Meet Moose (Ricky) Asplen | Co-Founder & Personal Trainer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Moose (Ricky) Asplen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Moose (Ricky), can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
When we started AMPT-Savannah, it was largely an effort to escape our old lives. We no longer wanted to do the same thing of waiting for change and fulfillment while working for someone else. This business is an effort to see what it is that we are capable of and an effort to exert our freedom to do what we want with the life that we have been blessed with. From day 1, we wanted to build something that would help people live happier and more successful lives without someone telling us how or when to do things. We have the creative and personal freedom to nurture our business and shift in any direction we think will best serve our community and help those brave enough to seek growth!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
When we came up with the concept of Athletics & Mindfulness Personal Training (AMPT), we wanted to combine two realms that are generally separate, but make up all of our experience. Everything we do from day to day involves the mind and the body. As military veterans that have dealt with depression and other mental “illnesses”, we wanted to take a holistic approach to fitness. We figured that if you could combine physical movements with mindfulness practices, you could have see faster results and have a deeper impact on our clients’ lives. As we continued to develop this model, we realized we were right and then started to rationalize how exactly it all works and how to improve our ideology. From that came the understanding that everyone has a different situation, mindset and perception of life and the world around them, so this needs to be a very personalized experience to see the best results. We really care about our clients and have committed ourselves to making people our priority instead of money and other ideas of success and that has drastically changed how we see our profession and how we interact with our clients. Much of this has come from our military background. Between the two of us, we have 20 years of service and saw a lot of ways things could be improved. We got to be apart of and lead in a large organization, which taught us an invaluable amount about what motivates people, how to inspire belief and how to truly connect with others. There have been many hard times through out this process. We have had to challenge all limiting beliefs of if we can make this work, if this is the right thing to do, if we are the people that deserve to live this life and many other things. Luckily, we learned early on, that we just have to keep moving and adapting. If you are passionate about something, it should give you energy when you doing it correctly and the right way for one person and the right way for another can be complete opposites. From day to day, all you can do is YOUR BEST and if you can accept that and try to do that consistently, then there is nothing to regret whether you succeed or not! If we could tell the world anything, it is that the first step is always the hardest because you are breaking a pattern of action or belief and it is something new, which means there is some uncertainty. The best thing is that you can break your first step down into baby steps to ease into change, you just need to start to get over that initial discomfort and things will get easier. Growth doesn’t need to be this daunting idea that causes fear or anxiety, you may find that you like it more than you thought. If you need help with that first step, it doesn’t make you weak, it makes your smart and there is a lot of help out there.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
When friends come, we generally like to visit Forsyth Park because of how beautiful it is. As for drinks and night life, we are commoners of the Starland District and City Market. The Starland District has a very specific vibe that has a chill, indie style. City Market is a little more rowdy but a cool place to meet all kinds of people with all of the tourist. It is a great place to walk around and find whatever you are looking for.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We would like to thank our community. We moved to Savannah, GA a year ago to open this business. We knew very little about the city and had only visited a couple of times before committing to the big change. The city welcomed us with open arms, showed us support and gave us space to build our business and create a voice. Throughout our journey, many people have reassured us that we are doing something special and that it will succeed and those words and that faith has gotten us through some rough times… and there were ROUGH times, but our community gave us energy. Our family has integrated into the community, so our family is included in this shoutout, but a special thanks goes out to the group of people making this all happen. Our business has grown proportionally to the strength of the connections that make it up, so we hope to make deeper connections to see continued growth for our AMPT – Savannah and the community we are apart of.

Website: www.ampt-fit.com

Instagram: @ampt.fit

Facebook: AMPT-Savannah

Youtube: Athletics & Mindfulness Personal Training