The Story Most Members Don't Know About Me (Josh)

If you've trained with me for a while, you've probably heard bits and pieces of this story.

If you're new to The Training Ground, there's a good chance you've never heard it at all.

The truth is, I prefer to rarely speak about it.

Not because I am hiding it.

Not because I am embarrassed.

I just never wanted it to define me.

But recently, a friend of mine, who is going through some significant physical challenges of his own, told me that hearing my story was giving him hope.

That made me realise it was probably time to share it properly.

Whether I like it or not, this experience has shaped a lot of who I am today.

It shaped how I coach.

It shaped how I view health.

It shaped how I view training.

And in many ways, it helped shape what The Training Ground has become.

Before Everything Changed

In 2012, I was 19 years old.

I was working as a personal trainer.

I was playing semi-professional AFL.

And I thought I had life figured out.

I was one of those young guys who believed that hard work solved everything.

Most days started before sunrise and finished long after dark.

Working from 5 am until 9 pm wasn't unusual.

That was my routine throughout high school, and I wore it like a badge of honour.

If I was tired, I'd work harder.

If I needed sleep, I'd tell myself I could sleep later.

Looking back, I can see I was confusing exhaustion with commitment.

At the time, I thought I was doing what successful people did.

Then one night everything changed.

Heart In The Right Place

A few days prior, our family dog had been hit by a car and had to be put down.

In the process, Mum had been bitten, and the wound became infected, resulting in her being admitted to the hospital.

She was due to be discharged the following day and needed some clothes brought in.

After work, I drove to Mum's house, collected her belongings, and started driving towards the PA Hospital.

I wasn't even driving my own car.

A mate had lent me his.

I remember being exhausted.

I remember buying a Red Bull.

I remember turning the music up.

I remember trying to stay awake.

Then I remember absolutely nothing.

What happened next was told to me later.

I had crossed into the path of an oncoming truck and suffered catastrophic injuries.

Doctors placed me into an induced coma while they performed surgery after surgery to keep me alive.

For the next two weeks, my mum and friends sat beside my hospital bed, not knowing exactly what the future would look like, only hoping that I would wake up.

Two Weeks Missing

My next memory is waking up in a hospital bed two weeks later.

At first, I thought I had food poisoning.

I was sick.

Disoriented.

Confused.

Then I started looking around the room.

My mum was there.

My friends were there.

People I cared about were everywhere.

A nurse started asking questions.

Did I know where I was?

Did I know who everyone was?

Could I recognise my mum?

I could answer all of them.

Then reality started sinking in.

These people hadn't been sitting beside my bed for a few hours.

They had been there for two weeks.

Waiting for me to wake up.

Those two weeks felt like a blink to me.

To everyone sitting beside that hospital bed, it felt much longer.

I woke up and two weeks had disappeared.

My family and friends had lived every minute of them.

I remember that room.

I remember realising just how many people had stopped their lives to be there for me.

At 19 years old, that was probably the first time I truly understood how much people cared.

To this day, that's what I felt the most.

Not the accident.

Not the surgeries.

Not the pain.

That room full of people who cared.

What Happened

While driving to the hospital, I had fallen asleep and crossed into the path of an oncoming truck.

The crash was catastrophic.

I lost approximately 14 litres of blood.

Both femurs were broken.

My left arm was broken.

My right ear was torn off.

I suffered severe burns to both legs.

I sustained significant facial injuries.

Before I ever woke up, surgeons had already performed 19 operations.

One detail that still surprises people is that I wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

To this day, I don't know why.

It wasn't normal for me.

But for whatever reason, I was told I wasn't wearing one that night.

And that threw me from the seat, and that is the only way I survived.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know.

What I do know is that I was incredibly fortunate to be alive.

"You May Never Walk Again"

After waking up, one of the doctors was testing sensation below my waist.

I couldn't feel anything.

He told me that I won’t go back to AFL, and if I had no feeling below my waist, I wouldn't walk again.

