Meet Jason Kramer | Personal Trainer and Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jason Kramer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jason, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I worked as a personal trainer for a big box commercial gym for a few years, and absolutely loathed the way I was required to conduct my business, and I never really felt like I was able to be myself while working there. The managers spent more time teaching us how to sell than they did at helping us become good trainers. Everything was about making the sale, and they would often push us to hard sell. We were only ever commended for how much we sold that month, never for how well our clients were doing. So this created and environment that valued money over quality of service. This was pretty opposite of my core values, so I decided to go independent and start my own training business so that I could finally put clients and their results first. Then in 2018 I decided to merge my passion and knowledge of fitness with my interests in comics, video games, cosplay and thus Hero Physiques was born.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My business is called Hero Physiques. I provide both in person, and online custom fitness coaching. What sets us apart is that we fully embrace out nerdy side with all of our content. Many of our pre-written workout plans are inspired by superheroes or anime characters. Our blog posts have plenty of references and callbacks to movies, comics, anime, video games, etc. And most of our professional fitness photos are all in cosplay.

Currently, I am a one man team. I do all of my marketing, programming, content creation, bookkeeping, etc. all by myself. It’s simply out of necessity. However, being a one man army, I am incredibly proud of the fact that since 2007, I have directly worked with and helped hundreds of people improve their health and build their confidence through fitness, and I am currently working with 50 athletes between in person and online. Several of which are even Hollywood stunt performers.

With that being said, it is certainly never easy and comes with plenty of challenges. I work 7 days a week in some capacity, so to be honest, if I didn’t love what I do I would have given up already. Truly what keeps me going are the people I work with are the successes of my clients. It absolutely fills me with joy when one of my athletes sets a new record, sees some muscle definition for the first time, realizes that a certain part of their body is no longer experiencing chronic pain, the list goes on. I truly care about the people that I work with. Their success is my success. Business branding aside, I think that is really what helps set Hero Physiques apart from the rest.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Believe it or not, Saint Louis has a ton to offer. One of the coolest places to visit is called the City Museum, which isn’t actually a typical museum. It’s basically a large an indoor/outdoor playground that was built into an old shoe factory using repurposed architectural materials. They even have a small bar inside where we could grab a few beers.

Forrest Park as a massive park in Saint Louis that contains several great activities like the Saint Louis Zoo, The Art Museum, The Muny, and a restaurant called The Boathouse which has great food, and you can rent paddle boats to go around a lake in.

There is great food all over Saint Louis. “The Hill” is known for it’s Italian food. “The Loop” is known for it’s cultural variety in both restaurants and shops. The Central West end contains plenty of great restaurants and bars, and has a fantastic night life scene.

Depending on the time of year, there are tons of great craft and food fairs held in various parks around Saint Louis. If a friend was visiting from we would easily have a new spot to hang out and eat/drink at each day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are a myriad of people that all had a significant impact on my current success and business. My mother, for being one of the strongest and most inspiring people I know. My best friend Steve, for not being able to call me out on my BS and push me to quit my comfortable job and pursue personal training full time. My friends Tyler and Sefton for initially giving me the encouragement to blend fitness with my nerdy interests. And finally my girlfriend Cori, for always being supportive and for always telling me what I need to hear, instead of what I want to hear.

Website: Herophysiques.com

Instagram: @HeroPhysiques

Twitter: @HeroPhysiques

Facebook: Facebook.com/HeroPhysiques

Youtube: Youtube.com/@herophysiques

Image Credits
Photo Credits: Ces White and Shannon Dougherty