Cedarburg, Wisconsin Coach Tom Miazga Wins His Fifth Adaptive CrossFit Games Title

• Tom Miazga, a 35-year-old coach from Cedarburg, Wisconsin, won the Men’s Seated with Hip Function Division at the 2025 Adaptive CrossFit Games in Las Vegas for the fifth time, topping the podium in five of nine scored events.
• Miazga is also the reigning Adaptive HYROX World Champion, a title he won in only his second HYROX race, and he now coaches other trainers and gym owners on building real inclusion for disabled athletes.
• Born with cerebral palsy, Miazga first found competition as a Team USA Paralympic swimmer before switching to adaptive CrossFit, a path that shows what an accessible version of the hybrid fitness boom can look like.

A Swimmer Who Never Stopped Looking for the Next Podium

Tom Miazga still gets nervous before he competes, even after ten trips to the Adaptive CrossFit Games and a world title in a second sport. “I think that I get nervous before a competition. Always have and always will,” he told BOXROX this year. That nervous energy showed up again last weekend in Las Vegas, where Miazga won the Men’s Seated with Hip Function Division at the 2025 Adaptive CrossFit Games for the fifth time. He finished in the top three in all nine scored events, took first in five of them, and closed the weekend with 850 points out of a possible 900.

Miazga was born with spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy that affects the muscles in his legs, and he has spent most of his life in a wheelchair. Growing up in Cedarburg, a small city north of Milwaukee, he found his first outlet in the pool. “It almost felt like I had this place to call myself normal,” he said in an earlier interview with WISN, the Milwaukee ABC affiliate. He competed at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games in the 100-meter backstroke and 400-meter freestyle, and by the time he retired from swimming in 2015, he had collected 13 international medals, two Pan American records, and eight American records.

From the Pool to the Fittest Seated Man on Earth

Retirement from swimming did not slow him down. “The competitor in me wasn’t ready to be done,” Miazga said in that same WISN interview. He found CrossFit and has now competed at ten consecutive Adaptive CrossFit Games, earning the nickname “the Fittest Seated Man on Earth” along the way. His years as a swimmer built the aerobic base that still carries him through competition. “I was swimming almost every single day, sometimes twice a day, every day,” he told BOXROX. “There is no greater sport for cardiovascular training.” That discipline, he said, “is really what made me successful.”

The physical demands of adaptive training extend past the workout floor. Miazga relies on his shoulders, elbows, and wrists to move through daily life, not just to lift and pull in a workout. “My shoulders, my elbows and wrists are all well acclimated to being the primary mover of my body,” he told BOXROX. Years of pushing a wheelchair have conditioned his upper body for repeated work, but he still treats sleep, a high-protein diet, and recovery as part of the job. He also pays close attention to how each session actually feels rather than following a fixed plan.

A New Title in a Second Sport

CrossFit is not the only place Miazga has reached the top step this year. He also holds the Adaptive HYROX World Championship, a title he won in his second HYROX race ever and his first trip to the World Championships, held at the Strawberry Arena in Stockholm. He finished in one hour, three minutes and one second, and his next target is breaking the hour mark. HYROX’s fixed format of eight runs paired with eight functional stations gives Miazga something CrossFit’s constantly varied workouts do not. “I am a numbers guy, and I love being able to compare stats and compare performances across time,” he said. “So I love HYROX in that sense.”

That standardized format is also what makes HYROX’s adaptive division a real entry point for athletes with disabilities who want a race they can train for and measure themselves against year after year. Miazga has watched his own division grow more competitive over the past decade, and he counts that growth as a good thing. “I’ve seen our division grow so much more competitive over the last ten years,” he said. “That’s really cool.” He measures himself against his own past results now more than against the athletes next to him.

Coaching the Coaches

Miazga’s competitive résumé is only part of his story. He teaches CrossFit at Adapt and Conquer in nearby Grafton, Wisconsin, and coaches swimming at Ozaukee Aquatics and Whitefish Bay High School. He also serves on the seminar staff of the Adaptive Training Academy, traveling the country to train coaches, gym owners, and physical therapists on how to build fitness spaces that actually work for disabled athletes. His advice starts simple. “Don’t be afraid of the disability,” he said. Ask questions instead of guessing. A coach should learn how a person’s disability shapes daily life and training, what movements feel comfortable, and what that athlete actually wants out of the gym. “You’ll never know unless you ask those questions,” he said.

That same openness applies to anyone walking into a gym for the first time, disabled or not. “You only know what you know once you go out there and try,” Miazga said. His father, Bill Miazga, put it another way in the WISN interview: “To recognize the ability in everyone is probably the biggest lesson that Tom has driven home for all of us.” Miazga’s mother, Sue, said she has stopped worrying about what comes next for her son. “I don’t know what all will happen to Tom, but I’m not worried,” she said.

What Comes Next

Miazga has called this stretch his “summer of fitness,” a run of major competitions across both CrossFit and HYROX that has left him worn out but still wanting to race. He is not done adding to his plate. Later this year he plans to take on his first Ironman triathlon and the New York City Marathon, pushing his hybrid training into endurance events far outside the ten-station format that made him a world champion. Ten Adaptive CrossFit Games appearances have not taken the nerves away, and years at the top have not slowed his drive to improve. Asked what keeps him going, Miazga circled back to a single question: what else is possible.

For a hybrid fitness scene built on the idea that anyone can train for anything, Miazga’s path from a Wisconsin pool to two world titles is a reminder that accessible does not mean limited. His work with the Adaptive Training Academy means more gyms opening their doors this year will have a clearer idea of how to welcome the next wheelchair athlete who walks, or rolls, through the front door.