Geoff Glaeser, Product Manager and Personal Trainer

Hi, I am Geoff Glaeser, and I am a Sr. Product Manager overseeing ERP, CRM, and eComm tools across web and mobile devices for a clean beauty company in Santa Monica, CA. I grew up outside of Baltimore, MD. Early in my career I worked as an SAP consultant and flew around the country to various clients. I lived and worked in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Texas, and Florida before finally making my way out to California.

My mom introduced me to programming at a young age and I have been tinkering with software ever since. I really enjoy the creativity that can go into elegantly solving a complex problem. Building beautiful software is like creating a work of art, except that it is often considered obsolete within years, instead of centuries.

I am also the founder of a WorkOutaholic.net, a workout training program. I currently spend about 10–15 hours a month training people. That has varied over the past nine years that I have been a trainer. Before taking my most recent job I was training 15–30 hours a week.

When I was a kid, I would watch training shows on ESPN2 before school with Kiana Tom and Cory Everson and actually learned a lot about training with good form and how to structure workouts. In high school, I started putting together workouts with my friends and teammates, and I was fortunate that my school had an Olympic lifting class. I continued to workout through college and after for several years before deciding to get certified officially in 2009.

As a kid, I was drawn to fitness because I wanted to pack on muscle but that has definitely changed over the years. One of the aspects of training I enjoy the most is its versatility. When I think of training I think of everything I can do better. I have always been an active person and have catered my training to help me improve at the activities I like participating in.

I have taught myself to juggle to improve hand-eye coordination. I have focused on my balance when working to improve my surfing, doing work on balance boards, exercise balls, TRX, BOSU, medicine balls, and every combination in between. I have focused on different aspects of speed and endurance training when training as a runner and mountain biker. Practicing yoga helps me control my breath and separate my mind from the discomfort that my body experiences. In addition, regular resistance training, with a combination of compound lifts for strength and isolation exercises for muscle balance, keeps me feeling healthy.

My technology background and analytical approach to problems has definitely had an influence on how I structure workouts and exercise progressions. I will regularly break down all the different ways I can work a muscle group and how different exercises will compliment each other so that I can work as much of the muscles as possible.

It has also given me a subject that I have been able to create my own software around, instead of building software for someone else. About six years ago I started creating content and videos to share with people I had trained or worked with in different parts of the country. Now I also run a website, workoutaholic.net, and an accompanying iOS app on the side which have given me a great outlet for keeping up with the latest technologies and allows me to work with technology that interests me.

Between my job, working on my own software, and training at a gym it takes commitment to stay consistent with my workouts. I regularly wake up during the week at 5am so I have time to get in a workout. I also sneak in exercise riding my bike to work to keep up with my cardio. It does not always need to be an hour of training all at once, make it a priority by fitting it in.

Training is a great outlet for me. My fitness routine is both physical and mental while incorporating a variety of different activities from traditional strength training to balance work, and also yoga. I live at the beach and regularly surf and play beach volleyball. For years my personal workout routine was almost solely geared towards making me a better surfer with a lot of focus on balance in all areas including shoulders, core, hips, and legs. When people think of living in LA they think of Hollywood, Santa Monica, or Venice but I actually live in a chill little beach town. I ride my bike around town to run errands and it is not uncommon to get six to ten people together for an impromptu volleyball game.

It would be difficult to say I have training goals since my primary goal is to feel good and stay relatively injury free these days. I say relatively because with the activities I partake in it is not uncommon to get banged up a bit.

I tell the people I train to avoid setting limits on your abilities or letting people dictate what is possible. Not only have I maintained a higher level of fitness than I thought possible for longer than possible, but also I have even become a better athlete with age and experience. It is not a sprint, staying consistent will always win in the long run.

Check out Geoff’s training programs here!