First Coast CrossFit is the first stop on your personal journey of self-improvement that extends far beyond our doors. Our CrossFit classes will make you leaner, faster, and stronger, but they’ll also introduce you to a renewed confidence that seeps into every aspect of your life. It takes courage to challenge yourself, but once you’ve set and surpassed your fitness goals with us, you’ll find there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.
We’re the coaches at First Coast CrossFit
Our dedicated team of experienced coaches is the heart and soul of our gym. Each coach brings their own unique skill set, background, and enthusiasm to help you master new techniques, overcome obstacles, and reach new heights in your fitness journey. You’ll be working out on the best equipment, in the cleanest facility, with the most supportive group of people you’ll meet.
Daniel started CrossFit in 2015 after being introduced to the Olympic lifts in a friend’s garage gym while in the Navy. After a couple of years of on-again-off-again workouts, he decided to get serious about this whole CrossFit thing and joined First Coast CrossFit in 2017.
He was quickly hooked by the competitive nature of the sport as well as the amazing community at FCCF and started coaching after earning his L1 in March of 2018. Within a year, he had taken over as Head Coach and, after completing his degree at UNF in the spring of 2021, he had the amazing opportunity to move into the role of owner of First Coast CrossFit.
Daniel is dedicated to maintaining First Coast’s place as the most welcoming gym in the city, where everyone, no matter their fitness level, can come to improve themselves and be a part of the best CrossFit community around.
7 QUESTIONS WITH DANIEL
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Well, I started getting some digestive distress about 3 miles from the nearest restroom while on a training run for a half Ironman. You can guess how well that went.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
I have a love/hate relationship with the Snatch.
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Hippopotamus
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Baking, for sure. I absolutely love baking and I will take on anyone’s granny in a bake-off!
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
I’ve always been a big Scorpions fan, though if I’m being honest, I’m really only familiar with them because of playing Rock Band growing up.
6. What’s your rapper name?
Hungry Dan
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Only after applying 2 to 3 pounds of chalk.
Kelsey has been coaching CF for about 4 years, and doing CF for about 9.5. Originally, she started as a member of SteelMill CrossFit back in the day, but has recently joined the First Coast coaching team after moving back to Florida in 2021. Kelsey loves to coach Olympic lifts and enjoys seeing all of the smiling faces that walk through the door every day. Making sure everyone is having fun whilst still challenging themselves is a top priority, as well as ensuring that everyone feels part of the First Coast family. And of course, making people laugh! Very important to make people laugh so they don’t realize how much they are dying during the workout.
6 QUESTIONS WITH KELSEY
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
I slipped off the rig doing toes to bar, managed to land on the back of my head, ending in a sweet back somersault tuck with my legs all the way over my head. I don’t think anyone actually saw it, but definitely embarrassed for myself.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Snatches are my favorite lift, which coincidentally also is my favorite lift to coach.
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Cats. They’re weird, moody, smooshy, agile, and like eating. Enough said.
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Putting the cart back at the grocery store
5. What’s your rapper name?
Kel$ey B
6. Do you even lift, bro?
Always
After I lost my leg, I became complacent with my fitness. I gained a lot of weight and neglected my health. One of the side effects of having been sick for a long time in the hospital was that I lost about 40 percent of my body weight, a lot of it muscle. In short, I was weak and fluffy. With some effort I began to run every day to get healthy again.
Several years ago my wife saw the games on tv and was intrigued. I was skeptical because being a child of the 90’s, running was the way to be healthy, and lifting weights was bad for you. It was a painful beginning. I couldn’t do a strict pullup or lift anything above a hundred pounds. After doing CrossFit for a couple of years now I have come to love the community and the people around me. I enjoy helping people progress and reach their fitness goals. I also enjoy watching people suffer on the Assault bike.
7 QUESTIONS WITH CAM
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
A couple of years ago during a pull-up wod, mid-way through a kipping pull-up, my leg slipped off and managed to catch the chalk bucket along the way. Leaving a wonderful ten-foot-long trail of chalk and limbs.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Deadlift.
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Bear. I eat a lot and take long naps.
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
I can find a parking spot close to the store.
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
Wolfmother. Where eagles have been.
6. What’s your rapper name?
Mellow Husky
7. Do you even lift, bro?
As long as it’s something where I can compensate with my shoulders, yes.
When he was younger, Rob found his athletic niche in activities like skating, BMX riding, surfing, and bodyboarding. While working as a personal trainer in his late twenties, just after college, he came across a little-known training method called CrossFit. Soon after, he quit his job and opened a CrossFit affiliate—one of the first 100–and operated successfully from 2007-2019.
As it does for many, CrossFit soon ignited Rob’s passion for weightlifting. In 2014, he was the American Masters silver medalist and still holds state records in the snatch, clean and jerk, and total.
As a coach he has taken multiple athletes and teams through the open, sectionals, regionals, sanctionals, and even the CrossFit Games. But, he finds the most rewarding coaching experience still to be classes, working the floor, and helping anyone who walks through the door have the best hour of their day!
In the last 5 years, he has parlayed his passion for coaching into the realm of nutrition, working closely with local clients to help them reach their goals in a holistic approach.
