Where are you from?
I’m from a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri called St. Charles, and lived all around the St. Louis area before moving to Colorado.
How long have you lived in Longmont?
About 6 years now, and 9 years in the Denver area. My wife Libby and I own a little home in North Longmont with our dog, cat, terrarium full of critters, and our big willow tree.
How did you get involved with Evolve?
What drew you into training?
General health and longevity and the desire to have the capacity for physical play, with a dose of healthy image consciousness I’d say. I’ve never been a team sports athlete, but I’ve always been a competitor against myself and driven by tactile experience and feedback. I have two older brothers who both liked getting me to do whatever they were doing when we were young, whether that was basement roller hockey, boxing, or kung fu. As my personality developed in my teens and twenties that led to hiking, biking, recreational swimming, martial arts training, and freestyle dancing as my main physical outlets. I’m also a sensitive creative fella at heart and being in the body is just a great way to feel and move through things. Sometimes you gotta get out of your head and move.
How has training changed your life?
In my late twenties, I started picking up regular exercise again after some sedentary years and age started to hit me for the first time. It was a big wake-up call. Use-it-or-lose-it is a real thing, butI’m thankful I got back into fitness while I was still relatively young and retained a lot of my strength and coordination. Getting back into it I had to work through a lot of clunky movement patterns and injurious habits before I could push my strength training again full force. I’m glad life took me down that path; it taught me from experience the do’s and don’ts of fitness training without any major issues and now I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.
How does your training help people?
I’m a big proponent of training for life, whatever is important to each person and their individual life is key, but the good news is we’re all human and have similar needs and issues. There’s a lot of commonality when we’re talking about function and wellness. In other words, I focus on functional fitness that makes everyday life more enjoyable by developing strength, mobility and improving movement patterns. Building confidence and your desired aesthetic plays a role there as well.
If you could tell the world one thing, what would it be?
There are things you have to do and things you get to do, and fitness is somewhere in between. If you don’t treat it like a privelege it will become an obligation.. The best thing you can do to celebrate and look after your health is to use your healthy body. Be in it, go into the short term discomfort for the long term benefits. It’s a great thing to be here in this life in our little human vehicles. And it’s a deep and awe-inspiring place in there.
What’s your favorite workout?
I love ballistic loading, full-body complexes, and rotational stuff. So kettlebells, mace swings, sandbags, dead ball slams, weighted carries, ring flies, and dips. I like to exercise like a kid on a playground with some heavy toys.
What do you like to do outside of training?
I’m a big fan of tabletop games and have been down a deep rabbit hole of collecting and painting wargaming miniatures for the last couple of years. I’ve even successfully conned Nate into joining me in my madness! Still working on Alex though. I also like to get outdoors, play with my dog, and go enjoy local arts and cultural events when I can. Every so often I do some drawing and painting outside of tiny plastic people as well.