Paul Zemba

I’ve been doing CrossFit for seven years now, and not once have I gotten bored with it. The constantly varied, skilled movements performed across different time domains continue to challenge me every day. I truly believe CrossFit is one of the smartest and most effective ways to develop overall physical fitness—and one of the best ways to prepare yourself for whatever life throws at you. I started coaching a little over two years ago, and it quickly became another passion in my life. Coaching gives me an opportunity to take something that has given so much to me and give some of that back to the community.

My CrossFit journey actually started at a difficult point in my athletic career. After competing as a distance runner in track and field through college, I had ambitions of continuing to run competitively. Those plans fell short when I was plagued by injuries during the summer after my senior year. I became increasingly frustrated with training and eventually felt lost and defeated. Around that time, my wife convinced me to come to a CrossFit class with her. I was instantly hooked. The constant variation, challenge, and competitive atmosphere were exactly what I had been missing since my time as a college athlete ended. More importantly, CrossFit filled the void left by training alone. I once again had a community of people working toward something together and sharing in both the struggle and the success.

CrossFit became an especially important part of my life while attending chiropractic school in Davenport, Iowa. During one of the most stressful periods of my life, the gym gave me an outlet, structure, and a community outside of school. The people I trained with every day didn't just care about how much weight I could lift or how fast I finished a workout. They asked how school was going, how life was going, and genuinely wanted to see me succeed. That made the difficult days just a little bit easier. Eventually, I graduated from chiropractic school and my wife and I moved back to Louisville, where I joined my family’s chiropractic clinic. I also found a new home at Vanguard CrossFit. Now, as both a chiropractor and a CrossFit coach, I get to combine two things I’m passionate about: helping people move well and helping them realize what their bodies are capable of. Around the gym, I like to joke that my goal is to help our members move so well that I never have to see them in my office someday!

More than anything, my passion as a coach is making the sport of fitness accessible to everyone. No matter your age, experience, or current fitness level, there is a version of every movement and every workout that you can do. My job is to help you find it, build confidence in it, and keep progressing from there. CrossFit gave me back the community, competition, and purpose in training that I thought I had lost. Coaching is my opportunity to help other people find those same things.