The kid who could barely lift the bar
I was an overweight kid. Young enough that I shouldn't have had aches and pains — but I did, and they were because of my weight. One day, a cousin of mine who already trained took me to a Gold's Gym in Columbus, Georgia. First exercise of my life: bench press, three sets of five.
I could barely manage the bar with a five-pound plate on each side — 55 pounds total. Then I looked over and saw a friend of my cousin's, a girl three years older and about fifty pounds lighter than me, pressing 75.
"I need to be stronger." That thought never really left.
I started training regularly from that day. By high school I was playing everything I could get into — track and field, cross country, soccer, rugby, MMA (Muay Thai, wrestling, and BJJ). Sport taught me something being overweight never could: how much work it actually takes to get good at something, and that the work works.
Turning obsession into a degree
My interest in training took me to Auburn University to study Kinesiology — the science of human movement. I earned my first personal training certification (ACE) in 2012, as a sophomore, and joined Auburn's personal training team: a group dedicated to helping people improve their quality of life through health and fitness.
That's where coaching stopped being theoretical. I worked with a woman who couldn't stand up without holding onto something or being helped. Over our time together, she got to where she could stand on her own — just the strength of her legs — and eventually jog, for a long time. Her emotional "thank you" at the end of our last session still hangs around in my memory. It's the reason I do this.
I also spent time working in research labs under a professor who was a Doctor of Physical Therapy, learning rehab and training principles from someone who lived in both worlds.
The injury that became an education
In college I tore my ACL and meniscus. It was a horrible event — and one of the most valuable things that ever happened to my coaching. Suddenly I wasn't studying how to train around injuries; I was living it.
Here's the part that surprises people: my ACL is still torn. And I still run, lift, and play sports. Not because I'm reckless — because I learned, in depth, how the body adapts when you train it intelligently around its limitations. If you're injured, or you've been told your training days are behind you, I understand that fight from the inside.
Los Angeles, and the gap I couldn't unsee
After college I wanted to take my craft to the next level, so I moved to Los Angeles — what some call the mecca of health and fitness — and started training clients at Equinox. While there, I also worked with other trainers, helping them deepen their understanding of physiology, biomechanics, and exercise itself.
That experience opened my eyes to a gap in the personal training industry: the distance between how much trainers want to help people and what they actually know. Good intentions everywhere; rigorous knowledge, much rarer. I went on to earn three nutrition certifications to make sure my own service didn't have that gap.
Then 2020 happened. A few months into lockdown, I made a decision I'd been circling for years: I founded Moony Fitness, with one mission — to provide genuinely high-quality, science-based training to people. No shortcuts, no bro-science, no gap between the promise and the knowledge behind it.