Elite Personal Trainers

Matt has been into exercise and fitness since his childhood, playing multiple sports and training year round. He has grown into competing in bodybuilding, jujitsu, and has become a competitive athlete in the sport of Crossfit. He has won several Crossfit competitions in the last 3 years. He loves to push others to their maximum potential and to see them be successful in their fitness journey!

• Nasm Corrective Exercise
• Crossfit Level 1 Trainer
• Crossfit Mobility
• Crossfit Olympic Lifting

Fitness has always been a huge part of Josh’s life. He is a second degree black belt in TaeKwonDo, played soccer for several years and participated in both track and field and cross country during high school.

When Josh was 18, his brother wanted to lose weight and get back to how he used to be. They worked out together and his brother lost 45 lbs in 5 months. Seeing that change and his brother’s outlook on himself made a drastic impact on Josh. He started reading and researching everything he could get his hands on in the field of exercise. Josh became a certified Personal Trainer in 2011 and started helping as many people as he could. Josh is currently working on obtaining his Masters in Nutrition and becoming a Registered Dietitian.Josh is currently working on obtaining his Masters in Nutrition and becoming a Registered Dietitian.

 

Personal Training Certifications:

• ACE Certified Personal Trainer
• NASM Sports Nutrition
• TRX

I am a firm believer in holistic health and empowering others. I have played sports my whole life and I am a definite adrenaline junkie. I am an Eagle Scout and love being active outside. I crave physical activity and feel accomplished with it. I got hurt in college and lost my drive for anything.

Once I finished my degree in Health Promotion and Education at OSU, I knew that I wanted to help others become healthy and that I needed to make a positive change. I got certified and became a trainer. I loved learning how the muscles work independently and as a unit. I love to educate my clients on how to properly use the muscles of their bodies in the gym and in life. I love people and I will work with anyone. I want to be a light for those who need change.

Growing up Jason always had a knack for sports as he grew up playing baseball, basketball and football. Growing up dealing with asthma didn’t make him quit and only drove him to want to play harder. Dealing with life Jason had to drop out of sports and gained a lot of weight due to asthma medication. After realizing that the weight was hindering his health, his senior year he decided to make a change for the better and dropped about 100 pounds and played high school football his senior year.

After graduation Jason got the opportunity to play collegiate football for the University of Arkansas and was able to make the team. After dealing with injuries Jason didn’t decide to give up and actually thought that since he knew he could make a healthy life change then he can help others and decided to jump into the fitness and health industry. After enrolling through the fitness and health program through Community Care College and getting the National Academy of Sports Medicine certifications and decided to specialize in general fitness, HIIT, group fitness, weight loss and started in corrective exercise. “If I can do it, then why can’t you?”

 

Personal Training Certifications:

• Associates in Occupational Health Science
• NASM-CPT
• NASM-Corrective Exercise Specialist (in progress)
• First Aid and CPR certified
• Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology (in progress)

After being a track and cross country runner and avoiding weights in high school because she
“didn’t want to get huge,” Courtney finally turned to weights after becoming overweight from
having a desk job. “I had never been that big before, but knew I needed to change something,”
she says.

After seeing results from weight lifting, she became addicted. It’s been 4 years now and she still
can’t get enough of the gym. She became a personal trainer due to her love of helping people
reach their goals and wanting everyone to love fitness like she does.

Fitness has helped her find her passion and has made her into a better person in everyday life.

 

Personal Training Certifications:

• ISSA certified personal trainer
• First aid and CPR/AED certified

I grew up in the Philadelphia area and came to Tulsa in 1984 and attended Oral Roberts
University where I met my husband. Later, I finished my Bachelors Degree at Southern
Nazarene University in Management of Human Resources . I’ve been married 27 years and
have 3 wonderful children. Fitness has always been a part of my life, but I started to become
heavily active after having my children. Any woman who has had a child knows the toll it takes
on your body. So I worked very hard to lose the baby weight and found not only did I lose the
weight, but I was more energetic, slept better, felt like I was doing something for myself, more
stable emotionally and an overall better mom.

