MAY 2025
This month’s member spotlight is on the humble, friendly and super speedy Peter Hoffman!
This hard working dad got his start in May of 2022.
He is as humble and friendly as they come, even when he is zooming past us in workouts like a gazelle!
Peter’s main goal when he started in 2022 was to get into a fitness community to give him more socialization post pandemic and to switch up his basement kettlebell routine.
3 years later Peter has certainly found a down to earth community to workout with and a more robust fitness routine to keep his ultra high fitness levels growing.
Peter consistently shows up to class 3-4 times each week and is a proud member of our 250 class club, fast approaching the 500 class club!
For these reasons and many more, Peter has been chosen as our member of the month for May!
Read all about Peter and his amazing Fit2Live journey below!
Tell us a little about yourself, where you’re from, what you do outside of Fit2Live, family, hobbies, etc.
I’m from Chicagoland (Lisle, IL) and have been in Ann Arbor for four years by way of a stint in Durham, NC. I’m a fortunate husband to a brilliant woman/mom/physician named Liz. We have one son, Gabriel, who is 4. During this chapter in our life being a dad is where most of my time is spent.
If I can’t get to the gym, chances are good I get out for a run, walk, or a bike ride.
Outside of that and working on photography and art, I just try to spend as much time with family, as well as new and old friends as much as possible. I also like to read, mostly long-form journalism and novels. A favorite part of the morning is usually pulling espresso shots for Liz and I.
When and why did you get started at Fit2Live?
Around the summer of 2022, I think?
I did CrossFit back in Illinois starting in 2011 for about two years, but since then have mostly trained on my own. During the pandemic and while I was home with Gabriel I was limited to a set of kettlebells and a rower. As soon as we found some part time care for him I decided switch up both my programming and my environment.
What do you like most about Fit2Live, what keeps you coming back?
The people, both the coaches and the members. But also, the philosophy and programming. I’ve experienced a wide array of approaches to CrossFit but Fit2Live is the sort of more sustainable approach that I was looking for. When I first visited, Ryan confirmed they don’t generally swing kettlebells overhead (if you know, you know). Then I knew this place would be a good fit.
You are quite the accomplished photographer. Can you tell us more about your photography?
How did you get started with photography, what is your style, favorite shots, what stories are you trying to tell, anything and everything you want to share?
In high school I started photographing my friends in bands and skateboarding. After that, the beautiful landscapes when I studied in New Zealand. That got me work as a photojournalist at the University of Illinois student newspaper. I worked at some other newspapers, studied art and documentary photography at different universities, then did some teaching and a lot of freelance work and then last year was a journalism fellow here at UM.
So my background (at least within the small world of photography) is pretty varied, but at all of these places I’ve been most focused on documentary photography and people’s relationships to the environment – while at the same time doing everything from photographing professional sports to protests to politicians, CEOs, authors and artists and whoever else might show up in a magazine.
That said, I think my work is most fully realized in the small runs of artist books I’ve made, as opposed to making photos for a magazine piece. I’m currently working on my third book, and it draws on pictures from the last eight years and is somewhat autobiographical, which is a new thing for me.
All of that aside, my favorite story is that I met Liz through a job photographing her mom for the Guardian. If that wasn’t some confirmation for choosing the absurd career that I chose, I don’t know what could be.
My website is www.peterghoffman.com for anyone who is curious. I recently started sending out little meditations on photography, which you can sign up for under Letters if you’re interested!
What is a fun fact or hobby that you have that someone might not know about you?
I have an unhealthy interest in denim (yes, the fabric), and I know too much about the jeans and jackets Levi’s made from around 1890 through around 1960 and then the small, mostly Japanese brands that make amazing reproductions and new designs inspired by the clothing of this era.
This happened in part because years ago I did a job for a travel magazine where I visited a denim mill in North Carolina that was Levi’s last domestic denim supplier. I got to meet the people making the best stuff you could get, and their passion rubbed off on me. Meeting those workers got me really interested in the history and craft of American jeans, but soon after I did that job, Levi’s outsourced the remainder of their production, and the plant— really a historic place— closed down. It was a big loss, and it wasn’t even that long ago. Efforts to revive the facility and the looms and the skills needed to run them have mostly faltered since then.
After that happened, I learned that no place and people did a better job of keeping that spirit alive than the artisans in Japan.
If you could travel to any place in the world tomorrow, where would you go and what would you do?
I’d love to take my family to show them some of my favorite places and meet some old friends in New Zealand. A camper van and a few weeks to travel would be great.
If I’m on my own, I’d go to Japan and visit some shopkeepers and makers that I’ve corresponded with online (and given my money to) over the years. I wouldn’t come home empty-handed.
Other places high on my list are Norway, Morocco, and Portugal.
If you could make the workout “Peter”, what would it look like (movements, repetitions, etc.)?
It’s weather-dependent.
Warm, summer day version:
For time from a beach parking lot.
Ruck 40-lb inflatable stand-up paddleboard backpack 200 yards to the beach.
Pump it up manually.
Paddle one mile along the coast against the wind, turn around, paddle one mile back.
Deflate board, roll it up, pack it up, ruck it 200 yards back to the car.
Bad weather day:
I’ll do a grinding take on Helen, which is my favorite benchmark WOD.
3 rounds for time:
Run 800 meters
21 heavy kettlebell swings (40/32kg)
7 ring muscle-ups
Favorites!
For all of these, they are “a favorite” as opposed to “the” favorite.
Favorite Movie: Banshees of Inisherin.
TV Show: The Patriot.
Song: Reckless Burning by Jesse Sykes + The Sweet Hereafter.
Book: Septology by Jon Fosse.
Quote: “There are so many stories more beautiful than answers” – Mary Oliver.
What daily habit has changed your life for the better?
Wake up early and make time to either meditate or write (with a pen and paper, no screen). Ideally I’ll do both, but it can be tough. This does not happen every day, but a majority of the time.
What future fitness goal are you currently working towards?
I am just trying to stay sustainably healthy and fit and not get hurt!
That said, I would love it if I could get a strict bar muscle-up at some point, but it is pretty darn tough and I’m not getting any younger…
NEXT UP: DORSA GHAFFARI, MEMBER OF THE MONTH APRIL 2025!
