PERSONAL LIFE

My wife and I have been married for several years and we recently welcomed our first child.  Parenting has been a fun amazing journey. We are constantly amazed about how our son has grown.  We are also learning how to balance our new normal.  

Even with all of my drive and passion for fitness, I am still overcoming the biggest obstacle: finding time to work out with a job, house, and a family.  When I was single and renting, working out was so much easier.  I could go to the gym whenever I wanted to and exercise as long as I wanted to.  Now, everything is scheduled.  I don’t have, nor do I want to waste, the 20 minutes to drive out of my way to go to the gym and the 20 minutes to drive back. I could save that time by working out at home.  40 minutes with a focused routine is plenty of time to get a great workout.  Instead of a 90 minute headache, I have 45 minutes to focus on myself and another 45 minutes back with my family.  With that in mind, I decided to create a home-based routine that would help people achieve their fitness goals with very basic cheap equipment. 

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

My name is Craig Collins. I am a certified Personal Trainer with over 10 years of experience. I have always had a passion for fitness.  I was active when I was younger and preferred more active sports like soccer and wrestling. But it was not until college that I ever thought about using my knowledge of movement to help people.  The more I learned about the benefits of exercise the more I knew I could make a difference. 

I am constantly learning new movement patterns and information about the human body, but my passion is still the basics.  My biggest reward is nurturing someone’s initial spark to get fit and watching them grow into an experienced exerciser that enjoys what they are doing.  Several of my current clients have told me how they wished they started working out earlier in life because of how much benefit they see they are getting from working with me.  That in turn gets me pumped.  I tell my wife all the time that I am living my dream job. 

I spent the first 6 years of my career building my experience in different areas of the Fitness world.  I have worked at a private Personal Training Boutique fitness center, the House of Representatives as a contractor in one of their fitness centers, then I was a Fitness Director for a Y in Baltimore City, and I finally landed at my current position managing Personal Trainers at a Country Club Fitness Center in Maryland.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

I graduated from Towson University with a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science with a focus in Cardiac Rehab. My bachelor’s degree enabled me to sit for the American College of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) Exercise Physiologist certificate.  The certificate is a more advanced Personal Training certification that focuses on metabolic disorders and heart issues.

I pursued a Master’s degree in Human Movement from A. T. Still University with a focus in Performance Enhancement and Corrective Exercise based on the National Academy of Sports Medicine’s (NASM) credentials.  The Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES) credential focuses on working with athletes.

The Corrective Exercise Specialist (CES) credential focused on getting people to move in optimal movement patterns.  I felt that these were important because my focus in undergraduate school was heavy in pre-habilitation, rehabilitation, and cardiac rehabilitation and I wanted to be able to expand to the everyday exerciser.  

If you are struggling to find your balance subscribe for my email and receive a goals worksheet to help you plan your balance.

The biggest challenge is keeping up my motivation to workout.  There is only so much time in the day and I would rather spend my time with my wife and son.  During the pandemic, I learned how to keep up my motivation.  It took three things 1) having a goal, 2) scheduling my workouts around the baby’s naps, and 3) having a plan ready to go. If you are having the same issues, I have created some plans to help.