May 1, 2017

Meet Michael Anderson of Made By Fitness in Hollywood and Beverly Hills

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Anderson.

Michael, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I got into personal coaching about 5 years ago when I lived in Atlanta. I was in school at Georgia State University where I was studying marketing and really excelled in the program and had a lot of offers from big companies to come work for them. At the time, I was just going to a CrossFit gym to stay in shape and I really enjoyed the sport of it all and taking classes in a group setting. I got more involved in the community at the gym and the owner approached me one day and asked if I would be interested in becoming a certified CrossFit instructor. He told me that they were holding a seminar at the gym and he had a free class voucher for me if I wanted it. So I took the certification course and was immediately intrigued by the amount of knowledge the instructors had and the aura they seem to possess when talking with participants. They were really passionate about what they did and it showed in their teaching. That was the point I knew I wanted to be passionate about what I did as a career as much as them.

So a couple months later, I packed up my stuff and moved back to Los Angeles to get started with my new fitness journey. I was lucky enough to land a Head Coaching job right away at a startup CrossFit gym in Hollywood called StrengthRx CrossFit. The owners of the gym mentored me about movement, personal coaching, anatomy, nutrition, mobility, pretty much everything about fitness. As the time went on, I decided that I wanted to step into the realm of personal coaching, something that I didn’t want to do until I had felt that I garnered enough knowledge to take on that type of responsibility.

I started ‘Made By Fitness’ late 2016 with a couple of friends as my first clients. I wanted to do personal coaching for all spectrums of fitness so I started personal programs for Olympic Weightlifting, Power Lifting, and general training. Spreading out my programming through those forms of fitness keeps me on my toes. I am constantly researching every day, reading blogs and books, listening to podcast, watching videos and getting coaching myself from well-established experts in those fields. Everyday there is something new to learn, some new study to read up on and it keeps me sharp and makes me a better coach.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road, but I can’t say it has been to rocky either. The biggest struggles along the way was the business side so far. I spent a lot of time pinning down exactly what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, how to convey it to the public so that they would understand and be interested, and how to get them to buy into what service I’m offering. There was a lot of brainstorming and re-writes of business plans and objectives before I got down to the simplest yet most effective form of what I wanted to do.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
‘Made By Fitness’ is a personal coaching company that does in person coaching for groups or individuals, I also offer remote coaching and programming for athletes. Every single person that comes to me, I tailor a specific training schedule and programming based on that person’s goals and objectives. Every single person gets a free one-on-one consultation where we figure out what is most important to them. We figure out why they want to train, what they like to do or don’t like to do, do they have any medical conditions and injuries that we need to work around and then give a customized nutrition plan based on their everyday lifestyle habits and personal nutrition restrictions. No two programs are the same and I think that is what sets us apart from other coaches and trainers.

I think that I am most proud of my friends who took a chance on me when I got started and trusted me with their health and fitness. My two friends Michelle and Starr totally just let me do everything my way and trusted in me that they will get the results that we discussed and it worked. They became my walking talking billboards and marketing campaign.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think that our city is probably of the top places in the world for someone looking to get into the fitness industry business. Los Angeles is Hollywood, not only that it is basically 70 degrees all year around which means that people are always outside and everyone wants to look good when they are going to the beach, or shopping or just enjoying the sunshine.

If you are just starting out I would recommend Los Angeles if you are very familiar with Los Angeles. There is a big advantage of knowing the different communities and how to get started in those communities. Even if you are not familiar with the city coming to Los Angeles gives you this burst of motivation and excitement, it is the land of opportunity where stars are born every day and stars don’t always have to be on the big screen.

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