This weeks wednesday write up is also this month’s athlete spotlight. When we decided on who to feature this month I started thinking about them and what they represent to me and to Outlier. It got me thinking, after more than ten years working in the fitness industry I know I am in the game for the same reason as the day I started.
One Saturday night more than a decade ago, my friends and I were spending a normal evening hanging out and we were talking about what classes we had planned on taking in the upcoming semester. My friends older brother had just seen a guidance counselor and was telling us about his major and the plan with the classes. He asked my friend what he was majoring in, he replied that he was planning to major in an art degree as he was a very talented artist. He said he didn’t know what he planned to do with that degree just that he knew it needed to be related to art because that is what he loved. The older brother turned to me and asked, “What about you Paul? What are you majoring in?” I didn’t really have an answer since I didn’t have a major and didn’t have an end point decided yet. He then asked me one of the simplest but most memorable questions of my life, “Do you want to screw people over, or help people?” With a solid chuckle I replied with, “Help people of course.” He knew that since high school I got into eating well and exercising a fairly significant degree. In knowing that he made a suggestion set the rest of my life in motion. “You are really into nutrition and stuff these days, why don’t you get a degree like a dietitian or an athletic trainer or something?”
With that comment the wheels started spinning. That following monday I went into the guidance counselor’s office to figure out the path to take. I sat down and looked at the options that I had available. The counselor showed me the path for being a dietitian, athletic trainer, physical therapist, physical education teacher and for a personal trainer. The nice lady asked me what type of person I wanted to work with. Do I want to work with children? Do I want to work with athletes? Do I want to work with elderly? I told her that I wanted to work with the average person.
I wanted to help regular people become more than they thought they could be, through the avenue of eating better and exercise. I finished high school loosing 20lbs and rebuilding who I thought I was through those means and I loved it. I wanted to help mothers and fathers become better examples of how to live for their children and to be there longer for those children. For those children to carry on these principles and push forward the belief that in this giant world where there is so little you can directly control and make a difference, at least you can control how you take care of yourself.
The day after I met with the counselor and decided to go down the route to become a personal trainer I went into the 24 Hour Fitness I worked out at and tracked down the manager (…literally, he wasn’t at the gym but the front desk girl told me he was at a meeting down the road at a different location… so like any normal person would do, rather than leaving a note, I drove over there and waited for him to come out and told him I wanted to work for him and asked how I went about doing that). He gave me a list of certifications that I needed to get before he would hire me. About a month later I returned with certs in hand and started working as a personal trainer.
My methods have varied and changed throughout the years. From traditional bodybuilding, more modern “functional fitness” and into this crazy CrossFit thing we do… and the many many versions of that there have been. I have taken myself through all sorts of journeys from losing 20lbs in high school, the first time I took my string bean frame of 185lbs and going up to 245lbs in an attempt to “get jacked!” Then Deciding to do a bodybuilding show and taking myself down to 200lbs and 5% bodyfat. After that, I decided to focus on olympic lifting and gained back 25lbs. I lived around 225 for a while and about 4 years ago I decided to give lifting heavier another shot and gained another 25 lbs in order to compete better. Nowadays I’ve returned to the focus on training to be fit and not focusing on competition because competition isn’t long term, it isn’t where the love for what I do came from. I’ve coached people through losing 100+ lbs, including my mother who was my first “success story” she lost 60lbs in a “biggest loser” competition at her work! I’ve helped ladies and guys gain 20-40+ lbs of muscle and watched them go from “physically useless” (like they couldn’t pick up their dog and get theminto their car or they couldn’t work a full day of work at the hospital without being in excruciating pain) to being able to deadlift 200+lbs and having 20+ pull ups and being able to out overhead squat most guys in the gym! It’s watching the regular person that never thought of themselves as anything physically special, building and loving the new them that is what keeps me going and hearing the stories of how their lives have changed forever that makes all this absolutely amazing. When regular people make changes like that people notice, and those people just might get a glimmer of hope to push themselves off the couch and into the gym to make their change. It’s that dominoe effect of taking control of yourself and others following along is how you change the world… at least that is what I thought back more than ten years ago. I still think that to this day. I have always said that any success a client has with this stuff is 95% percent credit do to them and 5% me. I can’t make anyone change but I can show them the way. That 5% feels pretty amazing though with some of the stories and things you see when you do this long enough.
Once I tell you who we are writing up this month you will see why I rambled a little bit extra… This month we are featuring not one but three members! Lara Storm and her little ones Micah and Riley! Lara has been with us for almost exactly a year now and she is doing amazing. She has had a few aches and pains happen throughout her journey but she hasn’t let that stop her. She always gives her workouts everything she has and is learning the ropes very well. Recently she got her 14 year old son into CrossFit (sorry if I got that wrong Micah). It isn’t uncommon to see them sharing a rack and battling over who is going to lift more that day. Micah is nothing but a sponge looking to soak up as much knowledge about all that we do. Most kids would be intimidated by being in a class with the adults. Micah always has a smile (except on double-under days) and chats along with those around him. Riley is Lara’s youngest who is a part of the Thursday CrossFit Kid’s crew. We have a solid crew of about 7 little ladies and a little dude that rock the gym and are learning early a love for fitness and the camaraderie and friendships we build here at Outlier. Seeing multiple generations of a family working to be better and having a great time. The Storm family is exactly the people that I wanted to work with when I started this thing over a decade ago and I couldn’t feel luckier to know and work with them!
Coach P