Switchplay Hybrid Games: The Afternoon 120 Women Found Out They Were Stronger Than They Thought
Some rooms teach you how to stretch. This one taught 120 women how far they could actually go.
By two in the afternoon, the floor at Ommo Athletica in O-Square, Greenhills was already loud with the particular kind of nervous energy that shows up right before something new. Women in pairs and small groups stood near the stations, sizing up the equipment, sizing up each other, sizing up themselves. Nobody in that room was pretending they weren’t a little intimidated. That was the whole point of being there.
Switchplay Hybrid Games brought close to 120 women through the doors of Ommo Athletica for an afternoon that had very little to do with looking a certain way while working out, and everything to do with finding out what your body can do when someone finally hands you the right kind of push. This was hybrid fitness, the kind that blends strength, conditioning, and functional movement into one demanding, humbling, deeply satisfying format, and for a large share of the women in the room, it was the first time they had ever tried it.
That first-timer energy set the tone for the whole day. Divisions were split into Beginner and Intermediate/Advanced, which meant nobody was thrown into a station they weren’t ready for, but everybody was asked to push past where they thought their edge was. A woman pulling her very first ski-erg stood two stations away from an athlete stacking plates for a heavier lift, and somehow both of them left the same station with the same look on their face. That look said: I did not know I had that in me.
Behind every station stood one of three coaches keeping the floor safe enough to take risks in. Coach Cilyn Monteverde, a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer and HYROX Group Instructor who recently returned to coaching after becoming a mother, moved through the room like proof that strength gets rebuilt at every stage of a woman’s life. Coach Stef Lim, a registered nurse and functional fitness coach, kept her cues approachable enough for a first ski-erg pull and still demanding enough for a returning athlete. Coach Raissa “Coach Ra” Teano, a strength and running specialist known for her science-based approach, stayed close to every station, correcting form in real time and reminding the room that fitness is about building a body that lasts, not surviving one hard afternoon. Between the three of them, nobody worked through a station without someone watching, demonstrating, and cheering them through it.
What Happened Between the Stations
The stations were the structure of the day. The moments between them were the heart of it.
Strangers ended up coaching each other through the hardest stations, shouting out counts, holding out a hand, staying an extra few seconds just to make sure the woman next to them finished her set. A woman who came in solo left with three new numbers saved in her phone. Training partners who arrived together left having pushed each other further than either would have gone alone, one of them cheering louder for her friend’s set than her own. More than one woman admitted afterward that she almost didn’t sign up, that hybrid training looked intimidating from the outside, and that showing up anyway turned out to be the actual win of the day, regardless of what her scorecard said. By the second division, the loudest cheers in the room weren’t for the fastest times. They were for the woman finishing her last rep a full minute after everyone else, refusing to stop before the set was done.
By the time the last station wrapped, the room had shifted. Water stations from SIP kept everyone upright through the heat of the afternoon, cold Monster Energy waiting for the ones who needed one more push before the final round, and the Energe Wellness recovery tables filling up fast with women stretching out muscles they didn’t know they had. Fitbar and Carman’s kept the energy up between stations, and more than a few women left wearing Rudy Project shades against the late afternoon sun, already talking about when the next one would be.
What They Carried Out With Them
Ask around the room afterward and the answers sounded remarkably alike, even from women who had never met before that day. The games humbled me. I can do hard things. I didn’t expect it to be this fun, especially in a room this supportive. Fitness looks different on every woman in here, and that’s exactly why it worked.
That last one is the truest thing to come out of the SwitchPlay Hybrid Games. The women trying hybrid fitness for the first time became an inspiration simply by walking through the door and staying for every station. The seasoned athletes in the room became an inspiration too, showing everyone else what it looks like to keep chasing more even after years of showing up. Nobody left without someone else’s effort pushing them forward.
There is no one way to be a fit woman, and on July 11, Ommo Athletica held the proof of that in one room.
This article is written by Mercedes Litton