KOLAKPERFORMANCE

I started competitive gymnastics as a kid and never looked back. Through high school I kept climbing, earning titles and accolades at the Junior Olympics, which led to a scholarship to compete for the University of Illinois.

For four years I competed as a Division One gymnast for the Fighting Illini and helped my team bring home multiple Big Ten and NCAA wins. Outside the gym, I majored in biology with minors in filmmaking and conservation biology. I also started building my audience on TikTok and Instagram, sharing life as a D1 athlete, gymnastics challenges, and men’s fashion.

Then, in my senior year, everything stopped.

I fractured my back and fully tore my Achilles. Just like that, the sport I had given my whole life to was over. It was a medical retirement I never saw coming, and I walked away feeling unfinished. When you’ve been a gymnast since you were four, you don’t just lose a sport. You lose a piece of who you are.

So I walked into the weight room looking for something to hold onto. What I found was a new obsession.

I fell in love with lifting and committed to becoming a bodybuilder. The problem was that I had no idea what I was doing. So I went all in. I researched everything, tested everything, and spent a full year in trial and error figuring out how to actually build the physique I wanted. It worked. I rebuilt my body, rebranded my channels around fitness, and found a new identity.

Looking back on that first year, one thought kept coming up. I wish I’d had someone in my corner. Someone to guide me, cut through the noise, and save me from the mistakes I made along the way.

That’s why I became a coach.