Everyone, get comfortable with a cold glass of ice water and maybe a little snack because this may take awhile.......
As a young child I was always into action sports and the latest activities that were going on, I played baseball growing up and made the all star team my first year, I was the lead pitcher and short stop player throughout my years of playing baseball, in the winter time I would snowboard and the summer time I would wakeboard, was born and raised in Reno, Nevada so I had best of both worlds, lake Tahoe the "jewel" of the sierra mountains amazing crystal blue water with white sandy beaches, amazing time in the summer, with Reno being high elevation we would get these amazing snow storms that would leave the fresh dry powder of snow all over the mountains which made perfect time to snowboard.
It wasn't till high school until I got into weight training and fitness, my mother took me my freshman year in high school to 24 hour fitness to sign up and get a member ship. we both signed up for a 2 year membership and I nearly went everyday ha-ha, my sophomore year in high school came around and I was working out every day and loved it, wasn't into team sports anymore cause I ventured off to outside school sports, I started racing motocross and raced the first spring series that came around, it was a total of 9 races and it was my mom and I that would pack up every weekend and hit the road to each race, I had the best time ever, I ended up winning the spring series out of 157 riders and was so excited, it pushed me to work out and train harder that way I would only excel in racing motocross, all through high school it was me and my mother that would be packing up on a Friday evening and heading out of town Saturday morning to the next race, I was always busy into sports and working out I never really got wrapped up in all the high school parties, a lot of my friends were getting into a lot of trouble and it made me realized that I didn't want to go down the same path as they have chosen, at a young age I had a good head on my shoulders and knew what direction I was heading to, I graduated with honors and was enrolled into school to become certified as a personal trainer.
Graduating high school I knew I loved fitness and was always the type to reach my arm out and help others, so I thought to myself, what better thing then to become a personal trainer and help other with personal and fitness goals, there is nothing better than seeing someone reach a goal that they thought was impossible, one of my first clients was a couple that I will never forget Rick and Kay, they came to me and told me all they wanted to do was to be able to water ski in the summer time, I was like well why can’t you? "With a confused face" they said,” have just been too busy with work and over time they were no longer physically in shape to do so. So they signed up with me to train them and they came every morning to work out with me and after a few months went by and summer was here, Rick came into the gym and had this smile on his face that I will never forget, he said he went to the lake and the first time trying to water ski he got right up was water skiing the whole entire weekend, when he told me that it made me feel so good and I was lost at words, helping others in goals and life is the greatest feeling ever, after that we became camping friends and went all the time to gather, we would water skiing, water tubing, and wake boarding!
it’s kind of crazy how fitness became a part of my life, and something was about the get even more crazy, I was talked into going to the Mr. Olympia in 2008 by a few friends and was totally a spur of the moment thing, we all hoped in my friend’s car a drove to Las Vegas for Olympia weekend, we decided to go the fitness expo there and it was totally crazy and packed with thousands of people, walking around and grabbing all the free samples the different companies had and running into all the fitness guys that I would always see in magazines growing up literally took my breath away, we came to the Vitamin Shoppe both and they were holding a best male and women physic contest to be featured in Muscle & Body magazine, a national magazine, my friend was all excited and jumped in line right away to take his shirt off and pose for the live photoshoot that they were holding at their booth, he was like come on Cj let’s do it, I was like no man I’m okay, this is like one of those car drawings that you enter and you never win ha-ha, he was like you get a shaker cup and a tee shirt if you do it, he wasn't giving up on me so I gave in, and I hoped in line with him, we entered our info on this computer and got a number and had to take our shirts off to pose for the camera lol, a few weeks go by and I got an email from Vitamin Shoppe and it was an update on the top 10 men and women on who was picked for the contest, I didn't even click the link to view them cause I told myself "oh remember that, like I would be in the top 10" but of course, we all get curious and a few days later I open the email and go to the link, viewing all the contestants I remembered them from the expo and then when I got the 13th contestant BAM, it was my picture, I could not believe my eyes, was totally in shock and couldn't believe my eyes, I was immediately on the phone with my mom explaining to her what had happened and how I made the top 10 for this contest I entered. they posted each contestants pictures in blogs to let the public view all of them and give their opinion, right from the beginning Maggy from Florida and my profile were flooding with amazing comments from other people on how we should be the featured contestants for the magazine, about a month later I get a email when I was in Florida and it was from the chief and editor of Muscle & Body magazine and the email explained on how I was chosen to be featured in their fitness magazine. I could not believe it, looking back on it all it was crazy because I thought to myself, what if I never entered into to that contest or even go to the fitness expo? None of this would ever have happened.
Since then I was featured with a picture on the February cover of Muscle & Body magazine and had a full page spread with an article about me with two pictures. I never thought of ever being a fitness model or let alone in any fitness magazine until I was noticed out of thousands of people from the 2008 Mr. Olympia. I have had numerous photo shoots since then and have won 1st place in a live high fashion modeling contest called "Models & Bottles" hosted by Marcello Rostagni at Marcellorostagniphotography.com I won $500.00 and was able to be introduced to the 2007 playmate of the year Sara Jean Underwood which was one of the celebrity judges for the contest.
Life is about taking leaps and chances and you never know what you will get out of life until you take a chance, recently I was contacted by John Mitchell from Connecticut about doing a photo shoot, I thought to myself wow 3,000 miles away, but when seeing his web site and knew that he was a serious and professional photographer I had my plane ticket booked! I stayed two days with John and had an experience that I would never forget, we captured photos I thought were never possible, had the best time ever! Life is about taking chances and knowing that there is so much out there, and if you don't take the leap to grab it then you may not get another chance, live life to the fullest with no regrets and know that if you put 100% into whatever you do then you will receive 150% out of it!
As for now I hope none of you fell asleep as I went through my whole life on a how fitness has had a part of my life and how it made me the person on whom I am today!
Thank you for your time!
Remember never give up on any goal you may have, because you are the only one stopping yourself from achieving it.
'Believe and Achieve"
CJ Sanders
