Travis Anthoine: From Pharmaceutical Sales to OPEX Client and Coach

Travis Anthoine’s life took a massive turn eight months ago: He left his career in pharmaceuticals in Boston and moved to California with his wife.

An avid CrossFit athlete, who used to train at Invictus in Boston, Anthoine had heard about OPEX and decided to check out OPEX Kura in San Mateo when he moved to the west coast. What happened next was surprisingly beneficial, Anthoine explained.

He sat down with Coach Josh Bernstein and they barely talked about fitness.

“The initial consultation with Josh was pretty amazing for me—really eye-opening in terms of the difference in what I’d be getting as a service compared to the group classes I was used to,” said 35-year-old Anthoine. “We talked a lot about my life and what I was doing with this move. The conversation wasn’t really about training at all.”

This set the wheels in motion for Anthoine to really figure out what he wanted from his life and how fitness would fit into that life. He credits his coach with helping him tackle these questions.

“Josh has become more of a mentor. He really helped me figure out a lot of decisions in my life, too,” Anthoine said. “He really got me to take a hard look at my life—to look at the things I was doing with the other 22 hours a day I’m not at the gym. I realized things like I wasn’t doing a whole lot of movement the rest of the day when I wasn’t at the gym. I was doing a lot of sitting, not a lot of walking, and wasn’t getting much sunlight.”

Bernstein also got Anthoine thinking about what he wanted to do as a career.

Anthoine realized he actually wanted to become an OPEX coach. He is currently going through the OPEX Coach Certificate Program (CCP) and has begun working with his own individual program design clients.

Life questions aside, Bernstein’s coaching has also been incredibly valuable in providing Anthoine with the right training program to help him reach his fitness goals.

“I have goals of competing locally, but I also really wanted to feel as good as I can during my training sessions. I was always super sore before—something was always kind of injured when I did group training—and I wanted to move away from that, but still get the training stimulus I wanted,” he said.

This is exactly what Anthoine said he’s getting.

“In the assessment, we found some issues with how I move and we address those every day with mobility and stability stuff that’s built right into my programming,” he said. This has gone a long way in helping Anthoine improve his overhead positioning, and fix the back and shoulder pain he used to experience all the time.

Though Anthoine now has the technical knowledge to program for himself, he said he still gets so much value from having a personal coach in his corner.

“No matter how educated you are, I still think it’s really important to have someone to look at your issues and to talk to about your goals. If I did my programming myself, I know it would look a lot different than what Josh is doing, and I love what he is doing for me. The gains I have seen both from a lifting perspective and from feeling better are incredible,” he said.

This is exactly what excites him about becoming a full-time professional OPEX coach: The ability to truly make a difference in his clients’ lives.

“It comes down to intention. You can’t figure that out about people in a group setting. Sure, you can get fit and healthy in a group, but you need to look into the real reasons why you’re doing everything in your life. And that’s where we can really help you out,” Anthoine said.

He added: “That, and the education behind it. We take the time to educate our clients about why they’re doing what they’re doing in their program so they become self-sufficient and have a better understanding of their training. It’s a premium service really.”

Finally, what really sets OPEX apart is the support Anthoine said he receives from OPEX, even from the people at the top, like CEO Jim Crowell and Founder James Fitzgerald.

“If I have a question about business, Jim’s right there to answer it, and I can literally ask James any question and he’ll answer me the same day. And that’s just not easy to find. It’s pretty awesome,” he said.