User:HaydenTibbs/sandbox

Early Life
I grew up in Pekin, Illinois, and went to Pekin schools all the way through high school. Though I was never good at school, I was always good at sports. My love for athletics pretty much got me through high school as I was a three sport athlete until I tore my meniscus, and then MCL, and eventually both ACLs that took me out of competition in high school. The only thing that's worth adding about my early life is that I always knew I was a gym rat. Even when I played sports the most exciting parts were just the workouts. The weights, conditioning, and running was a perfect combination for me to keep my head straight in class to avoid the risk of not being able to do what I loved.

Working Life
Since I was a kid, I've been working. It started with my dad just cleaning out houses that he built. Eventually I was the guy to pick up shingles when he did roofing, and then actually roofed the houses. When I was around 16 I was tired of it and got a job at McDonalds for a grand total of about three months. Shortly after, I got another cooking job at Bob Evans in Pekin. They wouldn't give me a raise so I transferred to the East Peoria store where I've been miserable ever since. Recently though, I attained a job at GNC with the help of one of my past teachers. Now I have two jobs and one is pretty much directly in my field of sports nutrition.

Education
I went through the Pekin school system as seen above, and got through high school with a soaring 1.8 GPA. I didn't want to go to college that bad but I was convinced to attend ICC and now I love it and hope to move on to a university after I finish my program here. I'm studying exercise science for the associates and the certification. I hope to eventually go to Illinois State University and get my B.S. in Human Performance.

Sport
Currently, the only sport I compete in is powerlifting. But, just because I'm out of other sports doesn't mean I'm no longer passionate. A lot of my drive for school now comes from the lack of sport I'm in. I picked the major I'm in mostly because I'm a enthusiastic gym goer, but also because I want to pursue a career of coaching the sports I loved so much. If I can, I want to be a strength coach for a collegiate track, football, or/and wrestling team. I also avidly watch the NFL, some may say in an unhealthy manor. I want to get into hockey and MMA a bit more but I just can't seem to find the time.

Career
My biggest goal would be a professional or collegiate strength coach. I started this degree because being happy at my job is more important than being wealthy. I know training or kinesiology isn't an especially lucrative field but I can firmly say that if I wasn't at least part time invested in it I wouldn't be happy. I recently started working in a supplement store and I think it's the first step in getting all the way into the spectrum of fitness and wellness.

Fitness and Wellness, and how it applies to me
Fitness is something I've always been aware of, but wellness is something that I've been learning a lot about lately and it's already helped me immeasurably. I've always been fit, doing sports and working out. Recently, it's been important to me simply in terms of work capacity and being able to handle a bunch of stuff at once/push through. My wellness is something that I've not always took care of. I powerlift, which is just working with heavy weights constantly, I recently took extra preventative measures by buying fish oil to help strengthen my already frail joints. I hope to invest in some collagen supplement in the future to secure my tendons and ligaments.