We were lucky to catch up with Anthony Creighton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My mom died when I was 21. She was 42 and had lung cancer. I had always focused on health and wellness but after that I focused even more on it. When I was younger I used exercise as a way to help my own mental health. I had bad ptsd and exercise was my outlet rather than medications. My mom did not have the best lifestyle, smoked and rarely got much movement. Then when I was 26 my younger brother was killed from medications when he was 15 years old. I moved back to washington to be closer to my other younger brother. This forced me to really start something to help people. This pushed me into the gym industry and I opened a gym.
Since then I opened a gym dedicated to creating a safe space for women to rebuild their strength and health. Generally women ages 35 to 65+. We focus on weightlifting, fueling our bodies properly and community. We have a lot of events for our members and workshops that help their specific needs.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Throughout my life I have struggled with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I grew up in an abusive environment and went through some challenging times as a child. Searching for a way to reclaim my life, I discovered weightlifting. This really gave me a newfound sense of purpose, strength, and therapy. I faced a debilitating injury that left me with a broken back and hip. I was told I would not be able to lift the same or do the things I enjoy like calisthenics. Now I am fully healed and stronger than before.
As I mentioned before I started Organically Grown Muscle because of my mom and my brother and their passing. It also comes from my own use of exercise as a form of therapy to help mental health and want to help people see it for that benefit as well. A lot of my clients are middle aged to older women, going through similar things my mom was. So it gives me more of a sense of purpose and that I am almost helping my mom through them. I help women mostly build strength with weightlifting, build bone density, increase muscle tone, even things like reduce blood pressure, reduce/reverse diabetes and other common diseases.
We really are a safe space women can weightlift. We help a diverse group of fitness levels, meeting them where they are at and helping them feel less intimidated about the gym and weight room. We have a specific program we implement that makes it possible to learn and continuously progress each month. We offer group sessions with a personal trainer and 1on1 personal training.
I started the gym after I was using my apartment as a gym. I did a “pay what you can bootcamp” every Sunday at the local Community Center. All sorts of people came by and donated anything they could for a good workout. I saved that money and opened the gym on my own. Since then we have grown into 2 different bigger locations.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I opened the gym about 6 months before COVID happened. We had to shut down with everyone in March of that year. At first I thought I was definitely going to have to shut down. I started prepping for that, even put some stuff online for sale. When the shut down happened I sent an email out about. Everyone wanted to continue and do things on ZOOM. So for a couple months we did everything on ZOOM, group classes and personal training. Then when we were able to, we all worked out outside the gym. Even in the middle of February and it was freezing outside. Luckily we made it through and are still open today.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

I initially started as a “pay what you can bootcamp” at a Local Tacoma Community Center. Every Sunday I offered a bootcamp class where anyone could come and pay whatever possible. We always had a different workout and people brought their family and friends. I did catering for it sometimes with local vegan businesses in the area. I saved up all the money I got from that for a year or two before opening my own space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.organicallygrownmuscle.com
• Instagram: organicallygrownmuscle
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/organicallygrownmuscletacoma

Image Credits

Alexa Janell and Alfredo Quiroga