My journey to become a Certified Personal Trainer started after a bad back injury and a series
of unrelated surgeries. My husband graciously bought me a package at Elite because he saw
how discouraged I was and fearful of working out again for fear of re-injuring myself. I worked
with a wonderful trainer at Elite that inspired me to do what she did! She helped me regain my
strength, tone, and lose a few pounds and also gain my self confidence, which is what I want to
do with my clients!

I have people ask me all the time “how do you find the time to stay so fit??” My answer is how
can I NOT find the time! Fitness for me is not just for physical purposes but also keeps me
strong mentally and relieves stress and just makes me feel happier. One quote that I love is
“Food is the most abused anxiety drug, exercise is the most underutilized anti-depressant”.
In addition to fitness, I love hanging out and laughing with family and friends, cooking,
experimenting in the kitchen for ideas for healthy meals.

My name is James Wathen III and I’d like to be your trainer! My passion for fitness knows no bounds. It all started in middle school where I was exposed to my favorite sport: track and field. I enjoyed running and using my naturally long legs to prevail over my competition. Sadly, I was not in great shape when I started off so I had to work hard to achieve my goal of finishing in first place at every race! From humble beginnings, I discovered that I love health and fitness and the edge that you get over those who are not wiling to put in the same work.

When I graduated high school, I continued to pursued my dream to be a fitness and health coach where I attended community Care College and got my associates degree in fitness and health. I also became NASM certified. I later joined the United States Navy and exemplified hard work and dedication. I was medically discharged and am now ready to embrace my true passion once again. Nothing is impossible through Christ who strengthens me and hard work. Believe in yourself and you can achieve it!

As a kid, and in the stage of being an awkward teenager, Nathan Pray was always the overweight kid who got bullied in school. There were times that kids picked on him at school that he would go home and feel worthless. In 8th grade, he made a decision to become healthier. With the guidance of his uncle, who was a nutritionist, he dropped 95 pounds by the beginning of the 10th grade.

Sadly with going through a rough relationship at the time he gained some of it back and fell into a slight depression of trying to get the weight off. However, in his senior year of high school, Nathan was able to partake in an internship at a fitness studio called Kettlebell 360. There Nathan learned what true fitness was. He was able to improve his poor movement patterns, gain strength, and eventually losing 50 pounds of the weight that he gained back.

With this new found passion of health he changed his career choice to become a fitness coach. In the beginning of 2017 he earned his StrongFirst Level 1 Kettlebell certification; during this time he worked two jobs and was a full-time student. And if the stress of school and work wasn’t enough, his grandfather that he was close to died. Despite the emotional toll, he fought through the pain, and came out on top.

Nathan’s goal is to help you become a stronger, happier, and healthier human being that you were designed to be.

Laura Dill originally born in New Jersey and lived on Long Island, NY until she was 8. She has always had the passion to keep moving. As a young girl she was involved with tap dancing, clogging, gymnastics, track and field and cross country. She went to Broken Arrow High School and graduated in 2002. She also attended Tulsa Vo Technology for Medical Assisting. In 2001 she enlisted into the Army National Guard and shipped out for Basic Training 20 days after graduating high school.

Once she graduated basic training and AIT she returned home and started working as a medical assistant for St Johns Health Systems. Over the next few years she underwent a breast reduction to help with pain in her neck, shoulders and lower back from the constant tugging from the weight from her chest. Physical therapy was attended weekly to help her rehab from the damage that was done. She then got married had her first child and personally started on her own fitness journey through training for 5k, 10k and 1/2 marathons. After countless injuries and hours and hours gone every week from running 25-35 miles a week, an injury finally got the best of her. She was placed in a foot brace and told not to run for 9 weeks. She didn’t know where to turn or how she will stay fit if she couldn’t run. This led her to cross training at local gyms and in her garage. She enjoyed the change in style of exercise and noticed a positive change in her physique. Instead of being skinny fat she started to increase muscle mass and was able to burn more calories lifting heavier things. She wanted to share this with others and launched an outdoor Bootcamp for her neighborhood.

