I have always enjoyed training, lifting, and sweating. My love of the weight room started in Middle School. At my middle school, there was a club called M Club aka Muscle Club that started before school 3x/week. We would do interval strength training for 10-20 minutes and then play basketball or some other game the remainder of the time. I was the only girl in Muscle Club and loved every second of it. I remember not being able to bench press the bar at all. I was usually the shortest girl on any sports team I played on but my competitive nature ran deep in me and I never cared about how small I was, I would do anything possible to win.

I Majored in Exercise Science and originally intended to become a strength and conditioning coach for college athletes. My thought process in college was that I only wanted to work with athletes. I didn’t want to work with the general public because A. The majority of them are heavy and B. That is because they are lazy and full of excuses. After interning with the strength and conditioning program at my university, I didn’t really find the passion and the love of what I was doing. So I interned in youth strength and conditioning and again it didn’t feel quite what I wanted to do. But during that internship, I had to run a boot camp at a local high school for the teachers before work and that changed my whole life. That was were I felt my passion bleed forth and knew that I wanted to work with the general population. My thought process has changed drastically and I love helping everyday people feel stronger and healthier. The joy I see when someone PRs a lift or accomplishes something they never thought was possible in the gym, makes my heart warm and brings a ginormous smile on my face.

As soon as I graduated college, I started my own personal training business and drove around to people’s houses and trained them with equipment stuffed in my 2 door Pontiac. As my business was growing, I saw the goal of opening up my own garage gym and doing group classes. I quickly found a space and started implementing group classes right away. I love the group environment and thrive off everyone’s energy in the space.

About two years into my gym business is when I meant my now Fiance, Gabby. We both decided to we wanted to make a huge transition and move to Austin without a real job in place. Talk about trust lol. So in 2014 I sold my business and moved down to Austin with a huge U-haul and the one thing I knew is that I wanted to work for Crossfit Central. I had been following Central for quite some time on social media and actually took a lot of their business practices and used them myself in my own gym. I knew Crossfit Central was the best and I wanted to work for the best. I decided to take my Crossfit Level 1 a couple months before moving down at Crossfit Central Downtown and set up a meeting to speak with Jeremy about a potential job. I had been doing Crossfit since college days and truely enjoyed to competitive nature and the outlet it gave me as an athlete.

I started working with Relentless Boot Camp in Aug 2014 and soon became an indoor coach at Crossfit Central Burnet in 2015. I love coming to work everyday and being a part of the community, love, and support that is engulfed at Crossfit Central. Some of my best friends are people I have met at Central. It really is a family and I love everything about it.

Certifications:

Crossfit Level 1 (CF-L1) Trainer
Crossfit Level 2 (CF-L2) Trainer
Crossfit Football Trainer
Underground Strength Coach Level 1
Crossfit Strongman Trainer
Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
CPR, AED, & First Aid Certificate

5 Questions with Coach Jess Powers

Favorite Movement?
Muscle Ups and Power Cleans. The beauty and the arm form of muscle ups is amazing and the shear strength and raw power in power cleans that make movement so sexy!

Favorite Meal? 
Thanksgiving Dinner: where massive gainz are made and then a 3 hour nap afterwards is needed.

When you’re not coaching, what are you doing? Favorite activities?
I have recently started bringing my dogs to the greenbelt and just relaxing. Getting back in tune with nature and reading a good book.

Hype Jam?
Anything by Taylor Swift but definitely Shake It Off

Current goals?
Getting back into full training mode after my LCL tear from playing football. Getting ready for my wedding in October =) Make it back to Regionals in 2017!!!