From 120 Pounds Overweight to MMA Champion

“I’m not trying to recreate the wheel (in regards to fitness). I didn’t create the rules, I just enforce them.” – Jose Rodriguez

Life is funny. Like many of you, I get that little buzz when someone likes something that I have posted. I’m not talking about my iPhone buzz; I’m talking about that little stoke to my ego. You all know it, “The universe loves me, and I got 40 likes!” Well, one day I saw that some one called “apeshapefit” liked one of my posts. “Cool name.” I thought to myself. Curious as I was, I start clicking around and find out that this guy is Jose Rodriguez and oh by the way, he went from weighing 320 pounds to fighting at 170 pounds. That’s right, fighting. Jose has an amateur Combat record of 35 – 5 and won two titles. He’s turned pro because “It just keeps me in the gym feeling like an athlete.” He currently sits at 1 – 1 as a professional.

Now we know that Jose is a bad ass, but he’s also a very smart person! Check out this brain BIO:

• Master of Science: Human Services
• Bachelor of Science: Kinesiology
• Strength and Conditioning Supervisor at Boise State University
• Certified Strength and Conditioning Supervisor (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)
• GA Instructor for undergraduate courses in exercise science
• Certified Child and Adult Developmental Specialist

Ummmm… yeah.

Here I am with my little blog, and I think “Self, this man’s story is EXACTLY what your blog is about. E-mail him and see if he’ll share his story. I mean, he can’t choke you out via e-mail, can he?” So I e-mail him. I’m expecting no response, or maybe just a simple no, but Jose writes back and says “Thank you for the opportunity, I’d love to do this.” “What? I mean, you’re welcome.” What a humble dude. Not only did we e-mail back and forth, Jose took the time to Face Time with me for an hour and twenty minutes! So, what follows is Jose’s story with most of it directly from him. For me personally, the parallels between his life and mine were just uncanny. At least in regards to the weight thing, the bad ass MMA thing; not so much.

When you go to Jose’s website apeshape.fit (APE is an acronym for Athletic Performance Enhancing Shape), you will see a picture of “Fat Jose” and “Fit Jose”, but Jose explained to me that there is more to it than that. “It’s actually fat to fit to fat and back.” Jose never met his father and his mother struggled with drugs and alcohol. “I would get in to trouble and the police officer would bring me home and no one was there, so I’d end up in the system. I was a chubby kid primarily due to poor upbringing and being in and out of foster care. I learned to eat my feelings.”

“When I began sports in high school and chose to play every sport year round I naturally leaned out and got into weight training. I earned a college football scholarship and even played some college tennis. After earning my Bachelors degree in Kinesiology and earning a graduate assistantship I went to Boise State and studied Human Biomechanics and taught health science courses and was a strength and conditioning supervisor.” Jose realized that this career was not the best one to support and raise his family so he chose to make a change.

“I took a job as a Children’s Developmental Specialist and quickly worked my way up the corporate ladder through various positions all while enjoying the foods of my labor. Being overwhelmed by all the responsibilities I let exercise and sports fall to the back burner. I would gain 5-10 pound here and there and with my education and experience I would shrug it off as something I could easily lose. Yet I didn’t; and it just added up. Well fast forward about 6 years and at only 5’8″ I’d gone from 160 to 320 pounds. My home life was also being affected and resulted in a divorce.”

During this period in Jose’s life, he said that he was forced to reflect on who he had become and what was important to him. “I was making great money and had plenty of toys, from a jet boat to a motorcycle chopper. But I was too stressed out and overweight to truly enjoy them. So I took a few months and began hitting the gym and putting my knowledge to practice and lost about 60 pounds. I rediscovered that passion for fitness so I gave thirty days notice at my great paying job and started all over as a personal trainer at a local tennis club. There was a point where I had a little panic attack and tried to take my notice back, but it was too late!”

Shortly after starting his new career as a personal trainer, Jose decided to pursue mixed martial arts. “I boxed from 7th grade to college and walked away from an opportunity to become a professional boxer after a bad loss in the ring, choosing to just follow my college career. After two weeks of training in MMA I was offered my first fight. I won via TKO in 45 seconds of the first round and was hooked.”

While Jose is a professional MMA fighter and a personal trainer, he admits that he still has his own issues in regards to maintaining his fitness gains. “I explain to my clients I literally have to fight, just as they mentally fight, to keep the weight off. I have the educational background in regards to fitness and yet have the genetic and psychological barriers most people struggle with as well. Growing up poor, you didn’t throw food away. To this day I eat off small plates because I will eat everything that is there.”

Jose is currently a physical trainer in Hillsboro, Oregon but also does online coaching. Since I’ve never worked with an online coach, I asked him how exactly that worked? “Online training is just like training with me in my studio, except via FaceTime or Skype. Depending on the clients needs it’s typically once or twice a week where I demonstrate a new routine customized for them and then they do it while I watch. Through the week there is ongoing correspondence via text or email where I am helping them face their daily barriers that randomly pop up threatening their goals. Some also choose to utilize pre-recorded workout videos I’ve created for them to do on their own when our schedules do not synchronize. The only true weakness for online training is our ability to get all view points of a person performing the exercise, but that’s minimal. The biggest benefit is accountability and knowledge to overcome most myths that still strongly exist in regards to nutrition and exercise.”

Through out the interview Jose’s passion for his clients was obvious and the feeling I got was it’s because he relates to what they are going through. “You can tell a client what to eat, how many calories different foods have, but only a few personal trainers understand the psychology. A lot of trainers and fitness professionals don’t know what it’s like to be a fat kid; I do. That psychological aspect is huge.” Jose has trained people to compete in their first MMA fight and hike Mt. Kilimanjaro but when I asked him what he considered his biggest success, he said “A grandmother wanted to be able to get down on the ground to play with her grandchildren and then get back up on her feet. That was my greatest success story. Fitness should be about finding a way to open up your life.”

Being completely selfish, I asked Jose if he’s trained any runners. “I’ve trained a lot of runners for various marathons and much of this is teaching the basic Bio-mechanics of running and troubleshooting their running challenges through cross training with weights, mobility, and nutrition. I’m a kinesiologist first, MMA is just my crazy hobby.”

Great news! Jose is offering an amazing introductory deal. If you mention my blog, joerandene.com, when you sign up for his first online training package, he’ll give you 50% off! Based on my discussion with Jose I am confident that he can help you achieve your goals. Just make sure you bring your inner bad ass with you. If you don’t think that you have one, Jose will help you find it!

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Website: apeshape.fit     Instagram: apeshapefit