Zach Trowbridge

Biography

My first exposure to strength training was the first day of gym class in my freshman year of high school.  5’8″, 107lbs, back when skater cuts and JNCO jeans were a thing that people actually thought looked good (apparently I did anyway).  The whole class had to do a bench press test, and they had 3 stations set up – one with 135lbs for the boys over a certain weight (150lbs maybe?), one with 95lbs for boys who weighed less (this guy!), and one for girls with an empty 45lb Olympic barbell.

On my turn, somebody helped me get the bar out of the rack, and it promptly plummeted onto my sternum because apparently I had made enemies with gravity.  Completely stapled me to the bench – it wasn’t even close.  So I was “demoted” to the girls’ bench… and the exact same thing happened.  Most every girl that lifted after me got at least a few reps with it – this was my first memory of high school. 

I remember going to the book store that weekend and buying everything on strength training that I could find, which at the time was primarily Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and a solid half-dozen magazines.  I read every single page in the span of a weekend and promptly fell in love with the idea of training to make yourself better, not just physically but mentally as well.  By the end of the year I was actually able to get back under that 95lb bar and not embarrass myself, and strength training continued to be something I could lean on throughout all of high school, and well into college, and graduation, and marriage, and parenthood…I had developed such a passion for training that in college, friends and “friends of friends” had asked me to help them put together training and diet plans and to train them enough that I began to see the opportunity to do something I already loved doing as a side job, and I took my first paid training client in 2003.  Fast forward a decade and a half and it’s gone well beyond a side job and into something that I, along with my wife Christine and the tremendous coaching staff at All Strength Training, am able to spend my day influencing our clients’ lives with, helping many of them with their own personal “empty barbell” moments.

Additional Qualifications

2020-present

Mountain Dog Diet Contributing Author

2016 – Chicago’s Best Personal Trainer

Chicago Reader

2014-present

Competitive physique athlete (WBFF pro fitness model, NPC physique/classic physique)

2011-present

Elite Fitness Systems Contributing Author

2009-2012

Competitive Powerlifter (APF, USPF)