XCELFIT is owned and operated by Patrick Marsh. I’m the tall one in this picture!
If you want the short, sweet and professional version just click on the links below. For a more detailed version of why I’ve dedicated my life to fitness and sports coaching read on.
Nike SPARQ Authorized Trainer Bio
The longer version goes like this:
As far as I can remember it all started with Charles Atlas, Greek mythology and a whole lot of wood and hardware!
For those of you who have never heard of Charles Atlas I suggest you do a google or wikipedia search but you can also take a look at the current web site, www.charlesatlas.com. For anyone who wants to study a group of people who loved physical fitness I would suggest taking some time to study Greek culture and history. Of course most people probably know that the Olympic Games originated with the Greeks and you also may have seen pictures of Greek statues where some of the first sets of six pack abs were modeled!
Okay, so this is actually a picture of the Greek god, Poseidon, but you get the idea – the Greeks were really into physical fitness. If you ask me, I think this guy/god was hitting some growth hormone, at least some creatine!
As for Charles Atlas, he was one of the early fathers of the modern fitness movement. Where most young men like myself would run into Mr. Atlas was somewhere in the middle of a comic book where an ad would run about some skinny guy hanging out with his girlfriend would have this big bully come along and kick sand in his face. Of course the skinny guy is humiliated and then goes off and orders Charles Atlas’ course and gets muscled up and comes back and takes care of the big, mean bully! Classic psychology in that the ad played on the insecurity of the non-athletic male ego, the desire to impress one’s girlfriend, and just the overall injustice of bullying! Great marketing!
Okay, so I was a young man who wanted six pack abs and I became fascinated with weights and exercise at a pretty young age. Along with this desire to know more about these things I was also quite handy with power tools. The deck I built when I was sixteen for my parent’s home is still standing today – over 30 years later!
So along with searching out information on exercise and eating at a young age I also started building my own home exercise equipment. I made weight benches out of 2×4′s and lots of nuts and bolts and even leverage squat machines and a variety of pulley machines. Most of this took place while I was in middle school. You can still see the holes in the walls of my parent’s old home where all of these things were attached!
Fast forward to high school and college where I continued to study exercise, play sports and workout! By my fourth year of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland I was already working part time as a fitness trainer and decided to call this my career! That was 1984 and I’ve been working full time in the fitness and coaching worlds ever since.
College is also where I fell in love with the sport of volleyball. 30 years later I am still playing – although I’ve got quite a few broken parts now that don’t quite work like they used to – and I’ve been coaching the sport since the late 1980′s. The 1980′s was a great era for USA volleyball. Our mens team was dominant with guys like Karch Kiraly and Pat Powers helping us win a Gold Medal in 1984 and again the team took Gold in 1988. The women’s team took Silver in 1984. Beach volleyball was added to the Olympics in 1992 as a demonstration sport and a medal sport in 1996 at the Atlanta games. Over the past several years I have had the privilege of meeting Pat Powers and assisting at some of his vbclinics.com events. My coaching career spans everything from women’s college volleyball at the College of Notre Dame of MD for several years and a few AWCC conference championships to boys and girls Junior Olympic club volleyball to several years as a varsity and jv high school boys volleyball coach where I started the boys program at St. Paul’s School for Boys and within two years we made appearances in two consecutive conference championships.
Okay, back to the fitness thing…
After almost 3 years at the Downtown Athletic Club in Baltimore I moved out to the suburbs of Timonium to work full time for Brick Bodies at Padonia Fitness Center. Within a year I was asked to become the Fitness Director there which lasted until 1994 when I decided to become a full time, self-employed personal trainer. During my years as the Fitness and Personal Training Director at Brick Bodies I had the great privilege of being one the area’s first trainers to work with local pro athletes – at that time it was just the O’s as the Colts had already moved on. This was before the O’s had hired their first strength coach and when many of the players would come up to Brick Bodies to work out. Actually, although the O’s were the only “major” sports team in town at the time I did get to work with a number of local tennis professionals and golf professionals as well. Baltimore also was home to the Baltimore Blast at that time. Working at Brick Bodies was a fantastic opportunity and I am indebted to Victor and Lynne Brick for all they taught me while I was working for them! I also worked as a staff trainer at the Maryland Athletic Club in Timonium from 1996 to 2001. Tim and Liz Rhode are two of the most incredible club owners working in the fitness industry today!
1993 was the start of XCELFIT – at that time known as XCEL Training and Consulting – and I’ve been blessed to run my own studio since that time. Although I continue to work with athletes one of my favorite specialites is Medical Exercise. Back in the early 1990′s more and more health clubs were starting to partner up with local hospitals and other health care professionals as it became obvious that there was a huge “gap” between people receiving medical treatment from their doctors and then becoming independent with their care. This gap existed with everything from heart patients who needed help changing their lifestyles after surgery to orthopedic patients needing help with where to go and what to do after they were done with physical therapy. Enter the Medical Exericse professional. I have been blessed to work with patients from some amazing health care professionals in the Baltimore area and you can see a few testimonials from these folks on our testimonial page. You can read more about this under our Medical Exercise service offering as well.
My very first personal training client was a wonderful young lady who was an accomplished special needs teacher with her Masters degree – all of this while facing the challenges of being blind and battling cerebral palsy! Nancy and I had a blast and my background in engineering and as a handyman were very helpful in terms of being able to design and modify equipment and exercises to meet Nancy’s needs. What a great way to start a training career!
Encouraging clients and athletes to set audacious goals and then challenging and teaching them how to achieve and surpass these goals is why I continue to be a fitness and sports coach. There just aren’t many professions where you can watch lives transform so radically and it’s truly a privilege to be part of that process!
I have pursued a variety of educational opportunities in the fitness field and have probably held well over a dozen different certifications during my career as well. Everything from Medical Exercise Specialist to Pre and Post Natal care to Advanced Nutrition counseling to Nike SPARQ. My philosophy is that if you’re not learning and growing you’re dying; and the health and fitness field is contantly growing and changing so I’m always learning!
Teaching is a fundamental skill in the coaching matrix and teaching is one of the things I enjoy most about my work. Whether it’s helping clients learn about the basics of exercise and nutrition or taking a lacrosse player and teaching them the skills of volleyball or mentoring young people who want to become trainers or coaches, teaching is at the core of what I do at XCELFIT.
Anyway, I’m one of those lucky people who not only gets to do what he loves on a daily basis, but I also get paid for it! Coaches have the opportunity to make a tremendous impact in the lives of young people and I am blessed to have worked with some tremendous young people over the years. Being a good coach is a huge part of what it takes to be a successful trainer and my coaching background and training has definitely helped me maintain a fitness coaching business for over 18 years now!
Thanks for reading a bit about who I am and why I do what I do.
Our training philosophy is summed up by our website banner:
I focus on:
Fundamental Fitness Coaching that Encourages, Challenges, Teaches, and Transforms.
As you will see from my bios, I bring a unique combination of education and experience in both the training and coaching arenas that you will find hard to match.
To set up your initial consultation with Pat please fill in the contact form below.
