Today we’d like to introduce you to Avery Adams.
Hi Avery, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I originally got into fitness because I had a dream of doing gymnastics. When I was 12 years old, I decided backflips were cool and since I was cool, I felt like I should be able to do backflips.
After watching series of YouTube videos, the journey began. I practiced my tumbling every day for hours in a field across the street from my home. After putting myself through a few brutal training sessions, with limited results,
I realized in order to get more advanced with my tumbling I would need to get stronger.
Being born and raised on the north side of Flint, Michigan. I realized competing on an actual team wasn’t going to happen for me, the nearest gym was another city, and participating was just too expensive.
While didn’t have an opportunity to formally train, my vision wasn’t detoured. I decided, if the opportunity to try out for a team ever emerged, I’d never leave room for a coach to say, I wasn’t strong enough, or didn’t have the skillset, just that I lacked formal training.
That same year, mom’s best friend noticed my dedication and sponsored me to take a tumbling class at Berston Field House under the leadership of JaMise Wash-Lang for a few months. Mrs. JaMise taught me my foundation in tumbling, which ultimately lead to my understanding of the mechanics of movement.
As I grew older, my body only got stronger as I continued to dedicate hours of practice in a grass field. However, this time I had an actual foundation, more than YouTube, from which to build.
By 17, I had advanced my skillset and strength enough for Mrs. JaMise to invite me back to class as an instructor. That’s where I first discovered my passion for teaching other what I had learned.
I moved away from Flint at 18, to attend Fisk University. I ended up receiving BA in chemistry. But long before my degree, my freshman year I decided to cheerlead as means of continuing my passion for tumbling. But after lifting the girls I quickly realized, I would again need to get stronger. This time I had full access to a weight room. This was when my love for fitness really developed.
I became a member of the Fisk University Royal Court as Mr. Junior 2014-2015, where I held a fitness initiative training students Monday-Friday in the evenings for 2 hours. All students had to do was show up.
It wasn’t until years later, 2019 my former roommate from junior year, Lamar Allen, contacted me. He recalled my initiative from college. He said, he needed a trainer … and that he’d pay me! This encouraged me to take all of my training and education much more seriously. After receiving a chemistry degree and attempting the MCAT twice, studying and learning science behind fitness was easy. As Lamar began to excel, my clientelle began to grow. Unfortunately, covid-19 stopped everything.
During quarantine, I received new perspective on life. I realized I didn’t want to go to work for someone else every day, that I was destine to make a living from the value I was able to produce from my own mind and body. After living the life, I never realized I wanted, it became a matter of what I could do sustain my lifestyle and newly found dream of teaching people about fitness.
I recalled what I had learned from my early lessons in tumbling. If I wanted to grow, I would have to get stronger. But this time, it was my mind I had to rely on to produce the results. I became desperate to learn everything I could about how to improve my mind so I could bring my dreams into reality. I started to read everything I could get my hands on, and immediately started amassing a personal library.
I remember telling a tumbling student,
“You’ll be able to reach my skill level, in half the time because you have me to coach you.”
I realized… I NEEDED A COACH and quickly!
I started using Instagram from more than entertainment, but for education. I began studying online personal training under Tay Sweat. (During one of his trainings, he mentioned Brandon Carter was a major player in the industry.) After launching my first program with the information I had learned from Tay, I realized my plan of operation still had too many hole in it.
Frustrated and ready to quit my job. I prayed to God, He would put the right people in my life for me to exit the school system I worked in and pursue my dreams. Brandon Carter actually messaged me on Instagram shortly after. His reputation had preceded him. He invited my to join his online coaching program!
I began using the skill sets I developed in college as a photographer/videographer to produce more professional content.
And the rest is history!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has not always been smooth, largely because I had some serious distractions happening!
The most challenging obstacle though, by far, and most crippling was believing I had to live up to the words of a child.
I had always thought I was going to be a doctor and I had told everyone that since I was a kid and as I got older and realized it wasn’t for me. Yet, I couldn’t let go. I had become so emotionally invested in the words I spoke as I child, allowed pride to distort my integrity.
I was too proud to admit I had lost interest in becoming an OB/GYN, so I lied to myself and said, “I hadn’t lost interest.”
This dishonesty with myself on such an intimate level birthed a whole world that was destined for failure because it created a world based on a false premise. This dishonesty spread through all aspects of my life. It severely clouded my judgment, as all my decision were coming from a false obligation rather than the truths in my heart.
Every year I felt like I was getting deeper into darkness.
By 23, I ended up marrying someone who was not meant for me and divorced shortly after. I was depressed and fell into the worse shape of my life mentally and physically. I had given up so much of myself to sustain obligated lies that I no longer recognized myself. I had stopped working out, hardly ever tumbled, I stopped talking to my friends and family, I stopped believing in myself.
After my wife, at the time, divorced me, I divorced myself from everything that wasn’t meant for me. I had to let go of everything I once obligated myself to allow myself to grow into what I was really meant to be.
That process left me empty but ready to receive what God really had in store for me.
It was a crazy time, but I learned the most important lesson of all.
That you always have to be true to yourself. Of course, no matter what people say but sometimes, it’s not matter what you say.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
MILE is actually an acronym. It stands for the phase, Make It Look Easy.
I choose this specific name because I wanted to represent more than just fitness. I wanted to represent the dedication and embodiment of fitness through everyday decisions and lifestyles.
Although having such a commitment to anything is actually a difficult thing to do, I want to embody I level of commitment that from the outside looking in, a person would think he makes it look easy because no matter what happens, under the most extreme of circumstances, he still makes it happen.
This name was actually inspired my the dedication I witness from a close friend Jalil Miles, DJ Jay ILL, (Follow him on Instagram: @JalilMiles).
However, what the meaning behind the name, is what sets me apart from others. I am truly dedicated to my cause and my teachings. I believe in all the things I teach because I live them. As a coach, I work closely alongside students to make sure they are not simply following a program but are truly learning to live more healthy lives.
This is important to me not for the sake of business, but for the sake of their families and the impact they can have on this world.
I believe what you love to do, you’ll do it better in shape.
So, I want my fitness teachings to be a mean by which people are able to show up for their own causes as the best version of themselves, rather that be as a father, a mom, a teacher, a DJ, an artist, I want to help people give their best!
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Currently, the best way to reach my via Instagram and Facebook
Follow me on Instagram: @ImAveryAdams
Or add me on Facebook: facebook.com/avery.adams
DM me the word MUSLCE
We can talk a little from there to determine if you’re a good fit for the program!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @ImAveryAdams
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avery.adams/
