Hi, my name is Nick. I have been a cross-functional athlete my entire life, partaking in various sports from football and tennis, to parkour and MMA. Being active, pushing my body's limits, and striving for physical and mental progress has been a major focus throughout most of my life thus far.

Let's talk stats real quick to give some perspective. I am currently 23 years old, I'm 5'10", I weigh ~175lbs, and I sit around 10-12% BF year round outside of competing or photoshoots.

Growing up, I started most of my activity with snowboarding, tennis, and karate. I would say karate is to thank for the solid foundation I built for myself from a young age. I was a black belt by the time I was 12 and I progressed to fighting MMA later in high school. Football became a huge passion of mine in High School and carried through half of my college career. I've sustained multiple severe injuries through this sport, but it has always had my heart and I regret none of it. Which leads me to how "fitness" became such a huge part of my life and ultimately one of my strongest passions.

During my sophomore year season playing college football, in our first playoff game, sometime in the 2nd quarter, I sustained a traumatic injury to my left wrist in a tackle (I was a running back/slot receiver). I taped up my wrist on the sideline during halftime and continued to play the game. I eventually took myself out during the 4th quarter as I felt I was in danger of fumbling the ball given I could not effectively hold anything in my left hand. After going to the hospital the next day, we discovered I had shattered my scaphoid bone, and it was in 3 individual pieces.

I later had reconstructive wrist surgery and still have a small screw in this bone. Nearing the end of recovery and part way through my physical therapy/rehab, I decided I wanted to learn everything I could about proper training, proper nutrition, and anything that could help me get back to where I was before the injury as quickly as possible. Thus my passion was born.

I spent hours and hours researching the internet, reading books, talking to people at the gym. I was determined to learn everything I could and put it into practice to better myself to the best of my ability. After a few months of this, I had already surpassed my previous physique and I had fallen in love to the point I never wanted to stop. To this day, I still haven't stopped trying to learn.

There are only a few supplements I truly stand by and use pretty much daily. These include protein powders/bars, creatine, a multi-vitamin, fish oils, and some form of caffeine in the morning and around my workout. When I am cutting for a show or a shoot I will sometimes employ L-Carnitine, green tea extract, and BCAA's. Outside of these supplements, I have tried a few others but never stuck with them because I believe these are truly the essentials. And that being said, I don't believe any of these supplements are vital to success or progress, but they can help those small percentages that add up over time.

I have utilized so many various splits of muscle groups and workouts throughout a week, but I primarily stick to a 4 days on, 1 active rest or off day cycle. The "on" days involve various muscle groups split up accordingly for roughly 1-1.5hr sessions in the gym.

This sort of workout schedule allows me to effectively hit my entire body, focusing on both strength, hypertrophy, athleticism, and dynamic "rest" every 5 days.

My split changes every now and then, but it is currently as follows:
Day 1 - Legs and Abs
Day 2 - Chest and Triceps
Day 3 - Back and Biceps
Day 4 - Shoulders and Abs
Day 5 - Active rest with 5-10mins or cardio, sometimes some calves, and foam rolling stretching

As far as specific exercises, I honestly do not stick to any particular routine, rep ranges, order of lifts, etc. I've learned my body well enough that I go in each day with a play it by ear vibe (most of the time) and simply know how I want to push my body's limits that day. To generalize things, I would say I focus on heavier compound lifts to start a workout, working in rep ranges from 5-8-10, and then progress to more isolation work, working in rep ranges from 8-12-15.

Honestly, it's very simple for me, and I truly believe it's one of the most powerful forms of motivation. Intrinsic motivation, motivation that comes from within, internally. There are a lot of external motivators in life, wealth, material things, significant others, celebrities, vicarious stories and experiences, various people on social media, the list goes on. But ultimately, the motivation that truly ignites and creates a flame inside of you, from the source, is all powerful.

I have always had this need to progress and move forward, regardless of where I am or what subject we're referring to. If I believe something is important to me, I never want to get complacent and I always strive for progress. This can apply to fitness, education, career, relationships, and much more. If I deem something is important, or I decided I want to learn something, or focus on something, I do whatever it takes to better myself and continue taking steps in the right direction.

I have a statement that I came up with tattooed on my upper back, and it reads "Progress or Fail" (in Latin). I truly believe that if you care about something and you've deemed it important to yourself, you should never remain stagnant or complacent, and always strive for progress, regardless how small or how slow. Stagnancy is failure in my opinion, and I have almost always lived my life by this understanding.

One of the biggest mistakes I've made along the way is not listening to my body and pushing past injuries, ultimately making them worse or prolonging recovery. I am too eager to get back in the gym, pushing my limits, and this had certainly hindered my long-term progress. To add to this, lifting too heavy, or losing form to push past failure, can certainly bite you in the butt.

With respect to nutrition, one of the biggest mistakes I made early on in my fitness journey post wrist injury was to eat too clean and worry too much about my daily nutrition. Learning to ease back a little bit and employ that 80/20, 70/30 approach with cleanliness while tracking macros and counting calories helped me tremendously and actually allowed me to progress more effectively.

My best advice is to find an approach to training and nutrition that you can effectively utilize consistently for a long period of time. The best thing you can do for yourself is to find a sustainable approach that you can personally keep up with for months if not years. This concept of consistency is by far one of the most important when it comes to anything fitness related. If you can stick to something and continually progress in the gym while keeping your diet in check, you are almost guaranteed to succeed. Now, it's definitely easier said than done, but if you can find a nutritional plan that allows you to be happy and enjoy your food, and a workout schedule and regimen that you can keep up with and still pushes your boundaries, you will undoubtedly trend towards your goals.

The best way to learn more about me, discover more about my training and nutrition, and to follow my journey is on Instagram @NextRoundFitness. I post workouts, recipes, fitness and nutritional advice, as well as motivational and lifestyle-related content.