When Garrett Jenkins was a three-sport athlete for Lyle-Pacelli, he worked out every day in the weight room.

But now he’s thinking he may have not been reaching his full potential back then and he’s hoping to share his knowledge with youths in Austin. Jenkins recently started teaching a CrossFit class for kids ages 5-13 at Total Fitness and he’s enjoying the chance to work with a younger class.

Jenkins, who graduated from Pacelli in 2011, was active in football, baseball and golf in high school and he said he’s now starting to notice some training mistakes he may have had when he was younger.

“I was stuck doing the routine stuff in the weight room my whole high school career,” Jenkins said. “One thing I really neglected was squatting. I wanted the big muscles and the beach muscles. That didn’t really help me too much on the football field. I could shove kids around, but if I needed to use my legs, I was toast.”

Jenkins, who is a certified instructor in CrossFit, decided that a CrossFit class for kids was a good idea when he noticed how some kids would show interest when they came in during their parents’ workouts.

“We have so many parents here that bring their kids in and the kids had to sit on the bench and watch,” Jenkins said. “Usually they’d be interested and watch what there parents were doing. I figured this was a great opportunity to get kids into CrossFit because they’re already interested in it.”

When parents and kids both get involved in CrossFit, it gives them something in common and helps build a bond. Jenkins said he started to gain interest in CrossFit due to conversations with his parents — Mark and Jennifer Jenkins, who run Total Fitness.

“Something that really got me involved in CrossFit was sitting down at the dinner table and talking about what we did that day,” Jenkins said. “It brought us all together and it gave us a connection to talk about something.”

Jenkins expected about 10 kids to sign up and fill up one class, but there have been nearly 20 kids who have signed up since the program began in early March and there are now two separate classes for kids. He’s hoping that the program will continue in the summer and that some of the kids will stick with it long enough to emerge as group leaders.

“It’s nice to guide them and teach them how to do things,” Jenkins said. “The best thing is to get the kids used to it.They get active and they get to participate. I try to relate the parents’ class with the kids class so they’re working on the same things at the same time.”

To contact Jenkins for a class, he can be reached at 507-481-7797 or the Full Force CrossFit Facebook page.