Mike Maddalena

CrossFit Certified Trainer
CrossFit Kids Certified
CrossFit Olympic Lifting Certified
Boot Camp Instructor
Mike@FitnessBattalion.com

It seems like fitness has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. Growing up in a small suburb of Boston, there wasn’t much to do, not even a movie theater. As a kid, you were either playing sports or probably getting into some kind of trouble—and there weren’t any computers to keep kids inside. Obesity wasn’t even a word in most people’s vocabulary.

Athletics never came natural to me like it did to some kids.  I always had to work a little harder and practice a little bit longer, just to be halfway decent…but I never gave up.  Except for a couple of years in college, there wasn’t a season that went by since third grade that I wasn’t playing some sport, be it baseball, soccer, basketball (which I’m horrible at), track and field, and crew.

After graduating in '92 from Ithaca College (Go, Bombers!), I found myself uninterested in pursuing a career in my degree-related field of TV/Radio and wondering what in the world I was going to do.  In 1996, someone recommended I think about becoming a Personal Trainer. Always having had a love for working out, it seemed like a perfect fit and I was surprised it had never even crossed my mind before.  Less than a year later, I had my certification and have been doing this ever since.

For over eleven years I had a pretty successful training business, even roughing it through the economic rollercoaster of recent years.  I loved what I was doing, clients were great, people got great results. There’s nothing more satisfying than being a part of someone else’s success, and I’m lucky enough to be in a line of work where I get to see that on a regular basis.  Could it get any better?

In 2007, I decided to bring some boot camp-style training I had been doing over the years to Piedmont Park—so much fun.  One day, I was doing some research for new training ideas and came across crossfit.com. The things people on the site were doing looked pretty cool, and fun, so I thought I would try it out. Little did I know that moment would be so life-changing. I started doing CrossFit training on my own, and was immediately hooked.  It was fresh, challenging, and every day’s workout was a surprise—no more doing the same routines over and over.  And the results were incredible. Being in consistently good shape for many years, you only expect to see minor improvements, but with CrossFit it was drastic! I dropped that last bit of bodyfat I never thought I would, but even more importantly I felt, and was, stronger than ever before--and this was just in the first 4-6 weeks! I almost couldn't believe it.

Within a few months, I found myself at the “mecca” of the CrossFit world, CrossFit Santa Cruz, for the CrossFit Level 1 Certification seminar. This was another life-changing event. I got my butt kicked (!!!) and probably learned more useful information, in what was one of the most intense weekends of my life, than I had over the course of the last twelve years at continuing education classes.

Fast forward to a little over a year later, and I am now an affiliate opening up my own CrossFit gym.  My clients are getting better results than I ever imagined, and I am more excited than ever of what is to come for everyone that walks through the doors of Fitness Battalion CrossFit. I hope you’ll be one of them.