Motivational Spotlight Featuring Shaun Hoisington: A Man That’s Been to Hell and Back

Last Updated on March 11, 2019 by MarcyPro

Shaun Hoisington, A Man That’s Been to Hell and Back

This month, we’d like to do something a little different and show we are listening.  We’d like to honor one of you!  At Marcy, we care about our products and our consumers; we constantly strive for ways to improve, from our products to our customer relations. We welcome what you have to say.  You’re voice matters!

Our Motivational Spotlight is about sharing what we’ve heard.  A unique story. Your story, one that has stood out from the rest, served as a true inspiration, and true motivation. We’d like to share it with the world.

Allow us to introduce, Shaun Hoisington.  Shaun is a 38yo man who has been through hell and back.  But before we get into it, let’s talk about his earlier life.  As a youngling, his life consisted of hard work.  Since the age of 10 years old, Shaun attended school, and then worked on weekends, and full-time during summers, for his dad.  So hard-work is something Shaun is accustomed to.

In his words, he’s just a “red-blooded, hard-working American from Texas.”  A born and raised Texan, with pride.  He’s also a loving husband to Jennifer Hoisington, and a caring father to three beautiful children – Trinity, 15, Roger, 12, and Shelby, 11.  His type of life is something many of us can relate to – working Full-time and married with children.  This is the American dream, right?  Not for Shaun.  He was working 70+ hours a week to support his family of five, and didn’t have time to take care of himself.  Shaun ended up weighing 400lbs at 6’ tall.  He was miserable and hated himself.  Dedicating time to train or do any type of fitness to physically better himself seemed impossible.

In 2010, Shaun stumbled across an exercise DVD (yes, DVD) called Beachbody Fitness. Which at first, was very hesitant about it at first because in his words, “come on, it’s a DVD-based workout at home.” (We totally get it, Shaun, and would be hesitant too! Ha-ha).  Thinking to himself, “This is not going to work,” he gave it a shot anyway.  Shaun was able to stay consistent and dedicate some time to squeeze in some DVD workouts when he could, on top of work and raising his family.  Fast-forward to 2.5 years, Shaun had dropped 206 lb, YES, 206 POUNDS!

Shaun went from 400 lbs. down to 194 of lean muscle, by not giving up and believing in himself for a two and a half years, while working a full time 70+ hour job, and raising his family of five.  At this point, Shaun was motivated, happy, and healthy. He improved his health and fitness daily.

In the 2.5 years, his fitness routine consisted of DVD workouts. However, in the midst of it all, Shaun was able introduce a one-of-a-kind home gym fitness machine, the Marcy Smith Machine MD-9010  to his workout regimen. He upped his fitness game to a whole other level with the smith cage and bench set.  Shaun was able to do Body Beast workouts amongst other programs, like Arnold Schwarzenegger Blueprint.  Inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dr. Jim Stoppani, and Sagi Kalev, Shaun was highly motivated and unstoppable with his training game.  His life is great until November 21, 2014.

November 21, 2014 is the day Shaun and his family will never forget, the day after his son’t birthday.  Shaun is a professional truck driver and rigger for one of the largest crane and rigging rental companies in the US.  Shaun was working his normal hours and, his duty called for installing an air conditioner on the rooftop of a future 24-hour Fitness building. What was a normal day turned into a horrifying accident.  The ladder Shaun climbed broke and he fell 20’ to the ground. In his words, “I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.”  Shaun was immobile with excruciating pain, he thought he was paralyzed.  After an ambulance ride to the ER, extensive testing, blood work, and MRI’s, he discovered he had serious injuries.  An exploded left femur, broken pelvis, broken tailbone, herniated some discs in his back, fractured elbow, and fractured right wrist. Shaun had to undergo emergency surgery to reset his pelvis and insert a titanium rod into his femur. After, he spent ten days in critical care.

Shaun was on strict bed rest and a wheel chair for few months following his surgery.  Shaun was told he wouldn’t be able to walk for a year but as strong minded as he was, he was able to take his first steps at five months, post-surgery.  His physical therapy was 2-3 times a week, at four hours per session, for (21 months) almost two years.  In between, he underwent the additional three surgeries.  Shaun went from a wheel chair to a walker within a year’s time.

Shaun had a great support team made up of his beloved wife, employer, and coworkers who came together to help by donating food, groceries, and vacation time to help with bills.  As much as Shaun didn’t want to, he had to sell his Marcy Smith Machine to help pay for medical bills, but was able to keep the bench.

In October 2016, Shaun was finally released from the hospital and given the go-ahead to workout.  Shaun put on some weight and everything was much more difficult for him than before.  His strength, gone; his mental game, gone.  But Shaun refused to give up. He kept up the fight and with some handy dumbbells and the old Marcy Utility Bench he was able to get in some good strength training sessions.

Shaun’s go-to movements:

• Incline bench press dumbbell curls
• Squats
• Shoulder press
• Hammer curls

 

 

Shaun’s home garage gym is equipped with older fitness gear – a Marcy Utility Bench, power rack, an Olympic Barbell, and weight plates.  Due to medical bills, he was unable to upgrade any equipment for a long time, until now. Shaun recently was able to acquire one of our higher-end utility benches, the Steelbody STB-10105!

Quitting is not an option for Shaun, and we couldn’t be any prouder of how far he has come.  We thank Shaun for sharing his inspiring story with us and as a big part of the fitness industry we are truly amazed by it and can only hope to amaze our readers too!