Still working in the health field she was introduced to the infamous Kettlebell through a physician she worked for. Slowing getting exposure to proper form during the different style of lifts she learned to love it. After 3 months of practice she noticed her lower lumbar pain was almost completely gone. She knew she was on to something. She then decided this would be an excellent opportunity to become certified through DragonDoor and over the next 9 months she worked towards her first certification called HardStyle Kettlebell and then on the Russian Kettlebell Challenge. She converted all her Bootcamp’s over to KB Training and it exploded. She went from owning a garage gym to a 2000 sqft facility in Broken Arrow called Kettlebell360.

She now holds 3 different levels of KB certifications HKC, RKC, SFG I and SFG II,SFL which is StrongFirst lifter barbell certification and also level 1 and 2 with the Functional Movement Systems with years of hands on training and experience through all different levels of fitness and movement dysfunction. She is currently enrolled in school to pursue deeper knowledge of the rehabilitation world and working towards Physical Therapy.

Her focus is to find your imbalances and weakness and build a stronger foundation of strength and stability so you can exercise pain free.

She also competes in the Highland games and Kettlebell sport. She has placed 2nd in the IKLF US BOLT Nationals 2017 women’s open division heavyweight in the double clean and jerk 16kg and placed third place in the open heavyweight snatch division at the national level with the 16kg. She moved onto the IKLF US BOLT World Championship and placed 2nd place in the heavyweight snatch and 2nd place in women’s heavy weight double clean and jerk on the 16 kg KB.

Deborah grew up in southern California where her passion for an active lifestyle began on an archery range with her dad. They also visited Venice Beach often and would stop by the famous Muscle Beach Gym to watch the bodybuilders. She was fascinated with the vitality she saw in the athletes’ faces and demeanor. When she was a sophomore in high school she took her first weightlifting class and was hooked. She began learning all she could about fitness and nutrition.

When college came she passed that knowledge to friends by teaching them how to lift and live healthy. While attending NSU in Tahlequah she felt a call to full-time missions work but “life” happened-she became pregnant and married into an abusive relationship-trying to fix her mistakes, she gave up on her dreams. Feeling like a million broken pieces, she surfaced from that relationship and raised two kids on her own. It was putting God first and getting in the gym that brought back her sanity. She got back in the routine of lifting heavy, eating clean, and running hard. After 6 months she lost over 60 lbs and not only gained back her physical strength, but a mental and spiritual strength she never knew existed. Today, Deborah empowers clients aged 8-88 with the tools they need to not only transform their bodies but their spirit as well.

She is a NAFC certified personal trainer and certified MMA Conditioning Coach. She and her husband Larry are known as a power couple in their community in Claremore, OK. They co-own a Brazilian jiu-jitsu school, BJJ Coach Claremore, where she conditions fighters and trains ladies and teens through her outreach ministry, Empower Fitness-Faith.

Deborah specializes in strength and body sculpting through weightlifting (her favorite lift is bench press) and also metabolic conditioning–which is a fusion of HIIT, bodyweight exercises, and resistance training that torches fat and builds a fighter’s physique.

Fav food: chips n guac
Fav workout: Insanity
Hobbies: being a Community Leader coach at Life.Church Catoosa and a member of the prayer team, anything jiu-jitsu, archery, fine arts, SoCal culture

As a kid I was always active, and played multiple sports; soccer, baseball, basketball, and football.

I wasn’t introduced to weights until I was about 15 years old. At that time I was much smaller than almost all of my classmates and knew that I wanted to change. With help from my coaches, I was able to add on around 60lbs over the next year and was hooked.

Twenty years later and I still love the process. There’s nothing better for not only improving overall health but self-confidence as well. My main goal as a trainer is to share that experience and feeling with other people.

I read and watch videos on as many different training methods as possible and enjoy trying them out. My personal favorite program will always be the BFS training method for its focus on sports, youth, and core lifts. Who doesn’t like deadlifts, right?

My best advice for anyone looking to change their life and overall health is to be consistent and remember that at the end of the day, any progress made or not made is on you and the choices you make.

When I’m not working or training, I spend my time with family or work on my house. There’s just something great about working with your hands.

Certifications:

NASM Certified Personal Trainer

NASM Fitness Nutrition Specialization