CrossFit, it turns out. And five years in the Marine Corps doesn't hurt.
Former Sgt. Candice Wagner did all of the above and more last summer during a taping of "Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge," a reality TV show on CMT hosted by the retired WWE Hall of Fame wrestler that's in the middle of its third season. Wagner outlasted seven other women with military experience, then conquered the show's 10-obstacle "Skullbuster" course in record time to take home $10,000. The episode aired Feb. 28.
An instructor and co-owner with CrossFit Iron Horse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wagner wrapped up her Marine Corps service in 2010. She worked on C-130s as a flight equipment technician and was a martial-arts instructor for her last two years in uniform.
Former Marine Sgt. Candice Wagner takes down her opponent during a first-round event in "Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge." Wagner would advance after the dust settled.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of CMT
"I kind of found CrossFit, and I just wanted to open my own gym," she told Marine Corps Times. "I think it's the best training out there for general preparedness."
"General" was an understatement for Wagner's tasks during the TV taping. No stranger to cameras seeing her sweat — she's appeared on ESPN2 in the CrossFit Games and on the NBC Sports Network as part of the National Pro Grid League — the CMT show offered a brand-new vibe, including the constant encouragement and commentary from Austin.
"He kind of went out of his way to talk to us," the 31-year-old said. "He wasn't just going through the motions with the production. He really made an effort. I thought that was really nice."
Wagner defeated her first-round foe in a grappling contest, with the winner being the first to remove a Velcro strap from each of her opponent's ankles. She won a second-round race where both contestants shouldered yokes that were weighed down by metal chains, then reached the Skullbuster by dragging a stone the size of a truck tire over a series of ramps before pushing her final opponent out of a sand pit.
Not diverse enough? The Skullbuster included a quarter-mile run carrying what looked like a tree trunk, a cargo-net climb, rope swing, Z-shaped monkey bars and other obstacles. It ended with a rope climb, but not before a trek up a steep hill ... and a slide down the other side.
Candice Wagner
Photo Credit: Courtesy of CMT
"I told myself when I went into it, 'There's 10 grand on the line. … I'm going to throw my body down that hill,' " Wagner said, "And the safest way to do that was to do a little, almost a sliding-into-home-base thing. That's what I told myself I was going to do and I did it, and I got a big strawberry on my backside to prove it."
Austin praised her sliding technique, as well as what he called "powerful-ass legs." Some Marines eyeing upcoming fitness tests may be more interested in her powerful-ass arms — Wagner said she can do 20 or 21 straight pullups (50 or so with a "kip"), and believes it's time the exercise becomes gender-nonspecific.
"I think it's the Marine Corps — they have to be able to do pullups," she said. "And if they can't do pullups, they shouldn't be in the Marine Corps. And I know that's really harsh to say, but they need to prepare for life. And if they're in combat, especially now that they've changed some things, they have to be able to hold their own and help others as well, and part of that is having that upper body strength, the ability to do that.
"They should never lower the standard just to make sure people reach it. They need to keep the standards high and have people work for it."
Wagner didn't offer any super-secret workouts to boost pullup numbers and kept her advice simple: "It's just like anything else: If you want to get better at running, you run. If you want to get better at pullups, you've got to do pullups. ... There's a bunch of different modifications to work up to that, but they've just got to do them."
The episode is available here, though a valid cable-provider account is required.
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
