Intro
I didn’t become a coach because fitness was easy for me.
I became a coach because it saved my life.
The Early Warrior
Like many men of my generation, I grew up idolizing warriors—Arnold, Stallone, Ferrigno, Haney, Yates. At 16, I had a very strong desire to play H.S. football and prove myself as a man. I pleaded with my father for a weight set and began training in the basement with nothing but grit, fitness magazines, and self-discipline.
My obsession with pursuing physical fitness helped earn me a nomination to the United States Military Academy at West Point.
At West Point, I was cut from the Division I football team for being undersized at my position. I was crushed—but not broken—I was then recruited by the NCAA Sprint Football Team at Army, where I leveled up my strength development and nutrition, and became one of only two freshmen to earn a varsity letter that year.
My plan for the offseason was to play rugby in the winter/spring as I put on some more size, and then try out for strong safety on the Football Team.
God's plan was different—A Rugby shoulder injury quickly ended my contact sports career overnight, and it was this setback that became my redirection.
The Builder
Instead of packing up and quitting the Academy, I landed a position on the Army Strength Team—training Division I football, basketball, and hockey players. I studied advanced strength development as an elective and became a student of human performance, while continuing to rehabilitate my own shoulder.
By my senior year, I was elected Strength Team Captain, and by graduation, my physique and knowledge of strength and development caught the attention of the Army’s head strength coach, a former bodybuilder, who encouraged me to pursue bodybuilding after graduation.
While serving on active duty as an Army Aviation Officer, I trained relentlessly for six more years and placed 2nd in my first bodybuilding competition—the Southern Isles Championships in Savannah, GA, in 2003.
On the outside, I certainly looked strong. But on the inside, mental trauma from my military career and and stress in my personal life was about to break me completely.
The Fall
My first marriage, ended in a divorce after only 6 months. Without properly dealing with the trauma, I then married again, only to have my second marriage collapse after 11 years, this time with a 6-year-old daughter.
By then, everything I ever identified myself with as my purpose as a man seemed lost—
The College Football Athlete.
The Army Aviator.
The Bodybuilder.
The Husband.
The Provider.
The Father.
I was now broken—a hollow shell of the man I once was—completely out of shape, spiritually empty, totally lost, and emasculated as a man. I had no idea who I was or what my purpose was supposed to be anymore.
The Resurrection
At rock bottom, I didn’t find a new program.
I reconnected with God.
On my knees in despair, I asked Him to show me the path to rebuild what was destroyed. And step by step—through discipline, my faith, suffering, and surrender—He did.
What I didn't realize at the time was that I wasn't just training my body.
I was rebuilding my entire identity and finding purpose.
I didn’t chase abs.
I reclaimed my Warrior ethos, my masculinity, and it was my connection with God that healed me from the inside out.
The Comeback
At age 50, after four hard years of focused preparation with gratitude to God for the trials He put me through, I returned to the bodybuilding stage after a 22-year hiatus from the sport I once loved.
The result—
- Republic of Texas Championships—Masters Classic Physique 50+ Champion (July 2025)
- NPC Masters USA National Championships—Masters Classic Physique 50+ Overall Champion (Nov 2025)
- Earned my IFBB Pro League Card.
Not for ego.
As a testimony of God's Glory.
Why I Coach
Today I am—
A U.S. Army–trained Master Fitness Trainer
A National Coaching Institute (NCI) Certified Fitness Coach
An IFBB Professional Bodybuilder
A Christian Warrior who has lived the collapse and the resurrection, finding peace in the training and discipline of a fitness lifestyle that brought me closer to God.
I found purpose in the incredible blessings God has given me with 34 years of fitness knowledge, expertise, and my personal resurrection experience. My mission now is to help other men rise from the same pit I once lived in—physically, mentally, and spiritually—so they may renew their Warrior mindset, rebuild their own masculine identity and find their own purpose as I did.
I don’t coach from exercise and nutrition theory alone.
I coach from my experiences, my scars, discipline, faith, my own transformation, and in gratitude and service to God's glory.
In Closing
God specializes in comeback stories.
He has called me to help other men reconnect with Him, reclaim their Warrior mindset and physique through a fitness lifestyle approach, so they can live their own comeback story and become the Warriors that their family, children, and community need them to be.
- Greg Iannuccilli