At 19 years old, I believed him.

Two weeks later, my toe moved.

Barely.

Most people wouldn't have noticed it.

I celebrated it.

Because it was the first sign that maybe things weren't over.

Recovery wasn't glamorous; it was a lot of doing the rehab over and over.

I didn’t record any of it because I didn’t know that I would recover.

People occasionally ask whether I have photos or videos from that period.

The truth is, not many.

I wasn't documenting a comeback story.

I didn't know there would be one.

At the time, I wasn't thinking about inspiring anyone.

I was simply trying to get through the next day.

The full recovery was years of frustration, setbacks, small wins, stubborn discipline, and doing things I never thought I'd have to learn again.

Before I could be discharged from the hospital, I had to prove I could safely get up and down two steps.

The challenge was that both femurs had been shattered, and I had very little knee flexion.

Something as simple as stairs had become a problem.

Day by day, I worked on getting a little more movement back.

Eventually, I passed the assessment and was allowed to go home.

Three months after arriving at the hospital, I was discharged.

Not recovered.

Not healed.

Just free.

The People Who Carried Me

What most people don't see in stories like this is what happens afterwards.

Before the accident, I lived pretty independently.

Afterwards, I needed help with almost everything.

I couldn't live in the townhouse I shared with mates because I couldn't walk, and there were stairs.

I had no income.

I couldn't work.

I couldn't even shower or use the toilet by myself.

My mates covered my rent.

My sister flew over from the UK to help.

My girlfriend at the time put her life on hold.

My mum became my full-time support system.

At 19 years old, I learned that I had far more people in my corner than I ever realised.

That's something I've never forgotten.

Rebuilding

The day of the accident, I weighed 107 kilograms.

A few weeks later, I weighed 52.

The body I had spent years building was gone.

The strength was gone.

The fitness was gone.

Everything I had worked towards physically seemed to have disappeared overnight.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror when I was eventually discharged and barely recognising the person staring back.

I was at rock bottom.

For the first time in my life, hard work alone wasn't enough. Recovery was going to require patience as well.

I could sulk.

Or I could start rebuilding.

Not all at once.

Not through some heroic breakthrough.

Just one step at a time.

Over the following years, I built back up physically one win at a time.

I returned to Personal Training.

I returned to AFL.

I ran a marathon.

I built a career.

I became a father.

I met a beautiful partner, and we built a beautiful family.

In the process of rebuilding my life, I found myself helping lead a gym community that means a great deal to me.

Why I'm (Josh) Sharing This Story

Many of the people who walk through our doors every day are facing challenges of their own.

Some are dealing with injuries.

Some are dealing with health scares.

Some are dealing with stress, anxiety, burnout, or years of putting themselves last.

Many arrive feeling like they've left their run too late.

The reason I never make assumptions about what someone is capable of is that I've learned how much a person can overcome when they keep moving forward.

The reason we focus so heavily on consistency is that I've experienced firsthand what small steps can eventually become.

The reason community matters so much to us is that I know what it feels like when people show up for you when you need them most.

And the reason I genuinely believe people can change their lives through training is because I've lived through it.

In myself.

And in thousands of people we've helped through The Training Ground.

Other lessons came from this experience.

Lessons about resilience.

Lessons about responsibility.

Lessons about why nobody is coming to save you and why that's actually a good thing.

Those stories have their own articles, which you can read next.

For now, I simply wanted to share the story that most people don't know.

Because whether you've been training with us for ten years or you're considering joining for the very first time, it's a big part of why I do what I do.

And why The Training Ground exists the way it does.

Fourteen years ago, doctors were telling me that I might never walk again.

Today, I spend my days helping other people learn how to wiggle their toes again, improve their health, overcome challenges, and achieve things they once thought were beyond them.

I don't share this story because I think it's extraordinary.

I share it because it's the reason I believe so strongly in what we do.

People are capable of far more than they think.

Sometimes they just need someone to help them take the next step.