The Strongest Person I Ever Knew

Help Us Support The Battle Against Breast Cancer During October with our 4th Annual DVRT Breast Cancer Fundraiser!

Use coupon code “strength” to save on Ultimate Sandbags and DVRT Workouts HERE!

With every purchase we will donate 10% to the Singleton Mom’s Charity (read about it here)

The Strongest Person I Ever Knew

Learning from the best is one of the easiest ways to improve ourselves. When I played basketball it was always said you wanted to play against people better than you. That is how you became great!

Strength is very similar. Learn from the strongest seems to make sense when you want to improve your fitness. However, strength isn’t just what you can lift or the amount of repetitions you can perform. What makes the very best, the best is often not the external, but internal strength one possesses.

That is why when people ask me who the strongest person I have ever known, they are surprised it isn’t someone who squatted 1000 pounds, deadlifted 800 pounds, performed 50 straight pull-ups, actually quite far from it.

The strongest person I ever met is someone that to this day continues to be the biggest inspiration at what we do at DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. Their lifting numbers weren’t very impressive, but what they accomplished and represented was!

My step-mother was a huge influence in both my life and our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system. My mother passed was I was 8, which was tough for our entire family. For me that meant becoming somewhat withdrawn from a lot of stuff, including any type of physical activity.

When I was 13 my step-mother, Renae, came into my life. She was very outgoing and that definitely had an impact on me. She was the first to get me to become physically active (being tall and awkward for my age and out of shape wasn’t a good combination to want to participate in sports). She started to build my confidence enough to find love in athletics.

She was a tough woman, she herself had been through many incredible life challenges. That meant she didn’t have a lot of patience for self-loathing or pity. As I have often told the story, when my back went out in college and my dream of playing college basketball dissipated, she simply asked me “what’s next?”

That doesn’t mean she wasn’t compassionate, but her way was just a different way. However, her amazing strength was going to be shown to all of us not too much later.

When Renae was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer it was very devastating. Having already one family member pass because of cancer, I can not imagine the toll that placed on my father as well as Renae.

She was basically given 6 months to live, not a good prognosis.

Renae didn’t know how NOT to fight though. She not only took on the challenge of her life, but did so with just amazing strength. I don’t think for one moment I ever heard her feel sorry for herself, instead she turned her energy to something much bigger.

Her strength is reflected in an article she did shortly before her death. She had inspiration even though she was not well. “Don’t tell me about the 85 percent who die. Tell me about the 15 percent that live.” You can read how she was outspoken for those that did not feel as they had a voice HERE

She quickly became an advocate not just of breast cancer treatments, but self-detection, and awareness. Even though she was enduring serious cancer treatments, she was simultaneously organizing fundraiser and other events.

At the same time she was one of the few people encouraging me to go forth with this idea of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. While many in the industry thought the idea of a sandbag for fitness training was silly and unnecessary, she pushed me to challenge myself and others to do something great. Not just be different, but be innovative and creative, after all, she never believed the “norm” was the best way to do anything!

It would be eight years from her first diagnosis that she would finally lose her battle with breast cancer. Even though the end her physical strength began to fail her, it wouldn’t be how I or anyone would remember her.

When she passed I wanted to eventually have a means to honor her memory and what she did not only for me, but for so many other people as well. At the time, I didn’t really have a good outlet. However, DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training’s success has allowed me to do something to honor that memory.

For the past four years we have done a special sale and fundraiser in her memory. As Renae always did things differently, I thought we should as well. I wanted to find a charity that was personal, that maybe didn’t have the popularity of some others. That is how I decided on the Singleton Charity. It is a Phoenix (local charity) dedicated to supporting single mother’s with cancer. CLICK HERE to read about them.

That is why I hope for the next two weeks you will help us spread the word of what we are trying to do with our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training sale and fundraiser. Even if you have your DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training gym all set, if you could help us share this special event we thank you!

Our goal is to give a donation that can help change people’s lives. I hope that is incentive enough to help us support the inner strength in others. I hope that Renae’s strength and courage is a way for you too to find real strength that allows you to accomplish anything!

Help us give hope to others. Use coupon code “strength” to save 15%, but also 10% of every sale will go to the Singleton Mom’s Cancer Charity. Go HERE now to help! 

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