Iron Tribe Fitness CEO and leadership

Forrest has been in the fitness industry since 1996 and he is famous for saying that he “can’t imagine doing anything else.”

His fitness story began in college. As the smallest guy on the cheerleading squad at Auburn University, he needed to put on about 30 pounds to hang with the other guys and have the strength to press his partner above his head!

Putting on that 30 pounds of muscle put Forrest’s life on a new trajectory that made him aware of just how powerful exercise and physique development could be on the entire human psyche. From there, he started pursing natural bodybuilding contests as a way to express his passion for fitness and placed very well in several local contests. Others starting asking him how to get into shape, and before he knew what had happened Forrest was in the personal training industry!

In 2001, he opened his first Fitness Together personal training studio. He eventually grew that into six studios that he owned and operated right in Birmingham. After success with those six, he decide to sell them for the chance to purchase the franchise rights to develop the Fitness Together franchise brand in Alabama, Florida and North Carolina.

Despite a great deal of success in this endeavor developing Fitness Together in these three states, in late 2007, Forrest had been unable to shake the feeling that he just had to get more directly back in the fitness industry and help people transform their lives.

And that is the spark that lead to the creation of the Iron Tribe brand.

In 2013, Forrest published a book about the Iron Tribe story, documenting this very story of deciding to get his friends together in his garage to workout throughout 2008 and 2009, which lead to the opening of the first Iron Tribe gym in 2010.