Personal Training
I began working in exercise at Indiana University during undergraduate school after high school athletics and a fairly average experience in the weight-room of a Midwestern small town. As a sophomore I took my first gym job and within months transferred from the intro level service associate-type position into the 1-on-1 customer relations and fitness coaching role. Since then, I’ve led small-group personal training in and out of the gym, big box-gym group exercise classes, cross-training fitness studios, and maintained the personal training role while taking on various levels of administrative responsibility. I’ve worked in the “apparently healthy” fitness industry at some capacity since 2009 for a variety of health clubs and gym chains and on my own privately. Gaining instrumental service industry skills and understanding of professional relationships, my training experiences now include a client base all the way from retired professional athletes and executives in their homes, outdoors in parks, or in luxury health clubs to working in outpatient cardiac rehabilitation programs and privately consulting for bariatric and metabolic disease clinics.
In addition to growing up with chronic health issues like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes and seeing the effects with my family and friends, I also grew up working on large-scale industrial farms and in the fields. Soybean mills, corn fields, hog and veal operations, construction and landscaping sites –chemically treating everything in our paths. I could clearly see that poor lifestyle choices, poor environmental choices, and decreasing health trends were growing a span without borders- all the way across America and into nearly every society around the world. Lifestyle diseases in America are still paving the way for a better breed of exercise and wellness professional worldwide. At the same time that social media was interconnecting communities around the world, I watched as more and more foundations, organizations, and regulatory departments began to accept exercise as medicine throughout the first decade of my career. I knew the certification route would lend me a high-percentage chance to easily find work throughout my journey and in pretty much any location it might take me. I also knew I wanted to set myself apart from others by combining my hands-on experience as an athlete with the professionalism of a well-educated health expert.
The demand for personalized exercise prescription continues to increase and the big players of the medical industry are changing their stance on exercise. The market for quality exercise professionals and interventions is exploding. Physicians are growing tired of recommending exercise with no avail, hospital administrations are looking for ways to promote and improve quality of patient care, and the health insurance industry wants to improve treatment outcomes in order to cut their costs and minimize post-treatment complications. We’re seeing more investment in health and wellness than ever before. Simultaneously, on another front, we are watching as accessibility to healthy lifestyle resources becomes only an option to those of the higher socioeconomic classes. Hence, more government involvement and more investment (though, often times with the right idea but in the wrong manner). Foreseeing this angle of the industry’s movements led me in multiple attempts to solve the issues of inaccessibility to quality exercise information. I’ve conceptualized and built programs with the specific goal of servicing underprivileged populations at affordable costs and established bridges from community centers, local clinics, etc. to gyms, outdoor activity programs, and other exercise resources.
The falling level of quality life due to musculoskeletal pain and discomfort along with the chronic disease and unhealthy lifestyle choices across the US will continue to be job security for me as a well-educated and experienced exercise professional. For the most part I’ve moved away from the gym and practice personal training and fitness coaching on my own. Entrepreneurship has grown to be a powerful motivator for me and my passion for being successful will drive me to one day become my own full-time boss. No matter what that may look like, I’ll always value personal training and working closely with individuals to understand what motivates others to be success and achieve their goals. My philosophy on fitness continues to evolve, as does my own personal pursuit of health and happiness, through every client, patient, or participant I work with.