Where It Started

I’ve been coaching fitness for over 25 years.

In 2012, I opened a CrossFit affiliate and spent the next decade helping people build strength, confidence, and real-world capacity. Coaching wasn’t just a job — it was a calling. I believed deeply that movement changes lives because I’d seen it happen over and over again.

Then 2020 hit.

Like many gym owners, we were forced to shut our doors. What was supposed to be temporary stretched on far longer than anyone expected. Promoting health and fitness suddenly felt complicated. Community fractured. Momentum stalled.

We left town and moved to a farm.

The farm was demanding in a different way — long physical days, livestock to care for, land to manage. I didn’t get to the gym often anymore. I was working hard, but something was off.

Slowly, my mental health dropped.

Not in a dramatic way. Just in the quiet kind of drift that happens when structure disappears. When purpose blurs. When you stop aiming at anything meaningful.

I got to a place where, honestly, I didn’t care anymore.

That scared me. Because I knew better.

I knew what movement does for the body. I knew what discipline does for the mind. I knew that when you lose your structure, you lose your edge.

And I realized something else: the system isn’t designed to keep you strong, focused, and sovereign. If you don’t build your own structure, you drift.

So I rebuilt mine.

I started waking up early.
I moved intentionally.
I repeated simple mental reps.
And I committed to working daily toward goals that mattered.

It wasn’t complicated. It was consistent.

That’s how the 5AM Squat Club began — not as a brand, but as a lifeline.

It rebuilt my fitness.
It rebuilt my clarity.
It rebuilt my direction.

And now, every day, we get a little stronger. A little sharper. A little more aligned with who we’re meant to be.