Our Story, Part 3: The Origin of Full Plate

Every so often I get asked “why are you called Full Plate”…well here is our origin story. How did we go from training women to athletes ranging from 6 yrs old to D1 collegiate athletes?

If you’ve read the first part of my story, you would already know that I had worked as a chef for 7 years, while obtaining my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters in Exercise Physiology.

After obtaining my undergrad, I was fortunate enough to be offered a job teaching group exercise classes to mostly women for almost 3 years. During this time I was actively studying toward my Masters and still working weekends at Tuckers Restaurant in Southwick, MA.

Fast forward to the Spring semester 2017. I was finishing my second year of graduate school. I was actually on track to finish all of my coursework that semester, and would only have to finish my thesis (little did I know that I would have many bumps in that road).

Every winter our church young adult group would go to a conference in the Poconos. Me being one of the older participants volunteered to drive one of the 15 passenger vans. A bunch of young men piled into my van and we were off on a 4 hour drive down to the Spruce Lake Retreat.

The road trip turned out being a 4 hour Q&A about diet and exercise. We discussed everything from workout programming, splits, nutrition, exercises, etc. It was a perfect time for me to apply some knowledge.

The weekend conference was extremely blessed. We had a great time seeing old friends, listening to speakers from all over the country, and played some games in the gymnasium. But the time came for us to return home…and you guessed it, another 4 hour Q&A.

Toward the end of the trip we were talking about training to failure in order to build muscle. And one young man spoke up and said that he did not have a spotter, and therefore could do that type of training. That was when I had the lightbulb moment.

A few years prior I had the fleeting idea of starting a gym. When I began graduate school, that dream was all but forgotten until this moment. I asked the group “If I start a gym, would you guys join me?”

At least 8 of the young men answered “yes”. That was all it took for me to get the ball rolling. I researched what was required to start a gym business, licences, leasing, etc.

I began searching for locations . At the time I had no idea what was good for leasing rates, and my budget was small. So options were quite limited. Fortunately one of my friends from church turned mo onto his landlord and we made a deal. I would rent a small portion of his warehouse (1,000 sq ft) for the gym.

So we had a location, but almost no equipment. I had brought my home gym, which wasn’t much to write home about (see what I did there?). So now the search began for barbells, dumbbells, squat racks, and kettlebells from Craigslist. I eventually found some equipment that was in our price range, but needed refurbishing.

The time came when I needed to fill out the business licence. But I didn’t have a name yet. What was I going to call it? I knew it had to blend my background as a chef into fitness. This was a big struggle for me…how can I be creative enough to figure this out? After all my brother was the creative one.

The only thing I could think of that married the two was plate. Whether it be plates of food…or iron plates in the gym. Eventually the pun was created…Full Plate… Strength…Strength & Conditioning…Fitness? Oh no…which one do we choose? Honestly this was the hardest part. But after much thought it Full Plate Fitness was decided (though it didn’t last long).

At this time, I hadn’t told anybody what I was doing (I hadn’t even updated the young men from the trip. I wanted this to be a surprise for everybody! But my dad had his sneaking suspicions. I had moved out my equipment, and was refurbishing benches/weights. Whenever he asked me “what are you working on?” I would avoid the question, or be as vague as possible.

Finally I heard him say to my mom “Steven is up to something, I don’t know what…but he is up to something…” . I had to struggle to keep a straight face when I came downstairs to see them.

The time came, we obtained the basic equipment that we needed to just get by. Like I said, there was no business plan. The goal was to work with the young adults and get them bigger, stronger, and leaner. But I had no idea how to unveil this big project…I just knew it would have to be after Mother’s day.

I gave a 4 week extended notice at the restaurant, and decided to have Mother’s day be my last day there. There was no way I would leave them empty handed before the busiest day of the year. I had finished my final exams the week prior and was getting the finishing touches on the gym ready.

I worked the omelette station on Mother’s day May 14, 2017. This was the last day that I was employed at the restaurant. I went home, showered, then went to the gym to make my announcement. I recorded a short video explaining why I left the food service industry and what my goals were moving forward.

I took the footage home to edit with the goal to surprise my mother as a Mother’s day gift and to show the rest of my family. During the editing process I couldn’t contain myself anymore. So I took my mother for a drive to see her “present”…because it was too big and needed to be “stored in a warehouse”.

