Introduction Series Part 2 - My Fitness Background

Previously, I shared my testimony of how God transformed my life. As I said then, it's critical that you know that story first, because that is the primary influence for the coaching and advice that I share. For me, God is first, and then everything else comes after. But that doesn’t mean I am unallowed to pursue being good at something else too; in fact, I believe that God encourages us to be good at certain things on this Earth if we do it for His glory. And it's my goal to help you achieve that when it comes to your health and taking care of the body He gave you.

So how do I do that? Glad you asked…

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As I mentioned previously, I’m a big sports guy. Starting in kindergarten, my parents enrolled me in flag football, basketball, and soccer. Having games every Saturday morning year after year was by far one of the highlights of my childhood. By the end of elementary school, I trimmed out soccer and focused on just football and basketball through middle school, and then stuck with only basketball from high school on. I wasn’t good enough to play at the college level, so I settled to just play pick-up games for the rest of my life :)

During my junior year of high school, I suffered a meniscus injury that landed me in physical therapy for a few weeks. It was during this time that my passion for taking care of the human body was sparked. I was greatly intrigued by the idea of exercise as a means for improving health. When it came time to decide on college shortly after, I chose to go to Campbell University and pursue my Bachelor’s of Exercise Science.

I started my freshman year on campus during the Fall of 2019. College quickly became my dream come true. Every day, I would eat unlimited food at the cafeteria, go to class to learn about the human body and exercise, head to the gym to work out for 3 hours, maybe do a little homework, sleep, and then do it all over again. Everything was moving quite swimmingly…

…Until it wasn’t. 7 months later, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world. I went back to Virginia for a bit, then back on campus, then got married a year later and moved off campus…safe to say, my undergraduate experience was not smooth sailing. There were lots of unprecedented experiences, and I learned a lot about being flexible yet undeterred. And in December of 2022, I finally received my diploma, completing my Bachelor’s of Exercise Science with a Minor in Health and Wellness.

Despite a lot of turbulence during these few years, my personal desire for fitness and nutrition steadily grew throughout the entire time. I played less and less organized sports and replaced that with lifting weights. The “Iron Bug” truly bit me, and bit me good. There was (and still is) something about that iron knurling digging into my hands that makes me feel at home. You may not understand that, but it's the same thing a musician would say with their favorite guitar in hand, or a surgeon with their lucky scalpel. For me, it's a barbell.

And when you love something like this so innately, it drives you to want to know literally everything you can about it: all the in’s and out’s, how best to practice it, and so on. So when I wasn’t busy with everything else going on in my life, I consumed as much information as I could from many of the great minds and fitness content producers on the internet. The first guy I ever watched on Youtube was Jeff Nippard, and from there I branched out to consume information from Dr. Mike with Renaissance Periodization, John Meadows, Eric Helms, Layne Norton, Joe Bennett, Menno Henselmans, Brad Schoenfeld, and many others. 

I combined this information with the material I studied in my undergraduate courses to apply science to weightlifting. I didn’t go into the gym to just work out, I began training, and there’s a big difference between the two. My initial goals at the beginning of college were to compete in powerlifting, but that transitioned later to my current goal of competitive bodybuilding. As I entered the gym day after day, month after month, I used science to dictate my training programs, the techniques I was employing to each exercise, the volume and frequency and types of exercises I was choosing, my nutrition and recovery, and so much more detail that would take me way too long to describe right now. 

And as I applied scientific principles over periods of time, I would look back on my training and ask critical questions: how well did I execute this principle in my training? Did I see progress? If I did, how can I apply this again in the future? If my progress was subpar, how can I do better next time? What other variables could I play around with to optimize my training better?

Asking questions like that is critical when pursuing actually being good at something. If we don’t bring this same energy to refining our relationship with God, our relationship with Him will most certainly be poor. Funny how He designed our pursuits for other hobbies and careers to be a mini reflection of this…

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As we approach the present day, I’ve been on a mission to not selfishly hog this knowledge and experience to myself. As I concluded my Bachelor’s degree, I also became a Certified Personal Trainer through the American Council on Exercise (ACE). Since November of 2022, I have been working full time as an in-person and online personal trainer, using my experience to help clients achieve their health and fitness goals. 

I also understand that to truly be the best coach I can be, I have to constantly be refining my techniques. So I pour in time to critically look back on the work I do, looking for trends in the results I’ve had with clients, admit where I went wrong, study new research that’s published, tweak my wording and approach when cueing exercises, and so much more.

To be effective, thats what it takes.

To wrap up this story, I want you to understand that my fitness background is a deeply intertwined web of science, personal experimentation, and real coaching experience.

I truly cherish the opportunity to come alongside people to learn with them and help them grow!