Call me crazy, but when I first launched StudioFitLife.com and decided to add a blog section, I didn’t realize that I would actually have to write a blog. I guess it was more of an idea or even a wish and I did not take into consideration what it actually meant to start a blog.
Well, it’s been several months now and the blog section remains empty so the time has come to finally put pen to paper (or finger to keys) and transfer some thoughts from my brain to your screen.
Let me first say that I have no idea how to blog. Ok, here goes nothing.
How it all began.
Where to begin. There are a hundred ways that I could answer this question and it could lead to an autobiography about all of the things that happened in my life to bring me to this point. And although I think that would make for a somewhat interesting story, that is not how I want to start this blog. When I think about some of the most important moments that led to me becoming a personal trainer and opening up a personal training studio, there is a common theme that keeps popping up: “Things happen for a reason”
In 2006 I reluctantly took an Intro to Sports Medicine and Athletic Training course at Diablo Valley College when an old friend of mine wanted us to take the same elective. To say that the course blew my mind is an understatement. That course bridged the gap between my love of sports and my cinch for learning about the human body. It was the first time in my life that I can remember knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I transferred to Cal State East Bay where I got a bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, and if you are unsure of what kinesiology is, it’s the study of body movement.
Even after I had graduated from Cal State East Bay in 2010, I still felt stuck at my job as a server. It wasn’t until 2012 that I grew so fed up that I hand wrote my two weeks notice on the back of a receipt and handed it to the nighttime manager. I didn’t have another job lined up and barely had a resume written up, but I knew that I was ready to finally move on from working in a restaurant. Well, actually I did work at another restaurant a couple days a week until I was finally hired as a personal trainer at a local family-owned gym.
Good things take time
Starting a career as a personal trainer takes time, a long time. It’s not like you get hired at a gym and magically have 25 clients right off the bat. It took 9 months before I made my first $1,000 paycheck. Yeah, you heard me right. Talk about living paycheck to paycheck. Those were rough times. It was made even more difficult after I was turned into a hood ornament while crossing the street.
It was midday on a Saturday in December 2012. I had finished training a client and was walking back home. A car was making a right turn at a red light and didn’t see me crossing the street. She stopped, looked to her left but didn’t see me right in front of her. As she accelerated to make the turn, she didn’t realize that she had taken me along until after I had rolled over her hood and landed on the ground. I got up to my feet and exchanged information with the driver. She was a very nice older lady and I could tell that she felt very bad. I managed to walk the mile to my house, but by the time I got there, my ankle was swollen and the pain was beginning to kick in.
To make a long story short, I did 8 weeks of rehabilitation exercises and once I was cleared by the doctor to resume regular exercise, I felt my ankle give out 2 strides into my first run around Lake Merritt. I fell to the pavement and hobbled my way back to the gym. It was then that a trainer introduced me to Z-Health Performance and explained to me in a very clear way that the brain and nervous system predict, instruct and control how the body moves. I wanted to know more so I saved every penny I could and dedicated the next 5 years to studying the application of neurology with Z-Health Performance.
There is so much more to this story, but like any good Netflix show I have to leave my readers wanting more so I think this is a good place to stop for now. If you want to know more, then you’ll have to tune in next time. For now, I will finish up this first blog post the same that I started and I think I found the perfect meme to illustrate it.
