Before I was a trainer I was a physical therapy technician. Before I was a physical therapy technician I was a college soccer player. Before I was a college soccer player I was a kid in Macomb, Michigan who liked moving more than sitting and saw most problems as something to be solved with both feet on the ground.
The fracture
A college soccer match ended with a fractured femur. The largest bone in my body, snapped. I lost my ability to run, to lift, to walk to my car without thinking about it. I lost the version of my life that had assumed those things would always be free.
What I gained instead — eventually, and not all at once — was a useful kind of empathy. I learned what it feels like to walk into a gym and not know if your body will keep its end of the bargain. I learned what it feels like to be told to "go easy" by people who weren't watching. I learned what real, careful, educated coming-back looks like, because I had to do it on myself first.
The decision
My time as a physical therapy technician taught me the medical side — how surgeries are sequenced, what muscles go quiet around an injured joint, what the rehab milestones actually mean in real life and not just on a chart. My kinesiology degree gave me the science. My own recovery taught me the temperament: slow, specific, kind.
Becoming a personal trainer wasn't a career pivot. It was the obvious next sentence. I had spent years either being the body that was hurt or working with the bodies that were. Coaching meant I got to be in the room earlier — sometimes before a planned surgery, sometimes long after one, sometimes for someone who'd never been hurt at all but just wanted a person to write their plan around their life.
The session that confirmed it
"Without my help he wouldn't have been able to walk. His recovery was much easier thanks to the program I gave him before surgery."
A client came to me before his knee surgery, skeptical. I told him what the research says and what I'd seen in clinic — that pre-surgical strength makes recovery dramatically easier. We worked together for eight weeks. He walked into the operating room stronger than he'd been in a year. His physical therapist could tell, in the first session after, that he'd come in with a base. The recovery moved faster than his surgeon predicted.
That was the session that made it real. Not the certification. Not the diploma. The fact that a real human walked out of his own surgery more capable than he walked in, because I'd written the right plan for him in the eight weeks before. That is the work I want to do every day for the rest of my career.
What I stand against
Before-and-after shame. The whole "look at this person's body, now look at yours" industry. I think it's the single worst thing the fitness world does, and I refuse to participate in it.
One-size-fits-all programs. The downloadable PDF that worked for somebody with three nannies and a chef is not going to work for you. That's not a character flaw. That's math.
Fake accountability. A text from an app that just says "did you train today?" is not accountability. A person who actually knows your knee, your week, and your kid's soccer schedule — that's accountability.
A few unexpected things
- ✦ I collect records. The energy song for the studio right now is Green Light by Lorde, on vinyl.
- ✦ My ideal weekend is a long hike, a sport I used to be good at, and a thick book.