7 QUESTIONS WITH ROB
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Split my shorts, and liner, during a back squat
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Push Press
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
SLIDE
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Cheering people on after their last rep
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
Dio
6. What’s your rapper name?
Silent Rob
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Every chance I get!
Adam began hitting workouts from CrossFit.com in January 2010 with a friend of his. His friend knew what he was doing, Adam did not. Eight months later he joined a gym and attempted to cure every bad habit he developed. He acquired his CF Level 1 in December 2010, his Level 2 in 2016 and will complete his Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science in 2018. Adam adopted the Invictus training philosophies from the head coach of West Jax and coached there beginning in 2011. When his wife, Laura, decided to move to First Coast in 2015, he happily followed and loves the community here. He enjoys playing drums, traveling, competing in CrossFit and treating his dogs like his children.
7 QUESTIONS WITH ADAM
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Beginning CrossFit with a bench press 50 pounds more than my back squat.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Jerks
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Doggo
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Finding humor in just about everything.
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
“Kickstart My Heart” is literally the only Hair Metal song I like.
6. What’s your rapper name?
Spanno
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Everybody praising the iron, ain’t nobody thanked gravity….ever.
Leah began doing CrossFit in 2011 after getting bored from distance running and having some severe flexibility issues. She was immediately hooked mainly because of the community but also the intensity of the workouts. She has been a member of FCCF since the doors opened in 2014. In addition to being a wife and mother to two boys, Leah is also the Executive Project Manager at Legacy Restaurant Group. She received her Level 1, Level 2 and Kids CF certifications as well as the Carl Paoli gymnastics certification. She enjoys the endurance side of CrossFit best but has come to love the lifting and gymnastics just as much.
7 QUESTIONS WITH LEAH
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Running into a parked car while rollerblading.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Clean.
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Swan.
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Changing outfits in the middle of a workout.
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
Bon Jovi.
6. What’s your rapper name?
Sweet T.
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Yes, but not heavy.
Scott started CrossFit in January 2011, earned his Level 1 Trainer’s Certificate in March 2013, and has been coaching ever since. He has competed in every CrossFit Open, including in 2014 when he had a cast on his arm from a squat clean mishap. Scott’s day job is in the supply chain group for a large hospital system and he spends his days sending emails and making spreadsheets. He spends the rest of his time chasing a toddler, drinking craft beer, and grilling and smoking all varieties of meat product. He really enjoys the community aspect of CrossFit along with friendly competition and data-driven approach to fitness.
7 QUESTIONS WITH SCOTT
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Having to quit a partner workout at the first Rep Your Box competition because my hand went numb doing overhead squats.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Front Squat.
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Lion, several different online quizzes told me so, therefore it must be true.
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
The ability to turn anything into a spreadsheet.
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
As a youth I was really into Aerosmith until I grew up and realized they suck, so Guns N’ Roses is probably my favorite.
6. What’s your rapper name?
Tyga Venom (also an online quiz).
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Yes, duh.
Donya’s husband joined “the gym at the end of the street” and couldn’t stop talking about it. She was intrigued but also very intimidated as she had never picked up a barbell before and felt very uncomfortable. She had a solid background in fitness and had played sports all her life, but this seemed like a whole new level of exercise. Donya’s husband finally convinced her to try it out and there was no turning back after that. She joined the gym in 2015 and received her Level 1 in 2018. When not at the gym, Donya enjoys being a wife, mother, nurse, supporting the local community, and experiencing anything the outdoors has to offer. She loves our people and the unique community at FCCF and would not trade it for anything.
7 QUESTIONS WITH DONYA
1. What’s your most embarrassing fitness moment?
Tripping and somersaulting over the box during a new coach’s first day.
2. What’s your favorite Lift?
Snatch
3. What’s your Spirit Animal?
Wolf
4. Do you have a superpower and if so, what is it?
Protecting my people…….don’t underestimate me.
5. What’s your favorite Hair Metal band?
Who……lol
6. What’s your rapper name?
Lasagna
7. Do you even lift, bro?
Any chance I get… it’s the best form of stress relief for me.
Our Facility
We take pride in being called “the cleanest CrossFit gym in Jacksonville” and we use Rogue Fitness equipment exclusively, so you’ll always be working out using the best bars, rings, and plates on the market. We know how important environment is when you’re working out, and we’ve built a gym where you’ll not only want to work out, but hang out.
One Amazing Team, One Shared Passion
Our awesome team at First Coast CrossFit is united in their passion for fitness and dedication to our members. With a range of specialties and a supportive approach, they are here to encourage you, offer personalized guidance, and ensure your journey is not only effective but also enjoyable.
We’re on a Mission
We’re passionate about what we do and we’re on a mission to help people of all ages, all fitness levels and from all walks of life to discover that fitness doesn’t have to be a chore or a struggle. It’s all about making it fun, making it effective and making every moment count.
Our Promise
We promise that we will never treat you as a number or leave you behind. Whether this is your first time training, you are recovering from injury or you want to get to peak competition fitness, we’ll be with you every step and rep of the way.
