We were lucky to catch up with Zach Hockenberry recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Zach thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

My defining moment in life when I decided to become a personal trainer started a couple of years ago. I got married to my highschool sweet heart when I was 19 (2016) years old. I had a full time job, full time school when we decided to grow our family with our first baby girl when I was 20. It was worth it, but very stressful. I stopped thinking about myself and put everyone else before me. I graduated from the University of Montana in 2020 and felt very lost. My degree was very hard to find a career in due to it being very competitive. I applied for over hundreds of jobs and they all said the same thing, “you need experience”. How was I supposed to get experience if nobody would give me a chance. I grew up in a small town in Whitehall, Montana. I was adopted at a young age and raised in a house that was wild and with no nutritional values. I grew up with a lot of siblings and at some point we all got obese. So you could say I’ve been overweight my whole life. With not being able to use my degree from school and having 2 more kids by 2022 made me turn more to food. I ate and ate until I got obese with a BMI of 40. I got depressed and stopped going out to do anything fun. I was always the brother taking care of everyone and even at a young age I always wanted to be a husband and father, and the best at that. Life was not going my way. I felt like a bad father, husband and failure at providing for my family. It was hard to do anything at 260 pounds at 5’6, that was considered morbidly obese. I felt so lost in life, I lost the person who I used to be. I have always wanted to help people out in life, contemplating if I wanted to be a police officer, firefighter or someone who you could call a hero. But I couldn’t put my wife and kids through that if something were to ever to happen to me. I would eat so much id got to bed sick most nights, I stopped going on walks with my wife and kids because I was so tired all the time. I would eat and stay up until 3 in the morning playing video games. Feeling like I was worthless and holding my family back made me sick to think about. Something just clicked on my head that I needed to be that father and husband they really needed in life, I decided to start with my weight. I went into my weight loss journey blind, but I knew I had to go for it. I started small. I started eating whole foods, and cutting out calorie drinks like soda. I didn’t go to the gym but started at my home so I didn’t feel judged. I did 5 days a week with just doing bodyweight exercises. I would weigh myself bi-weekly to make sure I was on track. I lost 10 pounds in the first two weeks and I was super excited that it was working. So I kept working out and doing what I was doing. A started to eat really clean and cutting out all sugars. I got down to 220 within 2-3 months of hard work. But I started craving foods that I used to eat, like donuts and sodas. I started to binge eat and I noticed I was stalling with losing fat. My goal was to lose fat, while gaining muscle. But I had so much to learn. I was losing weight but in the wrong way. It was unstable because I would eat clean and then binge junk food and gain some weight back. I was so confused what I was doing wrong. I would watch hours and hours of YouTube of what actually went into weightloss and strength training. I figured out was I was eating was wrong. It was more so not eating perfect but, more so eating in a calorie deficit while living a life style that was sustainable. I was getting smarter at what was the healthiest way and scientific base facts of losing fat and resistance training. After failing and then learning I successfully lost 80 pounds, getting me near 180 pounds. I haven’t weighed this much since middle school and I was over the moon. Not only did I lose fat, but I managed to gain muscle being the strongest I have ever been. I call It losing fat and gaining muscle because I don’t believe in just weightloss. Weightloss on its own can be misunderstood in so many ways by losing fat and muscle. It can cause a lot of problems in the long gevity of anyone who is on their own health journey. I learned so much with my journey that I decided I wanted to become someone who could help those who feel lost, being someone who could help people and the community like I have always wanted to do. I decided to become certified through National Academy of Sports and Medicine. It was a lot of work but it opened a lot of doors for me in the fitness world. I became a personal trainer and helped dozens of people get started with their journey. It helped them feel comfortable that they could relate to someone like me who came from a background of obesity. I didn’t want to stop with just a personal trainer so I set out to become a Flexologist, someone that stretches people to help correct body issues, people that ache daily, and people that were coming out of Physical therapy. Becoming a Flexologist took a lot of education and hard work. But being able to know the body that much more helped me realize I wanted to start my own brand and business of helping. People with training and my new found knowledge of Flexology. I have now become a better father, husband and all around person by making that change in life of becoming healthy. I have been with my wife for 11 years and have 3 amazing children. I’ve never felt so healthy in life and so young. Creating my own business has been so hard but so worth it. I didn’t want to live my one life a have to be so traditional. My Media Arts background has finally come full circle by helping me out with marketing my own business. My Brand is Avohuman Athletics which is based off of the avocado by being a super food and Healthy kind of fat. It’s basically saying we are super human, “Avohuman”. My slogan I created I wanted the fat to be an acronym for Functional, Athletic, Training. I’ve gained a good handful of clients through my own hard work and the best part is actually making a change and being there for my own clients journeys. It’s so rewarding to see the hard work they are willing to do to make a better life for themselves and their family’s. So making this change was worth everything. Becoming the father and husband I have always wanted to be came true. Putting in the hours of hard work for my own business is something everyone should know that it’s possible, you just have to want it and make those sacrifices in life to become where you want to. It will take sleepless nights, and struggles, but with that hard work it does pay off.

Zach, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I run my own gym called “Avohuman Athletics”. There I train clients 1:1, stretches 1:1, couching online and small partner training. Here I provide a service that anyone can afford. My goal was to make a living but also to help people. I wanted people to know my worth but to also feel like they can afford the help. So many people out there over charge and have never walked the walk like I have to relate to their trainer. Through my service you get, assessment that I check the first day to see what needs to be worked on and allows me to make everyone their own personalized program that covers their own goals. The program will also cover their injuries they have and past injuries, and things they want to see within the program. I do 50 minute stretches, that’s a separate purchase to help with mobility and the quality of movement. Think of this service between the lines of chiropractic and message therapy. I am always continuing my education and I’m working on my nutrition courses to help with nutrition in the future. Last but not least I do online coaching where I give programs like I do in person but have online bi-weekly check-ins to keep clients accountable so they have that extra support to succeed. My sessions of training run an hour and are full of correcting their lifts, the whys of lifting, progressive overload, assessments, check-ins, support, personalized programs, events, and much more. I wanted my brand to be community based where everyone is welcomed to join. So if you have made it this far and really need the help and someone to relate to, message me through my email avohuman0588@gmail.com or Instagram down below.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

If I could go back to college I would change my degree. I went straight from highschool and into college just to please my Mom and Dad. I wish I would have taken time to think of what I really wanted. If I could now I would go for Kinesiology to help further my education and to help athletes become the best they can be. That is something I love working with now on clients is seeing their full potential and athletic abilities. So if I could get a job in the field of athletic performance I would.

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

My resilience started when I was young. I was abused as a child and went to the foster care system with my siblings. We were adopted into a family who was loving but not very traditional. My siblings and I still had to rely on each other to get through hard times. I was the middle of 9 siblings and most of them looked up to me for help and answers. That’s why I always had the need to be a father and husband. Being strong enough to get through family abuse growing up helped me through my journey of weight loss by keeping my mind mentally strong to keep pushing and to being the best version of myself. I knew if I got through my childhood abuse I could get through obesity by taking one step at a time until the big picture started to show. Staying mentally strong helps, with that the physical parts of the journey became easy. It is often in clients I see that they give up mentally first before they do physically. It’s about digging deep and finding your WHY. Everyone is resilient, it’s about finding it and bringing it out.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Avohuman_athletics
• Facebook: Avohuman Athletics
• Linkedin: Avohuman Athletics