Meet Coach

The Man Behind The Method

In short..

I’m a 36 year old husband, father of 3, 15+ year Muscle & Mentality coach, founder of Able-Bodied Fitness and EugeneTheFit.com, prior Army NCO, former collegiate athlete, Magna Cum Laude university graduate, and a master in the art of the dad joke.

But pertinent to you, I’m the guy who will coach you to an elite physique and an elite mindset. If you don’t train the mind the body won’t budge for long.

I specialize in a sustainable system for <15% body fat. We build lean muscle that performs even better than it looks.

My system takes the thinking away from the already strapped for time ambitious man. As a business and family man myself I know the challenge of juggling family, fitness, career, and a decent night’s rest in only 24 hours.

While contending with the physiological changes that come with age (yes, we focus on optimizing T-levels too).

Since I live that challenge, my system only adds what’s required to unlock your peak physique. No 2 hour workouts, no crash diets, just realistic lifestyle integration with scientifically-backed progression markers.

And real life lean muscle building methods that have supported 2000+ first class performers and counting.

What’s a fit body without a fit mind?

In Long..

Hailing from Killeen, Texas this version of my fitness impetus seemed to be in the middle school timeframe. Not my athletic leanings, I’ve been into sports as far back as my memory dates.

Driveway basketball, open lot baseball, open lot football (American). Hours upon hours, day after day. Tackle football as if we had on pads, but we certainly did not have on pads.

Hydrating at the nearest water hose. It was the neighborhood Olympics out there. No cell phone, just out in the world.

Middle school is where what would be considered a sort of bodybuilding (building the body) carbon dates; 6th/7th grade. I wanted clear-cut, defined abdominal muscles.

Needed that six pack, needed it badly. Yearned for it even:

Every kind of crunch my brain could think of
Sit ups
Flutter kicks
Static leg holds
Leg lifts
Various ab gizmos you’d see in infomercials

I saved every dollar I could get my hands on, from selling candy to babysitting to quarter gambling (we’d play quarters on the bus ride to school).

Funny how dedicated to these core-centric maneuvers I was without the slightest inclination it takes more than training for visible abs. The amount of extra sugar in my Kool-Aid was very much a barrier and my sweet tooth was very much entertained..

DAILY.

Still an early moment of abdominal pride was in organized tackle football practice.

My teammates and I were doing what we called “six inches” where you’d lay on your back with erected legs, six inches above where the fire ants dwell..

I remember one biting me on the pinky while I laid motionless because I refused to let “coach” catch me being “soft” 😆.

Agonizing is an accurate description of the exercise.. the bite too.

While we suffered, coach would soulfully strut row-by-row releasing that pig-skinned oblong object above an unsuspecting player's abdomen.

He enjoyed the involuntary “umph” one would belt out upon impact.

What he didn’t know about me was I’d been working on my core, so this Texan was prepared. It replays in my mental Blu-ray.. one blazing summer. Coach approached my row releasing the Wilson directly above my waistline.

My time to shine.

Me On The Couch Fighting For A Six Pack While My Little Brother Steals The Remote

Story continued..

The ball bounced back up. Recoiled like my 2 year old on the backyard trampoline. Coach said, "Young (my last name) is that a rib protector?"

Me: "Aaall abs coach, aaaall abs.”

The team laughed.

In my mind I was a made man.

Thinking back this discreetly started my love for bodybuilding (along with Dragon Ball, Rambo, Blade, He-Man, Spiderman, and every Jean-Claude Van Damme movie 😆), but it was a distant third to football and basketball. Soon I’d take all of that drive to the court after moving to Germany (there was no middle school football team).

As I type this a new memory has been unlocked. I was headed to the middle school dance, in my too big for my size suit. Tan suit. My mother worked at the thrift store, so I had dibs on whatever came in before items were tagged.

