Jay Azeltine – @Jay_Azeltine
I’ve now been in Indy for a little over 4 weeks.
Where does time go? When I was a kid I would always hear adults talking about time moving so much faster than when they were kids and I’m now experiencing that for myself. It’s so crazy how quickly time flies by!!
What a month it has been here in Indianapolis though.
When I decided to move here last month I had massive expectations, which is why I made the move of course, but it has surpassed all expectations times 10. I’ve been blown away by the experience thus far.
I wanna go as in depth as possible in this article to give you guys an inside look into my head the past month. As always, I like to keep all of you in the loop as I appreciate each and every one of you that consume my content, follow my journey and communicate with me on social media, more than you’ll ever realize. THANK YOU.
I want to start off by talking about the wonderful people that I’ve met here thus far.
Beginning with all the guys on the team I joined here at Iron Valley Barbell. Zach Homol, Zach Kotecki, Adam Harder, Charlie Garwood, Jeremy Clevenger, Ashley Kinstle, Dylan Spina, Dylan Thacker, Alex Skinner, Chris Nardi and Kyle Jones. I cannot thank you guys enough for welcoming me with such open arms from the beginning. I felt at home and a part of the family within a few days of being here.
I love this team and family !!
It has been such a great experience being a part of a team. We spend nearly all day, every day together. Hustling, brainstorming, training, etc, etc, together 12-15 hours a day. It has been a great change of pace from working at home all day, every day by myself. I love the team aspect. It provides a ton of accountability and makes everything a lot more enjoyable.
There’s something about being a part of a team where everyone’s visions are aligned and we’re all working together to push towards that vision. We grind together and we will eat together. Literally and figuratively.
I look forward to continuing to grow my relationship w/ the team & be able to contribute more & more as time goes on. We have something very VERY special going on here. Blessed to be a part of it.
As Kevin Rose stated, “A team aligned behind a vision will move mountains.”
Next, I would like to thank all of the awesome members of Iron Valley Barbell for welcoming me so quickly as well. I look forward to seeing everyone come through the door every day and chatting with them before they dive into their daily workouts. You guys have been so great. Thank you so much.
Now I wanna kinda just talk about the experience a little more through my eyes. I will probably ramble a bit the next few hundred words, so bear with me, but I want to give you an insight into the raw emotions and thoughts that I have had over the past month.
When I made the decision to move here I had never been so certain about something in my entire life. It was a MASSIVE life decision, but I felt very calm and collected when making the decision because of the certainty in my heart and soul. Something much larger than me was pulling me towards this. I just had to follow what it was telling me. So I made the move. Made the JUMP.
To be honest, when the morning of moving day came around and I packed up all my belongings into the vehicle to head to Indy I started to get a little nervous. Shit was about to get real. That’s just the type of person I am though. I like to worry & think about worst case scenarios. I had just made one of the biggest life decisions in my short life & was jumping off the cliff as I discuss in this article.
I also knew that I was leaving my family. This was the toughest part of the process to be honest. For 24 years I had lived within 10-20 minutes of my parents, grandmother, siblings and their children. I’ve always been a mommas boy and would stop to see her daily. I was fully aware that I would likely see my family no more than 10-15 times per year opposed to multiple times per week. This was undoubtedly one of the toughest components of the move for me.
The nervousness quickly subsided though once I got here and was greeted by the team, specifically Adam. He helped me get all of my stuff moved into the house and we hung out and chatted about the whole situation. Discussing the vision we had for what was possible here and everything in between. The nervousness quickly turned into excitement for what was to come.
The first week was a little weird for me, but after a week or two I really started to find my spot within the team and get into a groove with my new schedule. I’m continuing to get into a rhythm here. Each week brings more comfort and familiarity.
My confidence level continues to increase weekly as well. Inside and outside of the gym. Something about this place just makes you level up in all aspects of life. I can feel myself evolving on a weekly basis.
Homol builds people. He builds leaders, which is one of the reasons why I moved here. I knew that I had something very special within me and knew that he could help me bring that out of me more than ever, which I’m now seeing first hand.
Now I wanna chat a bit about the actual workouts here…
I quickly realized that the training here is on a whole different level.
The first few weeks especially, my body felt like I had been hit by a midsize SUV.
Where I trained in the past was considered a “hardcore” gym, but I have realized first hand that just because you train at a hardcore gym doesn’t mean that you’re training at the highest level.
What has stood out the most to me is the level of intensity that everyone brings into each workout and the wide variety of movements that we do.
Every single lift is done to the best of your abilities with maximal effort. Whether you’re working up to a 1 rep max on bench press or hitting accessory work with incline presses. You better be working your ass off and really pushing. There are no breaks when you’re training at Iron Valley Barbell.
The wide variety of movements has really blown me away. Zach Homol is a literal encyclopedia when it comes to lifting weights. He’s never lacking ideas for a new lift that will shock your body.
Every single day since I’ve been here we’ve done at least one movement that I had never done before in the past. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Whether we’re adding bands into an exercise, using different bars or just doing a totally new movement, it has been a massive learning experience thus far.
I’ve also really began to learn how to program workouts at the highest level. To the untrained eye, when you’re looking at programming it looks like a bunch of random movements thrown together. Zach has been teaching me his methods and philosophies in depth and I’m now beginning to understand that there’s a rhyme and reason for why each program is written. We break it down so deep. Each week is programmed to flow into the next week, each day is programmed to flow into the next day and each movement, within each workout, is designed to flow into the next movement.
I’ve been around some pretty “high level” individuals in the fitness industry and I can confidently say that the level of knowledge here at Iron Valley Barbell, including, but not limited to, Zach Homol, is on a totally different level.
There are so many high level people here. Knowledge is not a limited commodity. I’m constantly learning from numerous people here.
Last but not least, I wanna thank my brotha from anotha, Chris Nardi, for the role that he has played in this entire experience thus far. I love ya brotha.
I’m stoked to continue to take my knowledge, body, mind and spirit to the next level here in Indianapolis. Leveling up daily.
Until next time,
Much Love.
For more articles like this, click here!