We entered the warehouse and I led her to our space. Turned around and said “here is your present”. She looked at me dumbfounded , not sure of what she was looking at. After about 30 seconds if finally clicked, and my mother understood that we were standing in a brand new gym business.

Small space, nothing fancy, but this is the origin

Now it definitely wasn’t anything nice to look at. But it was a start of something new. By the end of the week, the business licence was accepted. I informed the young men that we were ready to go, but I needed 20 people to sign up so we could cover the cost of rent. We set a date and made it happen, in the cold/dark warehouse.

I had about 12-15 guys show up. Not the 20 that we needed, but it was a start. We made a schedule for training and got to work. Over the course of the following month they started showing up less and less…until they all stopped. One or two would come every now and again. But I was left with a gym business and literally no clients.

At this time I had not left my other coaching job as I still needed income coming in. A couple months prior I had informed the owner that I was starting the gym to work with young men and athletes. This was o.k. provided I wasn’t advertising or talking about it to their clients…that was fine by me understandable.

One Friday night a few of those ladies saw my video and came to check out the gym…and then posted about it on social media. Oh no. The next day I was asked to turn in my keys. Now I had no job, no income, a gym business with no clients, and no business plan. Yea…that was my goal exactly.

It was time to shape up fast! How do I build a website? How do I do SEO? How do I market? How do I run our system? How can I pay rent? I was starting to realize that I know nothing about starting and running a business.

Fortunately some of the ladies felt about about the situation (in hindsight it was what I needed…a sink or swim scenario) and encouraged their husbands to join. Then a few adults from church joined, and people were talking. We only brought the numbers up to maybe 10 people, but it was better than nothing.

Over the course of the summer we grew slowly to the point where we could finally afford rent. One day a young man and his mother walked through the door, apparently they lived nearby and saw our sign. They asked about the training and if there was a free trial, which there was. Over the course of the next few weeks we would chat about strength & conditioning, how we were both Christians, and how we got started in the health/fitness industry.

When the 2 weeks were up, he asked about interning with us and in return would train for free. At this point I was not expecting any interns considering how I was just getting my sea legs. But I jumped at the opportunity. The intern wanted to be a strength & conditioning coach and was about to start his freshmen year at Westfield State University as an Exercise Science major. As the summer drew on, he decided to take his shot at passing the personal trainer certification. So he took that opportunity to study and learn. He eventually passed in the winter. That intern’s name was Ryan Kennedy.

I bring him up because he was integral in the early stages of building the business. His cousin, Matt LaCroix, was the assistance lacrosse coach for Westfield High School. This opened the door to begin working with athletes, because until this point we had only been working with the adult population.

We began working with the LAX kids that fall. We quickly grew to a large group of 12 kids. At this point we only had 3 squat racks. So this prompted our first expansion.

Sneak peak at our first expansion!

This occurred within the warehouse where we rented a little more space to make room for the Rogue Monster Rig. This gave us 6 more squat racks to work with the kids…perfect! This opened up the doors to work with much larger groups, and eventually led us to where we are today.

That winter was one I’ll never forget. The warehouse was kept at 45 degrees. The entire space was open, we weren’t subdivided. Therefore if we wanted heat, we needed to heat the entire warehouse. Let’s say that was a cold winter. You can see the older posts on our Instagram all dressed up with hats on. Spring couldn’t come fast enough!

We continued to grow slowly through the spring and into summer of 2018. Eventually we had enough clients that we could expand Full Plate to a bigger location…and add turf. That is exactly what we did. One of the original locations I researched was still vacant. This is where we decided to move to, our current location 66 S. Broad st. Westfield, MA.

But with this move came a re-branding. We would no longer be a ”Fitness” facility. But a “Strength & Conditioning” Facility to serve our growing number of athletes. That summer, we expanded our program to include young athletes. By the Fall of 2018 both of our youth groups were full, and we couldn’t thank you more!

This is the story of how we went from a business with no clients, or business plan to a fully functioning strength & conditioning facility. Our origin story seems like a series of happy accidents, but we couldn’t be more grateful.

We still have a long way to go. We’re excited to work on improving our community and teach our adults and athletes how to grow stronger.