A stylized painting of a fanged gorilla with a mohawk looms over the gym as punk rock music quietly accents Matt Johnson’s calm instructions for his clients as he moves them through the focused workouts he creates.
The polished concrete floor gym reflects dozens of personal paintings, hundreds of stickers and multiple framed photographs of the family dogs. The personalizations and creative outlets overlook racks of kettlebells, a pair of battle ropes, a prowler frame ready to be pushed across the floor, resistance bands, and other pieces of equipment in the two-car garage turned gym next to his home near Kluemper Road.
The 47-year-old has been training since he was in his early 20s and, through those years, has progressively become more and more adept in not only his physical fitness but he’s developed a passion for passing that knowledge onto others. Something he’s been doing on the side for about 15 to 20 years now.
He was a hardcore barbell weightlifter squatting and benching massive amounts early in his fitness focus. But as he grew older, he had to balance that with dedicated visits to a chiropractor and consistent aches and pains.
At the time, he expected the pain to just be part of his body’s aging process. “Okay, I’m over 40 now; all the fun stuff is starting to show up.”
Then, he began experimenting with kettlebell training.
“I’m not going to say it is a magic pill, but the shoulder pain started going away; the hip pain started going away,” Matt explained. “My core and lower back began getting stronger.”
He realized the offset nature of the kettlebells, and dialing in his movements to his body’s individualized nature allowed him to gain a superior level of functional fitness — this for a guy who was squatting 500 pounds and benching a “good amount” by his own standards.
Matt, already passionate about helping people on their fitness journeys, became dedicated to passing on the benefit of kettlebell training to anyone he could.
Two factors outside his control pushed him to the point where he is now. First, the recession in 2008 pushed him out of his job as a CNC technician forcing him to use his training skills to manage a local gym. Then, after leaving the gym to work with another local company while still training on the side, the pandemic hit, and he was let go from that position as well.
“My one constant had been fitness,” he explained. “People like to learn from me, and people liked what I was doing before, and now I’ve got a whole new ballgame.”
By then, his kettlebell routine had progressed to his being asked to work with Kettlebell Kings — a kettlebell supplier and training company — to develop their training certification program while also appearing in their online courses. “It just became a niche for me, and I just kept on running with it,” Matt said.
So, all of these things coming together compelled him to start doing it full-time.
Every new client gets a free session with Matt. He will spend about an hour getting a thorough medical background before walking you through a warm-up and movement routine. He uses this to determine the foundation he has to work from to help you obtain your goals — goals that he goes over with you as part of his assessment.
The assessment can get intrusive as he even checks the mobility you have in your shoulders and hips to help you work pain-free.
He is a certified pain-free trainer. He assesses each client and makes adjustments to how they move to work with their individualized needs. Simple adjustments to hand and feet placement can improve an individual’s performance and increase the positive impact of the movements in the long run.
His clients’ ages range from 11 to over 70: he is here to help everyone in their individualized needs to increase their functional fitness through one-on-one instruction. He does that through a variety of methods. And Matt is eternally optimistic about his ability to move people beyond what they thought they could do to reach their goals.
It is what he loves about his job. “I’ve got a police officer that I’ve been working with for six months,” he said. “He wasn’t a police officer when he came to me, and he was pretty obese. He dropped 80 pounds, and he’s passed his PT (physical training) test to become an officer.”
But the small victories also reaffirm his passion for helping people. Moments as simple as seeing a client reach down to touch the floor to pick something up or just stand up on their own are just as satisfying as helping a 21-year-old become a police officer.
“That’s why I do what I do. That’s what I love about it,” Matt said.
Focused Fitness can be reached at 812-639-1165 and you can follow Matt on Facebook here.
