This is my first blog post! I figured I would start things off with a little background on me and what got me interested in becoming a massage therapist and personal trainer.
Neither of these careers were on my radar when I graduated high school in 2003. I wasn’t terribly certain what I wanted to do at all at that point. I attended Parkland College after high school where I studied general sciences. After a couple of years there I transferred to the University of Illinois and had my sights set on a degree in mathematics. I enjoyed math classes in high school (yeah I know, no one is supposed to enjoy math), so I figured that was my best bet for a degree. Unfortunately, after a couple of semesters I was starting to get worried about exactly what I would do with a mathematics degree once I graduated.
I then decided to switch majors to something a bit more specific and try my hand at statistics. I can’t say I really liked statistics. I was definitely struggling at this point with motivation as it was becoming more clear to me that I really wasn’t particularly interested in pursuing a career in mathematics or statistics. I was starting to find both subjects weren’t really suited to my tastes and neither struck me as something that I wanted to pursue a career in. If only I had realized that before dropping several thousand dollars in tuition fees!
I decided to once again change my major to political science with a minor in statistics to finish out my degree at the U of I. I settled on political science as I had become a bit more interested in politics around this time. This would have been right around the 2008 election and I found myself wanting to learn more about how politics in America worked.
I finished out my degree and then had no idea what to do after. Studying politics made me realize it wasn’t what I wanted to build a career on analyzing. I was working retail at the time and I certainly knew that’s not what I wanted to do either as a career.
After several months of consideration, I figured I would go back to Parkland and study something I actually enjoyed doing. I had been into fitness for several years at this point and wanted to try the personal training program Parkland provided. The program there was really great and really made me realize how much I still had to learn about exercise and the human body. I also felt that this was something I could actually build a career at doing and not drive myself crazy with boredom.
I graduated from the program in 2011 and started working at a gym immediately after. Part of the personal training course went into detail about how to use self-massage tools such as foam rollers in order to help ease muscle tension and help improve joint range of motion. Learning how to use these tools helped several of my clients, and that’s what made me want to learn more about massage therapy. I decided I wanted to learn more about it and see if it would be a suitable addition to my job skills. I had heard the massage therapy program at Parkland was really great, and so I signed up for courses there.
Taking the massage therapy course turned out to be a great decision. I loved doing the work and also loved the results my clients were getting too. Since graduating from the program, I split my time between doing the personal training and massage therapy. I love doing both jobs and each one brings its own set of challenges and rewards. Being able to help people’s health and well-being is the big reason why I’ve stuck with being these jobs and I plan on doing these for as long as I am able!
Thanks for reading my first post. I’m planning on adding new posts on a regular schedule. I’m going to be talking about massage, of course, but also intend to give some information about exercise and fitness too! Stay tuned for more!