Paul Manzella

Background

About Paul Manzella

To empower our people to make the difference. What’s my Why? I knew at a young age that I wanted to be in the fitness industry. I never had huge aspirations of making a ton of money or even operating a facility. My original plan was to go into Athletic training. I soon learned that taping ankles wasn’t for me. During year two of college, I switched my major to Sports Management. At this time I knew I was getting closer to what I truly wanted to do but at the time I was ignorant to the degree and what it had to offer and I still wanted to be more hands on with clients. In my 3rd year of college, I changed my major for the final time. Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Science. I knew right away that I was going to go into personal training.(mostly because I thought I was too dumb to get my doctorate in Physical therapy). I have been active in the gym since I was introduced to weights in 8th grade. But once I had finally chosen my path, I knew that I had to improve in all aspects of fitness. I told myself “No one wants a fat trainer” Believe it or not I had a month in college where I ran 98 miles. Over the next three years my strength continued to increase and I lost about 30lbs. During this time I took a 20 hour practicum at Golds Gym GJ and knew this is where I wanted to work. Unfortunately, the numerous applications I put in got overlooked. I was in the oil field for less than 30 days when Kyle in Montrose gave me a call to set up an interview. I could not leave North Dakota fast enough. Kyle hired me two days later. At this point I was very skeptical about my knowledge and skills and worried I wasn’t going to be good enough. I learned quickly that college had done a wonderful job of building my fundamental knowledge of exercise and nutrition. Shortly after I began working in Montrose I lost both of my Grandparents, an uncle and my step mom. At this moment, although I didn’t know it at the time, I found my why. I knew that I wanted to help people never experience that kind of loss to something that was extremely preventable. Yes, death comes for us all but being obese and living a sedentary lifestyle makes our journey here much shorter. My biggest regret to this day is not pushing my family into healthy habits. I hate the fact that my wife will never be able to meet my two favorite people to ever walk this earth. My why is easy. I want people to be able to experience the things that were taken from me way too early, and to be able to pass on my knowledge to a younger generation.