About me: An exploration in unorthodoxy

The year is 2010. I’m graduating from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering. The milestone arrived with a sense of pride and relief, and with it, something else persisted—a question I couldn’t answer. Is this right for me? I tucked that away, far away and went about my business. I worked as an engineer for several years. I learned a lot, I made friends, I bought a house. On paper, everything was fine. Then the question came up while sitting around a fire, on a camping trip with several coworkers (young engineers for the most part):

"If money didn’t exist, what would you do for a living?”

TL;DR

• Started attending the gym in 1999. Been averaging 5 days a week since

• Graduated from Chemical Engineering in 2010 and moved back to Red Deer

• Worked as a Contact Engineer (2011-2017)

• Received P.Eng designation in 2014

• Job shadowed Personal Training in 2015 @ 360 Fitness

• Received ACE Personal Trainer certification in Summer 2016

• Began personal training in fall 2016 @ 360 Fitness

• Moved to Calgary in mid-2017

• Started personal training at Repsol Sport Centre January 2018

• Became Interim Fitness Manager (mat leave) at RSC March 2019

• Returned to PT in September 2020

• Starting to work as a PT contractor 2021

Boring stuff cont’d…

That question hit me hard, because I struggled to decide if my job (or engineering in general) was in my top 10, or even top 25 choices. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it often before and after the question was asked.

At that moment, I drew a line in the sand. If I’m to continue on this planet, I have an obligation to myself, and the privilege in this country of chasing my passion. That passion has been with me since I started abandoning lunch breaks in grade 9 to work out at our dilapidated high school gym. You see, I’ve averaged 5-6 days a week of gym attendance… for 20 years. If you assume each workout was roughly 1.5 hours for the sake of simplicity, I’m clocking in at somewhere around 8,500 hours in a gym. This means once I hit 10k, I’ll be the gym goer version of the Beatles. Maybe.

Regardless, I’ve been an avid fan of the gym, fitness, nutrition, genetics, biomechanics, etc. This is my passion; the evolving industry of fitness and related fields. Heck in the year 2002, I subscribed to Men’s Health magazine for 15 years. The information contained therein with respect to nutrition, lifting, early bio-hacks and the like, I was fascinated by it all.

On numerous occasions, a friend, family member, peer at the gym would insist that I would make a fine personal trainer. People who talked about fitness with me would typically end the conversation saying “You should do this for a living.” It felt like they were speaking my thoughts out loud. If I’m fond of people, helping them and working with them, plus I’m a diehard gym lover, why not marry the two?

Well in 2015, I walked into a gym in Red Deer (shoutout to 360 Fitness) and inquired about job shadowing. They graciously allowed me to do so, which resulted in 8-10 hours of work experience and my first introduction to the profession. After which, they recommended various options for PT certification, promising me a position if I decided to take the plunge and get certified. So my path was laid out in front of me and in 2016, I returned with my ACE-PT certification. They were true to their word and I began training professionally for the first time in the fall of 2016.

The summer of 2017 was when I made the move to YYC to begin anew. I visited several local gyms, but Repsol Sport Centre had all the equipment I wanted in my training. After being a regular member there for 5-6 months, I applied for a PT position and was fortunate enough to be the successful candidate! January 2018 I was on my way to training the general population at RSC and began making friends for life.

In March 2019, I became the PT (and dryland) Manager at RSC in order to support the organization for a mat leave, and also gain invaluable experience as a full-time manager. This was a tremendous experience and allowed me to learn more about the nuances behind the scenes when it comes to managing people and programs.

I opted to move back into the PT role once the mat leave coverage had been completed in September 2020. My impression was that I could’ve remained in the manager role, for which I was grateful, however I wanted to return to my clients!

Fast forward to present day: I am currently training at RSC part-time, and as a contractor part-time. This allows me to continue to develop as an independent personal trainer, while still maintaining the strong bonds created at RSC. I really appreciate the relationships I’ve built along the way, and those who have supported me on my path—I am indebted to those positive influences and they motivate me to pursue success. Please join me as we train hard, and look to become better, every single day :-)

-BP