How and when were you introduced to Behemoth?
I’m just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit, who took the midnight train going anywhere. Seriously though, I am a husband, an animal lover, a business owner and a comic book fanatic. The only thing better than a good Marvel movie is a Bears or Cardinal game. To be honest, being a boy from a small town in Iowa I had to pretty much make my own excitement. As the youngest of four, I spent a lot of time reading and writing…. And getting into trouble. I moved to Houston about 20 years ago. My beautiful wife and I have been married for almost 13 years. Although we haven’t been blessed with any offspring yet, we have a bunch of little fur babies to call our own. Our house is basically Noah’s Ark with a foundation and a fence. I own Blue Ribbon Roofing which I started almost 10 years ago. Something most people wouldn’t expect to hear about me is that I have written a manuscript, which is an unpublished novel.
Who are you? Tell us a little about yourself or something that would surprise us.
About a year ago my office manager, Kirsty and I were looking for something to challenge ourselves as well as expand our lifestyle and fitness goals. As usual, Kirsty told me what we were doing and where we were going. We somehow passed the interview with Aja, again most likely due to Kirsty, and we’ve been here ever since.
What are you most proud of, physically, mentally or both since beginning with us?
Physically I would say the gains I have made in flexibility and balance with your collective guidance, including a lot of yelling from Leah. It’s night and day from where I started. Mentally I would say just committing to coming consistently, which is made much easier by the coaches and the community that you all have built.
What has been your biggest, yet most rewarding obstacle to overcome, whether in the gym or on your health journey to date?
Again I would have to say flexibility. I physically couldn’t get into many of the positions I can today because of you guys. Now I am thinking of opening a yoga studio. Just kidding, but thanks guys!
Why Behemoth?
The coaching staff and the community. I find it remarkable that you are able to come up with group exercises given the variety of skill levels in any given class. Not just by scaling the workouts by giving us different options, but you all are able to help each individual tweak their movements or guide us to the right workout. Oh and you actually seem to care about us. Again, pretty remarkable stuff guys.
What next? What are you excited about pursuing here in the future?
I am eager to get some of the more complex moves: Olympic lifts, kipping pullups and what not. One foot in front of the other though right. Maybe I should work on getting the elbow warmup moves down first.
“3, 2, 1…Go” Mad Lib section
-My favorite lift (movement) is…
Pull up. It is just you against the bar and they look so easy but yet they are so hard.
-My most frequent class I come to is…
9:30
-I have always wanted to…
Fill up the Olympic size swimming pool in my mansion with $100 bills and go swimming in that bitch like Scrooge McDuck. Still working on the pool, the mansion and the $100 bills. It’s called a dream people.
-When I’m not crushing weights, my favorite thing to do is…
Read, write and watch movies. Love me some good comic book movies and dare I forget my beloved Bears and Cardinals.
-If I could make ANY of the Behemoth coaches do 100 burpees it would be...
Aryan, Aja and Leah would make it look all too easy and just make me feel bad about myself as a human being. Especially Leah, she just had a baby for God’s sake. I already lost money challenging Jonathan to a bunch of burpees so he’s out. Cam could step on me and not even know it. Pass. Johnny’s got a lot on his plate so I’d feel bad. Let’s go with Damian.
-Favorite “application of fitness” outside of the gym is…
Playing with my dogs and posing heroically on roofs while saving Houston one home at a time.
-Favorite band/genre/Pandora station to workout to is…
Rock and roll man
-Beast mode engaged when this song comes on…
Maggie’s Farm. I am not sure it gets much better than Rage Against the Machine covering Bob Dylan. It’s one of the best damn the man songs ever. I am not sure what that says about me being self employed and all, but here we are.
