Meet Adam F. and Jacob C.
Exercise Science alumni
“Our goal was to just try to make health and fitness more accessible to people. And when we started out, we weren’t thinking of this as a business.”
Adam and Jacob met as athletic training interns and became quick friends, discovering in each other similar philosophies about health and fitness.
The pair followed each other to SUNY Cortland to complete their four-year degrees, and when COVID 19 shut down the fitness world, they began to formulate a unique business model in their spare time. Well, more than a business – call it a community-based health movement.
What was to eventually grow into Connected Community Health Support began with the pair (and their partner Seth Spicer from SUNY Cortland) using platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitch to post free, hour-long body weight workouts during the depths of the COVID lockdowns.
“Our goal was to just try to make health and fitness more accessible to people. And when we started out, we weren’t thinking of this as a business. The idea came from the fact that we were in grad school and we wanted to figure out how to do something that will help the community. At the height of the pandemic, there just wasn’t any option to go to the gym, so we saw this as something we could do,” Jacob said.
Those videos – still available on YouTube - and the ability to create virtual one-on-one training sessions using interactive video technology was just the beginning for the duo back in 2020. As restrictions have eased, they now offer in-person personal training sessions and they see their business growing into something even more holistic and community-based.
The goal of Connected Community Health Support, they said, is to establish personal training hubs in communities around the state – maybe even nationwide - and to have outreach coordinators in selected areas to discover just what that community might need.
Connected Community Health Support now has five personal trainers who offer in-person or online training; the ability to set-up tailored workout plans based on an individual’s needs; an online community portal where clients can share their stories; and even a podcast that explores what Adam and Jacob consider the “7 pillars” of health - fitness, nutrition, sleep, social/environmental, mindset, policy change, personal finance.
Ambitious? Maybe. But these two are committed to more than just helping folks break their bench press record.
“A lot of what we’re helping people with is very functional,” Adam said. “We’re not just focusing on the fitness part but the overall general health and wellness of the individual.”
