My Story – Josh Martin

Born in Kansas City, we moved to Florida when I was three, so I feel comfortable saying that I’m used to all the seasons we have here – first summer, second summer, and third summer. 

Growing up, I was always physically active – playing baseball, basketball, and challenging anyone I could find to a good ole fashioned foot race. I also grew up going to the local roller-skating rink, so its no surprise that I enjoyed being on a speed skating team as well. 

At our local YMCA, there was a minimum age for entering the exercise area, and it was in high school that a buddy dragged me in and we began working out. 

When I left for the University of Florida, I did so to pursue a degree in exercise science. On a chance visit home my first year, I stopped by a place in town that my younger brother was going to for sports performance training called ‘Velocity Sports Performance.’ I fell in love with the field of strength and conditioning right then and there. Back in school, I took every opportunity I could to learn more about the field. The highlight? Working with the Florida Gator football team. 

I interned at IMG Academies in Bradenton, FL my last semester of college and had a great time learning how to coach athletes from a variety of sports, all the way to the professional and Olympic level. After leaving IMG, I was hired as an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the New York Yankees. I was based in their Tampa office; we oversaw the rehab for the Big League guys along with the implementation of their entire minor league S&C program. Call it youth stubbornness, or something else, but it was my tenure with a pro team like this that led to me falling out of love with the profession for a short time. 

I ended up stepping into a completely different profession for about five years, and worked as an Operations Manager for a large company. It was at this time that I found two pivotal blogs online: crossfit.com and dontbuyads.com – both of these led me to leave my corporate job and open my own gym with a wife who was seven months pregnant. There was no sink or swim, just swim.

Coaching For Glory has been open for 9 years, my wife Mandy and I have two amazing kids (Jesse and Quinn), and its been about 18 months since starting another company called Two-Brain Coaching with my mentor Chris Cooper.

God is good!