I graduated valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA from Cortiva - CSMT and I've had my massage therapy license since Jan 2010. Later, I went to NPTI for a NASM Personal Training diploma in Oct 2014 and then went on to receive my Crossfit L1 the following year, Oct 2015. I was introduced to Functional Range Systems by my mentor and attended my first course, Functional Range Conditioning, in 2018. The content of that course hit me like a ton of bricks and I immediately realized my perspective on human movement, massage therapy and training was lacking, to say the least. That realization led me down a rabbit hole of passionate personal study into understanding the behavior and mechanisms of human cells/tissue in order to apply them (with great success) to my manual therapy and training. For the rest of 2018 and 2019, I attended the Functional Range Release Spine, Upper Limb and Lower Limb courses as well as the Functional Range Assessment course, all of which which are hands-on therapy-based practices.        

Throughout the years that I was studying and practicing massage therapy, I was also an active Crossfit coach and exposed myself to various forms of fitness as well as fitness science like the effects of stress, heart rate variability/polyvagal theory, whole food nutrition and joint optimizaion. Out of the many forms of fitness, powerlifting stuck with me and I started to focus my efforts in that realm near the end of my Crossfit career in 2020. 

In March of 2019, I started a small massage therapy business, The Better Humans Project. It continued until 2021 when I moved to the Tampa area in Florida. In 2022, I received a diploma as a Natural Health Practitioner from New Eden School of Natural Health. Finally, in August of 2023, I decided to mesh all of my education together under one roof and that's when The Better Humans Project evolved into The Junkyard Gym. Now I can share my enthusiasm for fitness, massage therapy and a healthy lifestyle with others. The Junkyard Gym embodies the belief that good health is available to even the most humble lifestyles and does not require any gimmicks or tons of money. One can be quite healthy with a few simple tools, some knowledge and a determined will.