March 31, 2017
Jamie Damon
Professional Journey
Over the past 10 years at IPF, Jamie has stepped up to the plate each time he has been asked to take on new, greater and more important responsibilities. Currently, as the Director of Training & Operations, Jamie ensures that the IPF facility runs smoothly every day, that IPF hires the best coaches and staff and that they receive excellent training, and that all clients feel supported and part of the IPF community. In addition, Jamie manages our highly successful internship program, coaches our adult and athlete groups as well as personal training clients, and is instrumental in creating the optimal training programs for our clients. Jamie has a wealth of knowledge and experience in fitness, goal setting, nutrition strategies, and habit changing techniques and has trained a wide range of clients from the ages of 12 to 72 including:
- Medalists from the 2010 and 2014 Olympics
- Professional athletes from the MLB, NHL, NBA, MLS
- Women’s U.S. National Ice Hockey Team members
- Women’s U.S. National Soccer Team members
- Collegiate Athletes and Sports Teams
- Middle School and High School athletes and sports teams
- Cancer survivors
- Clients rehabbing from surgery and traumatic accidents
There are many ways that people describe Jamie – incredibly hard working, always gives great effort, never loses focus on the task at hand, and extraordinarily reliable and consistent, just to name a few. But, most of all, his fellow coaches and the IPF community know him to be extremely caring; he enthusiastically puts 110% of his time, his energy, and his heart into helping others.
Jamie is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and a Certified Sports Performance Coach with the USA Weightlifting Association. He graduated from Emory University, Atlanta, GA in 1996 with a B.A. in History.
Personal Journey
It’s a familiar story, says Jamie. “I played sports throughout my youth, got into weight lifting, loved the gym, and decided I wanted to become a strength and conditioning coach or a trainer.”
As a teenager living in Andover, MA, Jamie would make his parents drive him up to the Gold’s Gym in Salem, NH to work out. “I had a smaller build than I wanted back then, so I would drink Weight Gainers until they made me sick. I was consumed with trying to get better, faster, and stronger, but at that time, in the late 80s/early 90s there wasn’t as much access to great information like there is today. I was the guy who would order random stuff from the back of magazines.”
Jamie particularly excelled as a sprinter at Andover High School, where he still holds the record time in the 50-yard and 60-yard dash, and he went on to run track at Emory, his alma mater. “I was always taking my training to an extreme that most people my age weren’t going to. I was running down the track with parachutes on my back. I had various textbooks that I bought always trying to learn more. The cool thing I learned through all this investigation and experimentation was that through improvement, no matter how much, I always felt a sense of accomplishment. I was continually building myself up with incremental successes.”
The industry has changed quite a bit since Jamie was a teenager. “I feel very lucky that I can now work in an environment where I have always felt at home and where I can truly be myself. I also feel very proud of how IPF has grown since I’ve been here. When I started coaching here, we had a handful of adults in our morning group and a couple of youth groups. The business has grown exponentially to where we now have adult and athlete groups throughout the morning, afternoon and evening, six days a week.”
However, Jamie returned to Andover, MA for more than just a job opportunity. “My entire immediate family still lives in the North Shore area, including my 93-year-old grandmother, and there are so many other wonderful connections that I have and continue to make here. Along with my wife, Karen and daughter, Sara, I am very glad to be part of the IPF community.”
