The guy behind the keyboard
Tags: Health, Exercise, About Me, Nutrition, Fitness

It all started when my parents met at a grocery store when shopping for toilet paper (just kidding!). Okay but really though, I am here to share my thoughts and experiences on EVERYTHING fitness and health related (read that again). My passion for fitness started since Myspace became a thing (shoutout to Tom!). If you don’t get that reference that’s okay because most of my jokes are like dad jokes anyways.

As a teenager, I grew up playing lacrosse (the thing with the stick and a net) throughout my middle and high school days. Just like any other team sports, I’ve learned about improving strength, both mental and physical, through discipline and ways to keep active outside of practices. My best friend at the time had a garage gym and it was literally everything that we needed to look like Arnold (get to the chopper!). At this point, I would say my biggest influence that started this all was his dad (shoutout to Rodney). He introduced us to the core principles of training to include weightlifting, supplementation, nutrition, and most importantly — discipline. I remember waking up early before sunrise to run on the treadmill and finishing the day off with lifting weights. I loved every part of training, mainly the fact that I can feel myself become better each day. Those early mornings and late night sessions gave me a purpose in life and the drive to do better.

After high school, I enlisted in the military as a US Navy Corpsman where I endured the most brutal challenges in my life, both mental and physical. I served alongside the nation’s greatest fight force — and no I’m not talking about the Army nor the Air Force (hah!) but the Marines. Everyone and their mama knows that these guys and gals are one of the most baddest of them all, especially those who served on the battle front. I was fortunate enough to spend most of my 8-year career serving alongside the men who sprinted to the sound of gunfire, but ran away from their annual flu shots. Throughout those years, I experienced training in extremely stressful environments with harsh weather conditions. The mentality that every individual needed was to have a combat mindset (whatever that is, right?). The thought of it may seem similar to something out of a video game like Call of Duty, but having a combat mindset puts you on edge ALL THE TIME. I guess the switch turns on quick after being told in this field of work that danger is around the corner and without this mindset, you’re left dead. No matter where I went, the mentality was to always “train like we fight and fight like we train”. And so, that has been instilled in me ever since.

I’m glad those days are behind me and I’ll never forget those experiences. The military showed me the true value of the simple things in life. I’ve told myself to never take these for granted and so here I am expressing my thoughts and individualism through this platform.

As of today, I’m currently a student of public health pursuing a B.S in Applied Health and Fitness (essentially exercise physiology). As I said before, I am here to blog about everything fitness and health related with a goal to just have fun with it regardless of what the outcome may be (improving lives is the overall goal). In a sense, this will be my outlet to let my thoughts run (like a Marine during flu season) through the keyboard and have a place where I can discuss specific topics at a deeper level — for the love of science and all things worth learning about.

So sit back and keep your eyes peeled for what’s to come! In the meantime, if you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email (teamivxliv@gmail.com) as I may have an answer for you (but you won’t know if you don’t ask!).

Cheers,

Dev