FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS about this gym
Q: What is This Gym in Lexington, KY?
This Gym was created by Jack to fill a gap he saw in traditional training spaces. Jack knows that anyone can learn the skills needed to become stronger if they are given simple tools and a supportive environment in which to practice.
This Gym works because strength is a skill that is learned not through being “naturally athletic” or exceptional but by simply showing up and practicing.
This Gym hosts both One-on-One Private Personal Training sessions and Community Training sessions.
To learn more about Community Training, click HERE.
To learn more about One-on-One Training, click HERE.
This Gym is a private facility located near the intersection of Richmond Road and New Circle Road.
Q: What happens at This Gym / What services do you offer?
This Gym is a strength training gym focused on improving how you move and increasing your capacity to do more of what you love, for longer.
We will use any modality that works and we primarily use bodyweight and free weight training, including bands, kettlebells, dumbbells, medicine balls, landmine, and sled.
At This Gym, everyone is an athlete. This Gym was created by someone who hates training in traditional membership gyms and was never satisfied by group classes.
In This Gym, every athlete has their own program and moves at their own pace whether they work in a One-on-One session or in Community Training.
Jack writes programming that is tailored to each athlete's needs and goals. He provides real-time feedback, assistance, and teaching to make sure that all movements are safe, efficient, and effective.
This Gym offers Add-On Programming, which can be done independently at home or at a membership gym, to enhance your regular sessions at This Gym. Add-On Programming is available to any athlete who has been at This Gym for six months or more.
This Gym is a community, not competition – so we regularly get together for potlucks and activities outside of working out!
In the future, workshops in strength-supportive nutrition and specific strength training skills will be offered, as well.
Q: I’m not sure strength training is right for me. What if I’m out-of-shape, weak, older, have an injury, or aren’t an athlete?
First of all, you are an athlete (that’s what we call anybody who wants to be better friends with their body at This Gym: an athlete).
Strength training is for everybody! And that means, you, too. If you have a body, you can train, learn to move better, get stronger, and increase your quality of life!
You don’t have to be a “natural athlete,” have prior experience, be in the best shape of your life, or be exceptional in any way. You can just be you, as you are, right now — as long as you are willing to show up and practice!
Strength training is for regular people who want to be able to do more of the things they love, for as long as they can.
Things like carrying all the groceries in one trip, walking up and down stairs without pain, playing with their kids and grandkids, going on a spur-of-the-moment hike with friends, enjoying a sport or trying a new physical activity, maintaining their physical independence as they age, or moving a piece of furniture without snapping in half!
Strength training is a powerful physical practice that can increase mindfulness, deepen and improve our relationship to our bodies, develop self-accountability, and help us adopt and maintain positive qualities like compassion, patience, and courage.
Q: I just want to get stronger without being harassed about what I eat or having to hear obsessive talk about weight loss. What is the vibe at This Gym?
This Gym embraces the power of personal sovereignty. This means that your body is your business: your body is perfectly acceptable at any shape or size and your personal feelings about or goals for your body are perfectly acceptable, as well.
That being said, This Gym is a strength training gym. There are a lot of life-affirming benefits to strength training (like what I mentioned above) and that alone is our focus. We don’t want you to get distracted by anything else which might create a negative relationship with training or your body, and since prioritizing weight loss has been found to do just that, we don’t focus on that here.
This Gym is a supportive environment, by design, which means that Jack and the athletes that train here don’t make unsolicited comments about others’ bodies. (It’s in our Etiquette, which is required of all athletes!)
Jack is a Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition, so if you want to ask questions about ways to eat that support your strength training he is happy to chat!
Q: So, who is this Jack guy, anyway?
Jack has been working with people who want to strengthen their bodies as well as their relationship to their bodies since 2009.
Jack has lived in Kentucky since 2010, which is the longest he’s ever lived anywhere. He owns a home that he shares with his husband, Paul, their cat, Mimi, and their dog, Duck Duck Goose. His house is surrounded by a beautiful garden of mostly native plants, mixed with annual veggies and flowers.
Jack studied oil painting and poetry at Hampshire College and personal training at Lexington Healing Arts Academy. He began his career in health and fitness as a full time yoga teacher before shifting to a focus on strength training. Jack was certified in personal training by the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the Online Trainer Academy. He is also a certified nutrition coach through Precision Nutrition.
Jack’s focus as a trainer is on full-range and functional strength training for what he calls Everyday Superheroes (Everyday Superheroes are regular folks who want to get stronger and move better to do more of what they love).
Jack specializes in bodyweight, kettlebell, landmine, and minimal equipment/creative use of space training. He enjoys refining the modalities he uses most often as well as learning new techniques (most recently, he has been studying mace and rope flow).
Jack got into fitness late, and he credits it with saving his life. Now, 17 years sober, he enjoys the positive impact his physical practice has on his mental health and emotional wellbeing. Jack is thankful for his past and learning things the hard way, and is happy to share the transformative power of strength training with anyone interested.
When he isn’t training and writing strength programs for in-person and online clients or learning about health and fitness, Jack spends his time making stuff out of mud at the local pottery studio, reading fantasy and science fiction, going on long bike rides and hikes, working on the garden with Paul, and cuddling with Mimi and Duck.
Q: What makes This Gym such a cool place to train?
I built This Gym for me and for you.
I began imagining This Gym in 2013, when I first started personal training, because none of my clients felt comfortable in a traditional gym — and I didn’t either!
Before everything else, This Gym is a supportive and encouraging environment. People need to feel safe in order to push themselves to do the challenging work of strength training. They need to feel OK looking silly, trying something new, and being bad at that something new for as long as it takes to gain proficiency and create the results they want.
People shouldn’t have to worry if they’re being judged on their appearance, if they have the “right” kind of body, or if their trainer is going to yell at them or talk down to them.
People need to know that their whole self is welcome in the gym. Their body is the matrix through which they learn, and their body contains all of them: their mind, heart, and spirit, as well as their history, culture, and experience of the world around them.
I knew that if I could make the right kind of place, the people I train would have access to something that could change their lives in ways they never imagined.
So, I built This Gym for me and for you.
(If you want to know more about what folks have experienced at This Gym, click HERE to read in depth testimonials.)
And when I built This Gym, I put in so much cool stuff that I can’t wait to show you!
We regularly have community events, like potluck dinners so folks can hang out and get to know each other more and activity outings so we can explore and try new things together.
We have a lending library of awesome books about training, holistic health, physical culture, meditation, even how to have better relationships.
There’s a secure community bike rack so you can use alternate modes of transportation to get here.
And, since I’m a huge art fan, the gym itself is full of great design and we’ve got a mini-gallery in the bathroom!
The other coolest thing about This Gym, after the supportive environment itself, is that we use simple tools.
By this I mean two things. First, we use classic strength equipment you can find at most other gyms or easily add to a home gym (so you can do Add-On Training at a membership gym, while you travel, or at home).
Second, we use programming that follows a progressive learning and loading process.
All new clients begin by learning basic movements in a system that improves range of motion, prevents injury, and can easily be done as a home practice for improving results and building self-accountability.
In this way, the body is prepared to lift heavier and get stronger by first building up connective tissues while patterning the safest and most effective ways to move.
As you gain hands-on experience, you’ll be able to do a little bit more …and then a little bit more …and before you know it, you’re lifting weights and moving in ways you haven’t done since you were young, or that you never thought you could do!