Dumping the Drugs: How CrossFit Freed Veronica Maull-Edwards From Pharmaceuticals

Out of breath and struggling just to bend over and tie her shoes, Veronica Maull-Edwards had had enough. She was tired of feeling worn down, tired of always struggling to handle the most basic physical tasks. As she leaned down and looped one shoelace around the other, she knew it was time to listen to her doctors. To her friends. To her family.

“You have to do something,” they told her. “You’ve spent so much time caring for others; it’s time for you to care for yourself,” she could hear them saying in her head.

Her breath had become labored. Her heart palpitations had returned. Her weight had reached 242 lb at 5-foot-7 and her clothing to a size 16. Her resting heart rate sat at 109 beats per minute.

So she did something — half-heartedly. She joined a big-box gym (although she rarely went). She bought all new equipment for her house, including a rower, a bike, dumbbells, and a jump rope, just to name a few. Many of those items and more are still in their original boxes today — after all, it was difficult to care when the world was crashing down around her.

Maull-Edwards had lost her mother to lymphoma in 2018. While she had been caring for her, Maull-Edwards’ adult son needed help raising his child, so she brought the baby home with her from Kansas City to care for as her own.

“I got back to Little Rock and I stopped taking care of myself,” she said. “My mom was my best friend. So what did I start doing? I started eating. Oreos. Anything I could think of I was eating just to make me feel good.”

But that wasn’t all.

At 5 years old, Maull-Edwards had to have heart surgery when an undiagnosed case of strep throat turned into rheumatic fever, damaging the valves in her heart. The years of stress from caring for others that followed only exacerbated the damage.

Her husband pleaded with her to get herself checked because of her ever-present heart condition. So in April 2018, she went to the cardiologist — and walked out with a discouraging diagnosis of tachycardia, a mandate to wear a heart monitor for 30 days, and a pile of prescriptions: 5 mg of atenolol and 12.5 mg of hydrochlorothiazide for high blood pressure, 120 mg of diltiazem for hypertension, 5 mg of lexapro for depression and anxiety, and 40 mg of omeprazole for acid reflux and ulcers.

Her cardiologist also had one remedy that did not come in a bottle.

“Just walk,” he told her. “Just do something to lose this weight. That will help you tremendously.”

It was now January 2022, and she was tired of the cycle of failure she felt stuck in. Not wanting to return to the big-box gym, where the motivation to move came only from herself, she decided to randomly call gyms in the Little Rock area, hoping to find the accountability she so badly needed. It didn’t matter what kind of gym it was, she just needed to find her place.

Maull-Edwards had no idea what happened inside a CrossFit gym. She knew nothing of the methodology, nothing of the community. But the phone call she made to CrossFit Midpoint was the start of the biggest change of her life.

CrossFit Midpoint owner and head coach Chris Summers almost didn’t answer the call. A fellow former Kansas City resident, the 816 area code that showed up looked like a spam call. But he picked up anyway.

“Veronica wanted to know about CrossFit and just had some basic questions,” Summers said. “We got talking, and I finally just told her to come in and it went from there.”

Her first day as a member of CrossFit Midpoint was Feb. 2, 2022. The workout was six one-minute squat-clean intervals at ascending weight for reps with a three-minute rest between each interval. A 10-minute weightlifting session of 5 x 3 cleans based off a 1-rep max followed.

Maull-Edwards never made it to the weightlifting complex.

CrossFit Midpoint programs three tracks for its clients, allowing everyone to find the right stimulus for themselves.

Summers guided Maull-Edwards through the “Gracious” track, which for this workout replaced the barbell squat cleans with dumbbell squat cleans ranging from 10 to 20 lb. Maull-Edwards used 15-lb dumbbells, squatting to a box and resting as needed rather than following the clock.

When her time was up, she had done between 7 and 10 reps during each working minute, was out of breath, and full of self-doubt. But her fellow athletes all stayed until she was finished, cheering her on.

“So what did I do? I came back the next day. And they cheered me on again,” she said. “Chris was very understanding. He worked with me. It just felt like home.”

And when the 2022 Open rolled around just three weeks later, that felt like home, too.

“I was doing the (jumping) pull-ups,” she said of Open Workout 22.3, “(and) I was tired. I was fatigued. Everyone else had finished, but they were all there cheering me on.”

From there, her confidence continued to build, both from the success she was seeing on the gym floor and at her doctor’s office.

Two months into CrossFit, she returned to the cardiologist for a checkup.

“He said things were kind of OK, but I needed to stay on the medication,” she said. “So I made a conscious effort that I was going to go all in with CrossFit.”

Summers and the rest of the coaches continued to work with Maull-Edwards, scaling workouts to her ability and making sure she was finishing under the time cap to meet the stimulus of the workout and continuing to build self-confidence.

Fast-forward to her next checkup on Aug. 30 and Maull-Edwards’ world was once again changed forever — this time for the better.

Back in her cardiologist’s office, she endured another round of EKG and ECG tests. When the results came back, the cardiologist hurriedly and excitedly called in his entire team.

“I thought something was wrong, but he said I did everything right,” she said. “I was going (to CrossFit) five days a week. Faithfully going. Giving it my all. I am not the fastest, but I was giving it 100 percent. Giving it 100 percent changed my life.”

Everything was so right that the doctor shared her before-CrossFit and after-CrossFit EKG and oxygen-level readings with his entire team, pointing out the drastic differences in her sinus rhythms. He also told her, in front of the crowd now assembled, that after a weaning period, she no longer needed to take her medication.

Her only prescription moving forward?

“Keep doing what you’re doing,” the cardiologist said. “You can come back in a year. That’s up to you. But if you have any problems, give me a call.”

“(Today), my resting heart rate is 79,” she said. “109 to 79! How does that happen? I can breathe, I can bend over and tie my shoes. I’m stronger than my husband. I can deadlift 215 pounds, and I’m 48 years old! I did three sets of 12 reps of clean and jerks at 85 pounds today.”

Maull-Edwards’ first stop after that joyful doctor’s appointment was CrossFit Midpoint to share the news with Chris; to hug him; to cry with him; to thank him.

“Chris is more than just a coach,” she said. “He cares. It’s about changing lives. He changed my life. CrossFit has changed my life.

“I’m not the fastest. Do I ever think that I will be? No. But they make accommodations for everybody. I’m just thankful to God that I have the strength to get up every morning and the mindset to do this.”

In a recent workout that involved 400- or 200-meter running intervals, she ran the first 400-meter interval without stopping.

“Of course I got tired and I had to (switch to) the 200 meters, but I say all that to say I would not be able to do all those things if it had not been for CrossFit,” she said. “Everyone there is like family. On some things I’m faster, on other things I’m slower. It doesn’t matter because I’m competing against myself.

Today, Maull-Edwards runs a business from her home making custom wreaths, manages Airbnb properties, and is a personal assistant to three clients. She’s also in a bowling league. And that grandson? She and her husband adopted him.

“I sleep better,” she said. “After my mom passed I had anxiety; I don’t have anxiety anymore. I feel great.”

“CrossFit has changed my life,” she continued, through tears. “I don’t know any other way to say it. It changed my life.”