I threw the suit on, ready for a few Polaroids. I promise I thought I was the flyest kid in the neighborhood that night.. but apparently not. One of my older brother’s friends had thoughts. One look at me in my padded sport’s coat and the roasting session was in full effect.

My coat had the shoulders stuffed, he found that to be quite hilarious. I never considered it being a thing, it was my first time in a suit. Of course I tossed a few jokes of my own back in his direction, but after that day I did want shoulders of my own. Actually, “needed” would be a more accurate description. It was a need for me.

Back to basketball, up until freshman year I worked and excelled, did well all through middle school even scoring 72 points once for my German u-16 basketball squad at 13.

For 9th grade I was back in Killeen, Texas and anxious to get the hoops going, but..

ROADBLOCK

(life is full of those, who knew?)

Turns out I had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. My diagnosis came after many standing blackouts during preseason practice, eventually I had to have something done about it. I underwent a moderate-minor heart procedure that forced me to miss my entire freshman season.

Me, My older brother, and the infamous padded suit

My Mentality Was Beneath My Skill

In hindsight, even with the surgery setback high school basketball would’ve went differently, if I didn’t let fear intervene. If I had the right mentality.

Objectively speaking, my skillset was where it needed to be for endless opportunity. I practiced.

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Solo before school, team practice during school, team practice after school, and solo after team practice. Basketball was my life. 100 shots, I had to make 100 shots.

But I didn’t speak up.

Quiet as a church mouse, just hoped my moment would fall out of the sky like bird stool.

You have to go take your opportunity. You can’t sit back with crossed fingers. Wishing for a shot.

This is a “go take it” world.

Nevertheless, as high school came to an end I managed to showcase my way onto the radar of a college basketball recruiter. I performed at an invitational tryout and was selected to play junior college basketball and received a small scholarship despite my lack of high school hoops film.

College is where fitness kicked up another level in the form of muscular training. I knew a bit more than most of my friends in high school about strengthening the body, so I would bring them along for workouts.

Dwight Howard, Adrian Peterson, and Derek Fisher had me trying to figure out how to build bigger shoulders.

(Remember the coat story? Yeah that too.)

In college my athletic literacy amassed and I conducted legit training sessions with my new teammates.

HOWEVER..

My college hoops “career” was short-lived.

Freshman year I worked my way from a nobody, to a person pegged as the starting shooting guard going into my sophomore season. Earned a full-ride scholarship this time. Yet..

ROADBLOCK

(self-inflicted)

Before the start of my sophomore season I “suffered” a season ending wrist injury, 1 trillion percent my fault. So suffered is in quotations. To this day I don’t have feeling in the center of my palm on the right hand.

While recovering I found out I’d soon be a father and decided to enlist in the Army. Had responsibilities outside of myself now.

Here I honed my growing discipline while picking up the jewels military enlistment tends to offer, gained even more fitness know-how, trained fellow soldiers to skyrocket fitness training scores, orchestrated countless physical training programs for my platoons, and heightened all seriousness about weight training.

My future was coming together without me even realizing.

What Muscle And Mentality Did for ME

Giving up my professional basketball dreams hurt, but I realized my love for the game was more than just the game itself. It’s how it made me feel. Sort of a sanctuary. The ebbs and flows of life settled each time it was me a ball and a net.

Lifting weights gave and still gives me that feeling.

Yes it leads to strength & power.
Yes it leads to muscle & mass.
Yes it strips fat.
But it also leads to solace.
Control.
Peace of mind.
Clarity.

The mentality I mentioned I lacked when it came to high school hoops? I gained that mentality while in the military. While I became serious about training.

The “if I don’t see a way I’ll make a way” mindset.

I credit the soulful peace that allowed me to explore the flaws in my mindset, and develop the necessary tools to make mental upgrades to the gym.

NOW BACK TO THE STORY.

Towards the end of my Army career I studied for and received my first official fitness certification, I was off to the races shortly afterward.

At the end of enlistment, I returned to my home state of Texas, planted my flag in San Antonio, and started on as a fitness trainer with Golds Gym.

