Industrial Athlete
This story of photos began with collegiate baseball at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina which then led to two years of Professional Baseball for the Evansville Otters in Evansville, Indiana. David then ventured to the world of bodybuilding where he was crowned South Carolina State Champion and competed at a national level. His next chapter moved him to mixed martial arts fighting where he won the Middleweight Championship, and finished his career as a professional, fighting UFC fighter Houston Alexander. In more recent journeys through his life he has run half-marathons, marathons, and competed in Sprint, Half-Ironman, and Full Ironman triathlons. All of these feats play their own significant role in his continued love and dedication to the
"Industrial Athlete".
The “Industrial Athlete” concept has gained increasing interest over the past decade with more medical professionals focusing on different methods to keep the workforce healthy and injury free. Professional athletes train their bodies and minds to accomplish extreme feats, so the same should hold true for the “Industrial Athlete”. The philosophy behind this is for someone to exercise to allow them to perform their professional duties at a high level. This relates not only to military personnel, police officers, and firefighters who must have the mental and physical capacity to save lives, but it also relates to workers in every profession. Yes, every profession. Even if the worker does not perform any physical work in their daily activities, they still must train their body and mind to become stronger. This not only increases their chances of a better quality of life, but allows them to motivate themselves throughout the day.
David’s philosophy on exercise is based on functional training, recovery, and nutrition. He is constantly rotating the type of training he does to ensure his body is not getting used to a routine. Many of David’s workouts are very labor intensive to where he is performing high intensity exercise where others are used for a recovery workout and for mental clarity, where he either swims, bikes, runs, surfs, practices yoga, or does muay thai kickboxing. These workouts do not take him longer than an hour and thirty minutes total per day that he trains.
If you’re saying that you don’t have time in your day to do this, STOP. Get out of bed an hour earlier, get off of the couch, or stop wasting time and go exercise. You will feel much better about yourself and you will be much more motivated throughout the day. Come on people, we can do better. Motivate from the inside.
One can’t just jump into this type of routine. It took David years to get his mind and body capable of performing at this level, but it was worth every second of blood, sweat, and tears. The pictures on this page are from events throughout his life that have sculpted his mind and his body to be a certain way. David has always tried to find his limit and see if he can push beyond that limit. To him, that is what being alive is all about. You only live once, so you might as well do something exciting and see exactly what you’re made of. It’s easy for someone to say they can do something, but it’s much more difficult to actually take a leap of faith and DO IT. Yes, you may fail, but that’s what makes life so beautiful. If you only do things that you’re good at, you will never know your true self. When you get to the point of no return and you feel your body shaking, your heart racing, and your mind telling yourself to quit, take that leap of faith and see what it feels like to live.
Bringing this type of mindset to your exercise routine allows you to identify areas that need improvement, and try activities that you’re not comfortable doing. Any other type of exercise is setting you up for failure mentally and physically. So…are you setting yourself up for failure or success? The choice is yours…make the right one.