When looking to start a fitness-lifestyle journey, San Jose State students may consider talking to kinesiology senior Jose Garcia Jr. who’s been guiding many Spartans toward athletic and healthy lifestyles.
When Garcia started as a freshman at SJSU in 2018, he said he chose to major in kinesiology because of his passion for fitness.
Garcia said his major equipped him with more knowledge and connections in the fitness world that helped him on his path to become a coach and personal trainer.
“I started my own coaching business, online coaching and in-person coaching and just doing stuff like [fitness instructing],” Garcia said. “Now I coach the [SJSU] wrestling [club] team.”
Mechanical engineer senior Robert Terhell, who’s an SJSU club wrestler and volunteer coach said Garcia is a big part of the wrestling team because he brings years of knowledge that can help younger wrestlers.
“[Garcia] brings intensity to practice because of his [uplifting] motivation,” Terhell said. “[He has the] ability to drive people to push themselves as well as having the know-how and knowledge of the body, to some degree.’’
Terhell said once he and Garcia started coaching the wrestling team in 2018, a winning atmosphere was slowly being created.
“In Fall 2019 we got the wrestling club to our first tournament in years. For a while, the club wasn’t super operational and we were just doing practices and were a bit unorganized and scattered,” Terhell said. “[Garcia and I] brought some order to the club . . . we got shoes on the mat and San Jose a singlet in the tournament.”
Garcia said wrestling competitors must go through rigorous weight training to meet a certain weight class, which initially inspired him to educate himself on his own body as he was growing up.
“[I wanted to keep] learning more about my body and [learn] how I can push my limits,” Garcia said. “So I started working out [and] weight lifting when I was 15 [years old]. I liked weight training and going to the gym by myself and just learned how to do all of these things and I grew a passion for it.”
Garcia also attributes jujutsu for sparking his love of being active in the sixth grade even though he said traditional sports always bored him.
“I was never active at all,” Garcia said. “Even to this day I don't watch football, basketball [or] baseball . . . I don't like to watch any of those sports.”
Garcia said by the seventh grade he was wrestling with high school students and developed knowledge and an understanding of the sport earlier than others.
He also said wrestling as a kid and young adult helped mitigate his struggles with self confidence and appearance.
“I used to be a little overweight and I [got bullied] so finding wrestling and learning more about my body and doing stuff [exercise] that was really a big motivation for me,” Garcia said.
Polaris Teen Center, a website that helps adolescents who are facing issues with mental health and therapy showed studies in a June 12, 2018 article that 3% of teens in the U.S. between 13 and 18 years old have faced an eating disorder.
Many of those teens attribute their eating disorders to stress, confusion and intense emotions, according to that same article.
Garcia's journey toward weightlifting and wrestling has influenced other SJSU club volunteer coaches including Alexis Santana-Quintana, who first started coaching wrestling at Prospect High School in Saratoga after he graduated from SJSU in Spring 2020.
“When I first got [to the practice at SJSU] I was kind of a little quiet but he was the first to speak up and bring everyone together,” Santana said. “I can tell he's very confident in what he's doing and he's a good leader.”
Garcia said after he graduates, he plans to operate a personal fitness business with the 40 clients who are already subscribed to his online personal training service.