Credit where credit is due, I was blessed to study under the tutelage of one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He laid the foundation for the coach I am today.

At Golds I stacked certifications. Ballooning my fitness foundation was two-pronged: personal and professional.

Personally, more muscle while maintaining athleticism was still the motive. Professionally I had/have to be as well-versed as possible for my clients. Of course there are the needs for my goals and some clients fall into that side of the Venn diagram. But to be a legitimate coach I needed to understand the needs of all of my clients.

Even the ones outside of my niche.

The work ethic that forced me to make 100 shots per day didn’t die, it transferred.

I quickly reached Golds’ highest coaching level of: Expert Fitness Trainer.

This headshot was singlehandedly responsible for my now shaved head.

Muscle ANd Mentality Explained

Smash cut..

After years with Golds I founded Able-Bodied Fitness, started EugeneTheFit.com , got married, added some more muscle, lost some more body fat, and added some more kids (not in that order).

Things didn’t progress quickly. When you expect fast, sometimes it’s slow. When you expect slow sometimes it’s going in the wrong direction. I could author Encyclopedias on the walls I ran into.

Kind of like Tom stepping on back to back rakes as Jerry held his gut in laughter. The difference is mine felt like a rake museum 😆.

But it’s part of the game.

The part everyone experiences, no matter the level of success. We just don’t always see it. Resiliency was and will always be required, a certain belief and dedication is commanded.

A mentality.

The Muscle And Mentality parallel

1. You lift weights. The act causes micro-tears in the fibers of targeted muscles.

If you provide adequate recovery time and nutrients?

You’ll turn out stronger and have more muscle to handle a similar force if ever reencountered.

2. You hit a hard time. You go through the stages of pain or grief or sadness or anger or anxiety or stress or regret or insecurity or some combination of the list.

Your recovery route for the mind is also conditional.

Mind recovery is reflection.

If you take what you gather upon reflection and apply it in future events—you grow.

As my personal Muscle And Mentality builds, my knack to assist others on the same course continues to build.

I’m intrigued by all aspects of fitness: real world strength, weight room strength, stamina, coordination, speed, agility, balance, sports, health, maintaining a low body fat percentage, and of course the all-precious muscle tissue.

Yes muscle.

Did I mention muscle 😆? That’s my specialty. Helping you build lean muscle that leads to an elite physique that performs. And an elite mindset that overcomes.

My calling for fitness of the mind runs as deep as my calling for adding new muscle to old muscle.

VIP Coaching empowering others to build formidable physiques
The Muscle And Mentality Journal sharing game-changing Mind & Muscle gems
The 56 Day eBooks helping you pack on muscle without the gut or strip fat without stripping muscle
My constant strategy sharing carousel on social media

My mission is to pay forward what comes with choosing a standard for yourself and accepting nothing short of it. The realization of your peak potential while on this Earth.

As the guy who would get called corny for taking up for those who were picked on or frowned upon in his youth, my modus operandi is to direct my clients to the elite version of themselves.

My science-based lifestyle integration system takes you from where you are to where you need to be.

Everyone has their daily agenda and although inserting Muscle And Mentality will emphatically improve your ability to execute that agenda, our most valuable resource is limited—time.

I understand the need to inherently command respect as an authoritative figure in a highly consequential field. Needing to look and live the part. Which is why if you’ve ever heard me say “without sacrificing your schedule” is important.

We don’t all have time to spend hours and hours in the gym. Not even me. I’ve dedicated my life to this and don’t have that kind of time.

Again—a wife, 3 kids (16, 4, and 2 years old), and a business to run. I’m pointing at my watch all day long.

But you don’t have to dedicate your life to wellness for wellness.

Bring your ambition, I have the system.

If you’re reading this, welcome again. It means a strong part of you is dedicated to living up to the peak standard you have for yourself.

SO DO IT.

2026 is coming—apply for coaching while you still can (space is limited).

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