During this unprecedented time of uncertainty and instability, I have had the opportunity to gain a professional colleague. Aaron Blades of “Blades Fitness and Performance” has not only started a business from the bottom up during a pandemic, but has also brought his brother, Dawson, into the equation as well. I am beyond excited to watch their business grow and felt compelled to use my platform (albeit very small) to help spread the word. Anyone willing to take a huge chance on themselves at any point in time deserves support, but taking that chance amidst a global pandemic is worthy of something more than that, in my opinion. The rest of this post is straight from Aaron himself, so if you have the time to read further, please do.
Who Am I?
My name is Aaron Blades and I am a 2020 Graduate of Butler University that studied Human Movement Health Science Education and I have now decided to go out on my own and start my own personal training business called Blades Fitness and Performance. Growing up fitness really had not been a big part of my life. I would participate in some sports as a kid, but once I reached middle school a lot of what I needed to do in order to stay fit was on my own and I rarely did anything to stay fit. I became a version of skinny fat to where I looked like I worked out, up until I took my shirt off. It was not until Junior year of high school that I started on my fitness journey and I have not looked back since. I am from the small town of Madison, Indiana that is roughly two hours south of Indianapolis right on the Ohio River. I lived there with my parents and my brother, Dawson Blades, who is currently a junior studying the same thing that I did at Butler University.
What is Fitness for Me?
When I started my fitness journey, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had P90X, Tapout XT, and Body Beast workout videos and that was it. As I started going through the videos and using the weight laying around, I got stronger and developed better self esteem and improved my mood and the way that I looked at myself tremendously, so naturally I wanted more. This was when I went in and got my first gym membership to a local spot called “Fit for the King”. Originally, I wanted to study Criminology and Senior year of high school I decided that I wanted my life to revolve around health and fitness, so I changed my major at the last possible second before I left for college. Once I got there, my passion only grew, and I ended up starting as a personal trainer in 2016 at the Recreation Center at Butler. Personally, I kept working out and working to get bigger and even competed in bodybuilding competitions but ended up losing my passion and my drive to compete, so I knew it was time to expand and find something new. At this point, I was in my final year at Butler University and ended up doing an internship at Correct 2 Compete in Zionsville Indiana where I dove into functional training and corrective exercises and this is where my passion reignited. From there, I started implementing what I was learning into my own workouts and my workouts with clients and saw almost instant changes both physically and mentally in my clients and myself.
Why Personal Training?
As stated previously, personal training was not something that I had always wanted to do. In fact, it was probably the last thing that I thought I would ever do. All I ever wanted to do was go into the FBI and work to help and save people. Being a special agent had given me a purpose and a goal to help as many people as I could, but I quickly realized that this was not where my true passion lied. Once into fitness, I felt that owning a gym was always something that I would do or be a strength coach to where I could teach weightlifting and powerlifting to teens or collegiate athletes. However, the more experience that I got training at the Recreation Center at Butler, the more I fell in love with training as a whole. Being able to come in and talk with my clients and see the changes being made on a daily basis when it comes to being able to do two more repetitions than the last workout or being able to move just a little bit better makes me happy. I love seeing people come in with goals that they want and allowing me to create and build something so that they can reach these goals and do it as fast as they can, safely, while also having fun doing it. Constant changes and the joy that it brings to clients always reignites my passion further for training and gives me a purpose and meaning as to what I should be doing and why.
Our Mission
My brother, Dawson Blades, and I started Blades Fitness and Performance for the sole purpose of helping people reach their goals in any capacity that we can, whether it be in person or online training. With experience in everything from athletics to bodybuilding to functional training, we help on all avenues make sure that each and every person has an individualized plan that is tailored to their own personal goals. As there are many people that are personal training as of right now with many gyms and independent contractors out there, we quickly realized that we needed to set ourselves apart and we do this is in a multitude of ways. One way of this is that we allow for some nutritional guidance if the client so chooses. The reason we say “guidance” is because plans only work if you follow them to a “T”. We are here to educate and offer options and allow you to vary what and how you eat to create behavioral changes that last forever. Lastly, and most importantly, we like to look at our personal training structure as a 50/50 experience. 50 percent of the experience is the workout and making sure that we put forth the effort to reach our goals with the other half being the experience that we offer as a client working with us. Being able to make the workouts fun and enjoyable is a top priority, and we avoid always doing the same thing. We strive for our clients to learn to come to the gym ready to go and turn working out into something they GET to do instead of something that they HAVE to do. Our goal is to make people excited to come into the gym and not only chat with someone that they consider a friend, but also have that friend help them in all facets in order to reach their goals.
I wanted to take this last paragraph to thank Sam for allowing me to come on and share a little bit of my personal journey and my mission when it comes to personal training. My brother and I are working hard to try and scale this business so that we are able to start creating facilities around Indiana with the potential to move past that and reach everyone that we can. Being offered this opportunity means a lot for us because it helps to get us some exposure and allows for me to share my story with everyone to better understand who we are and what we do. If you would like to learn more about us, what we do, and follow us through our journey, make sure to check out our website Blades Fitness and Performance. In addition to our website, you can also follow along at our Facebook and Instagram page, where we share motivational quotes, workout tips, and overall education on different current and past fitness trends. My brother and I appreciate this opportunity to get our name out there to you all and we hope that you follow us along as we work to grow our business!
-Aaron and Dawson
Yours in Wellness,
Sam