Very Proud of my boy David Durante

I am a very proud American and Athletic Trainer today. One of my former athletes, who battled back from an ACL tear in his knee, was the alternate for the Men's Gymnastics Team who won the bronze medal in this years Olympics. His name is David Durante. I am not telling you this because I want to "toot my horn" like most of my friends and my wife hear from time to time (sorry guys I was just really proud). I watched the Olympic Trials on TV with my wife a few weeks ago and was wondering if any of my former athletes that I worked with would be competing at the trials. I caught a glimpse of David and was very proud to see all that he has achieved to get to the trials. Then the commentators told the story of how he had a bad day 1 of the trials, but did that make him give up, HELL NO, he went out and gave a terrific performance on day 2 which won him an alternate position.

David did not get to perform in the Olympics, nor did he even get a medal. But he is a huge inspiration to all of us. The way he handled himself during those Olympics when the cameras were on him was impressive. David has battled back from disappointments and injury to be the best he can be. And most important he is a terrific person. My hats off to you David. You always kept me on my toes and always made me laugh at a time in my life when I was alone and needed to laugh. Thanks buddy.

The Men's Gymnastics team at Stanford University was an awakening for me and all of those guys (Cade, the twins, David, Jason, Rico, Craig, Marshall, Reshad) made life pretty fun. They were a lot of work to take care of due to the things they did to their bodies, but they made it fun to show up to work.

Also David's physique is a great example of what body weight training can do to your true strength and body. So the next time you can't make it into the gym, do some push ups, squats, lunges, single leg squats, planks and other routines to work on that physique. Click on his picture to get to his blog page, very cool stuff.