Coach Spotlight: A Day With Ravi at Persistence Athletics

People ask me how I run a CrossFit gym while working a full-time corporate job. The short answer: I get up at 5:30 every morning, walk the dogs, open the gym, and don't sit down for very long until 9 PM. The longer answer is below - a real day, in real time, with the real food.

This is what Monday through Friday actually looks like for me right now.

5:30 AM - Wake up, walk the dog, open the gym

Alarm at 5:30. I get out the door fast, take the first dog out for a walk, hit the bathroom, then head to the gym. By the time I'm at 3025 1st Ave, the place is quiet and dark.

The first thing I do - every single morning before I even change into training clothes - is write the day's workout on the board. Then I flip on the lights, get the heat or AC dialed in for whatever the weather is doing, and make sure the floor is set for class.

Once the gym is open, I change, mix my protein shake, and get warmed up. By 6:25 I'm on the floor ready to coach.

6:30 - 8:00 AM - Coach and train alongside the class

I don't believe in coaches who never lift. So I work out with the class. I'm coaching technique, scaling weights for individuals, watching the clock, AND moving through the workout myself. Members see the same Wall Ball or Push Press they're scared of, and they see me hit it. Keeps everyone honest, including me.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday - that 6:30 to 8:00 AM block is the main training session of my day.

8:00 AM - 4:00 or 5:00 PM - Day job at Boeing

People are sometimes surprised to hear this, but I have a full-time job. I'm a Systems Integration Lead at Boeing. I clock in around 8 AM right after the morning class wraps up.

My office isn't a corner space in a tower - it's the back of the gym. The garage area at Persistence is half storage, half kitchen, half home office, and 100% dog territory. My three dogs are with me all day. I work standing most of the time. I'm not sitting at a desk for eight hours; I'm moving between calls, cooking, and walking the dogs in between.

The fuel: eggs, salmon, vegetables, water

I cook while I work. The garage area has a kitchen, so I make breakfast between meetings - usually some combination of eggs, yogurt, and whatever vegetables and fruits are around.

Lunch is around noon, on my Boeing lunch break. I cook fresh: salmon and vegetables most days, plus yogurt, eggs, or quinoa depending on the day. If it's a heavy lifting day, I add carbs. If it's not, I don't.

Whatever I cook for lunch is what I eat for dinner. I'm not running two separate cook cycles. That's how it stays sustainable.

Snacks during the day? Just water, almost always. If I get hungry between meals, I'll grab a handful of cashew nuts, but most days I don't need them.

Three dogs, three walks, 10,000+ steps a day

Three puppies live at the gym with me during the day. I walk each one separately - about 400 meters per dog. Once after breakfast. Once after lunch.

That's six walks a day, plus all the standing and coaching. I average over 10,000 steps without ever doing a "step workout." Activity isn't a thing I schedule - it's how the day is built.

5:00 - 6:00 PM - The nap

This is the unglamorous secret. I lie down for an hour. Every weekday.

If you're going to coach two classes a day, hold down a corporate job, and stay healthy for a decade, you need real recovery somewhere. For me, that's a one-hour nap between my Boeing day and my evening class. It's not optional, and it's not negotiable.

6:30 - 8:00 PM - Evening class

Same drill as the morning. Coach, scale, watch, train alongside the room. Different members, similar energy.

8:00 - 9:00 PM - The gym operations hour

After the evening class clears out, I get about an hour to catch up on everything that runs Persistence behind the scenes. Programming the next day's workouts, follow-ups with members who reached out, planning the weekly communications, walking and feeding the dogs.

I head home with the dogs around 9, sometimes 9:30 if there's more to wrap up.

Bedtime ritual

Bedtime drink, sometimes water, that's it. I try not to eat close to bed. If I'm hungry I'll have yogurt, eggs, or cashews, but I try not to.

The weekly shape

• Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: coach 6:30-8 AM, Boeing 8-5, nap 5-6, coach 6:30-8 PM, gym ops 8-9, home by 9:30.
• Wednesday: no morning class (my rest day from training), but I still come in around 7 AM and run the rest of the day the same way.
• Saturday: coaching and training go all the way to 11 AM (HYROX class + S&C). Rest of Saturday and all of Sunday is gym programming, communications, follow-ups, and software development for our gym's internal tools.

I train five days a week. I rest on Wednesday. Saturday is a long active day.

What this is meant to show

You don't need a perfect window in your calendar to train consistently. You need a schedule you'd actually run, and the discipline to run it for years instead of weeks.

Mine works because the gym is built into my commute, my dogs are built into my recovery, and my food is simple enough that I can cook it between calls. Yours will look completely different. That's the point - the system has to fit the life, not the other way around.

If you've ever told yourself you don't have time to train: I work full-time corporate, run a gym, walk three dogs, and cook every meal. The time exists. You just have to design the day so it's already in there.

If this sounds like the kind of place you want to train, your first class is on the house. Book a free class or say hi.