie began coaching for us as an assistant in 2012, and has grown into a passionate and dedicated member of our coaching staff. He is currently a student at Baruch College.

Noelle began her strength journey after she gave birth to twins, and found herself carrying around two increasingly heavy babies-slash-weights. Her resultant shoulder pain led her to an exploration of bodywork that (in typical Noelle no-half-measures style) became a career, turned her on to the world of physical culture in general, and eventually led her to try CrossFit with us.

In addition to being one of the most gifted bodyworkers we’ve ever had the privilege of having torture massage us, Noelle is a natural coach. She describes her coaching style as “your badass mom,” so expect some tough love!

Noelle specializes in working with older athletes, particularly women. She dreams of a world full of strong, kick-ass 40-, 50-, 60-, 70-, 80-, and 90-plus year-olds who are fully embracing their physicality and staying self-sufficient throughout their golden years!

A lifelong athlete, Morgan played almost every sport growing up in Austin, Texas before finding CrossFit in 2008.

Her casual training habit grew into a competitive CrossFit career with two top-100 finishes in the North East Region of the CrossFit Open (59th in 2016 and 68th in 2017) as well as a 4th-place finish at the 2017 North East Regional earning her a trip to the 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games in Madison, WI competing with Team CrossFit Queens at the highest level of the sport.

Morgan also started working as a nutrition coach in 2014 to share her knowledge and passion for helping others achieve active and healthy lifestyles.  Through her company, EMERGE, Morgan has helped hundreds of clients realize their nutrition and lifestyle goals through personalized coaching and meal planning, educating her clients with the knowledge and resources they need to have lasting, long-term and transformational success.

Morgan has coached CrossFit since 2014 and has a career-sized passion for helping people accomplish their goals both large and small.

CrossFit Level 1 Trainer
USAW Sports Performance Coach

Devin was introduced to CrossFit by a fellow baseball teammate in college who came across main site crossfit.com. After toying with CrossFit throughout college, he got serious about it after graduation. He watched pretty much every video in the CrossFit Journal and taught himself many of the basic movements.

After Equinox frowned upon his wall balls, handstand pushups, and cycling through multiple barbells, Devin found CrossFit Virtuosity and never looked back. After playing four years of college baseball and competing in 3 sports throughout high-school, it gave him something to continue to compete at.

Devin joined the CFV coaching program to both hone his skills and to help others in their athletic journey.

Kim’s first taste of CrossFit was a free intro class at a gym in the city. After a 5 minute talk, they put her through a 12 minute AMRAP of strict pull ups, kettlebell cleans, and sit ups. Needless to say, she was terrified. Six months passed before she decided to give it another go, this time at Virtuosity, and this time it stuck.

Kim signed up for On Ramp, and was quickly hooked. The only problem: she was leaving for a semester abroad immediately afterward. She decided that she needed to leave her mark on the leaderboard so that we would remember her while she was away. When Karen was programmed the day before she left, she was ecstatic. She completed the WOD with an 8lb ball in the morning and decided to come back later and do it RX, in record time. She came back at night after a power nap and protein shake, ready to kill it. 3,2,1..GO! She got about 30 reps Rx before the time cap was up. It probably took the entire eight months she was in Spain for her quads to recover, but she joined CFV when she returned to the States and hasn’t looked back since!