My Story:

 

Hey there! My name is Hayden Fisher and I've been a full-time personal trainer for 9 years now! I grew up in Severna Park, Maryland and was a high-level competitive swimmer for SPY Swimming until age 13. I unfortunately got burned out with the high demands of the sport and decided to give it up. After retiring from swimming I did not change my eating habits and I slowly became more inactive which led to me being overweight and out of shape in my early teenage years. As I progressed into high school I became even less active, gained more weight and overall felt extremely uncomfortable in my own body. Eventually, I became sick and tired of being out of shape, not being able to keep up with friends during physical activities, and my lack of confidence in myself and my body.

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I have always been a very independent and calculated person and have always been very interested in learning about nutrition and exercise but since I didn't have my driver’s license yet and was unable to drive myself to the gym I put it on the back burner in fear of not being able to make it to the gym as frequently as I would like to and having to rely on my parents to get me there and pick me up. I tried a bunch of different home workout routines that I would research online (push-up programs, running stuff) but it was very hard for me to stick to them and I never felt "legit" since I wasn't actually going to a gym.

 

At the age of 16 I finally got my driver’s license! One of the first things I did after passing was signing up at the local gym in Severna Park called “Sportfit” that a lot of my classmates belonged to (this eventually ended up being the first gym I worked at! The catalyst to my now career! Funny how that works out. I didn’t have a parking pass at school and still had to ride the bus but I became so obsessed and dedicated to my goal that I would bring my car keys with me to school in my backpack and immediately after getting off the bus would take my keys out and get straight into my car to head to the gym - I wouldn’t even step foot inside the house.

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I worked out every single day for upwards of 2 hours (mostly cardio machines but would occasionally use a few of the weight machines). I lost a significant amount of weight over the next 6 months and ended up looking and feeling like a completely new person. I felt amazing, I was confident for the first time in as long as I could remember, and people generally seemed to treat me a lot better. At the time I was mostly interested in just losing weight and being in better shape. After a year or so I started getting interested in strength training, building muscle, and venturing more into the performance side of training.

 

Starting out I had no idea what the hell I was doing but thanks to the internet, my obsession with learning, and some really friendly and helpful regulars at the gym I slowly but surely started learning different lifts and exercises, how to execute them, and how to structure workouts and split them up throughout the week. I became COMPLETELY obsessed - I would watch hours and hours of videos of Arnold Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders on YouTube trying to learn more, scrolling through articles on bodybuilding.com, and spending countless hours in the gym trying to get stronger and better.

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After a few months of this I had put on a noticeable amount of muscle and felt the strongest, healthiest, and best I have ever felt in my life (mentally, physically, and emotionally). I went from being a kid with low self-esteem, no discipline, and no drive to an extremely confident, outgoing, happy, and proud kid. I learned about the value of discipline, hard work and staying consistent - even during days/periods of time when I didn’t "feel like it". I was previously lazy and wasn’t very good at committing to things that were hard or difficult for more than a short period of time but after reaping the rewards of making such a drastic transformation it taught me a very valuable lesson and gave me a very strong sense of work ethic and discipline that has made me who I am to this day.

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I dropped out of high school at the age of 17 and immediately began working in fast food. It didn’t take long to realize that I absolutely hated the food industry and didn’t want any part in it. I would spend my lunch breaks at the gym and workout instead of taking a break. Over time, I progressively got more and more fed up working in the food industry so I ended up pursuing my GED and also applied to the gym that I worked out. I got hired shortly after applying as a front desk guy. I immediately quit the fast food restaurant I was working at!

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After my first week of working at the gym I instantly realised this was exactly the type of environment I wanted to work in and be around all day. I worked my way up the ladder in the gym and ended up becoming part of the membership sales team. I loved selling memberships and promoting the gym but I knew at some point I wanted to get into the trenches and become a trainer myself. I was doing very well with membership sales and wanted to give that my full attention so I procrastinated starting the process of becoming a trainer. The gym was sold and rebranded and the new owner pretty much cleared house and fired most of the employees (myself included). I was devastated but decided this was an opportunity to use my resiliency and discipline that I acquired over the years and started to take the first steps towards becoming a trainer.

 

I got an easy job as a shift manager at a local frozen yogurt spot so I could focus on studying and ordered the personal training textbook and started self-studying. After a few months of studying I scheduled and took the test and passed on my first try! I started training a few people that my mom referred to me at the local community center for a month or two but decided I wanted to work at a commercial gym in order to really get my feet wet and get some experience working with a lot of different types of people. I applied at my local YMCA, got interviewed, and got my first real training job! My first few months were a little slow but once I started getting some traction I became totally obsessed with training and ended up becoming one of the most sought-after trainers at the gym! I definitely had some tricky cases but I am a problem solver at heart so I ended up constantly seeking more knowledge (and still do to this day) and got certification after certification while applying my newfound knowledge in real time with actual clients.

 

I have trained thousands of people over the last decade and an extremely wide variety - older people, young people (I've trained as young as 7-8 year olds!), professional athletes, high school athletes, regular joes with office jobs... you name it and I have probably trained them! I pride myself on being extremely versatile with my training approach and my ability to work with literally anybody! I ended up staying at the YMCA for about 6 years working anywhere from 35-55 hours of training per week! The last 2 years I have been independent and training out of RISE Fitness & Kickboxing in Annapolis, Maryland as well as traveling to people’s homes for in-home training.

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To this day I still value education and staying up to date more than anything and am always working on learning something new so I can serve my clients the absolute best! I absolutely love being able to help people feel, move, and look better and am always willing to go above and beyond to help in any way that I can! Training is 100% my life passion and I am so excited to continue to help people grow and improve their quality of life! I'm not your average trainer.