Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Block.
Hi Eric, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Eric Block. To best characterize what I do is to describe me as a “wellness/lifestyle coach,” which is to say that I focus on how to use nutrition and lifestyle habits to create the highest levels of health, physical condition, and overall wellness for everyone from a high performing athlete to an 81-year-old with chronic health issues. That focus incorporates attention to body composition, anti-aging, and athletic performance.
My governing ideology is that controlling inflammation is the best and most effective pathological root to improve overall health, and well-being, and maximize the efficiency of biochemical reactions to communicate how inflammation affects every aspect of health and wellness, I discuss the basics of how some amount of inflammation is naturally occurring, the causes of inflammatory responses, how controlling inflammation impacts cells and tissues, and how it is possible and relatively easy to mitigate pro-inflammatory responses via lifestyle habits.
My experience includes working with clients who, after implementing anti-inflammatory nutrition plans and varying levels of exercise and conditioning regimens, achieved changes in physical performance, control of chronic health conditions and overfall improved health, all of which corroborate and unequivocally show that overwhelming positive health and wellness effects result from the control of inflammation. Some of the specific health issues I address include autoimmune disease, hormone imbalances, diabetes, and tumor suppression.
In 2019 I created the lifestyle brand “Body by Block,” also written as “bodybyblock.” The brand started while I was working at Life Time Athletic, Ardmore, PA, where I started in March 2017. The Ardmore facility opened for members in April 2017. Within months of the club’s opening, I was the company’s leading personal trainer nationwide for productivity. I averaged 94 booked training hours per week. As this level of personal training sessions became my norm, I started hosting free nutrition seminars, thereby establishing my focus to create nutritional habits that can be used by everyone, regardless of whether or how much you exercised in or out of a gym.
In December 2019, I began a volunteer relationship with a Philadelphia youth football league. That relationship started with a presentation to the kids and their parents, in the high school gym, about the role of nutrition in controlling inflammation, thereby maximizing athletic performance and overall health. I did training and nutrition coaching from that time on, while also working my hours at Life Time Athletic.
My goal then, which is my continuing goal, is to make the anti-inflammatory nutrition information and lifestyle plan as widespread as I can. An opportunity to put this plan in place occurred in March 2020, when the pandemic caused Life Time Athletic to close. At that time my trainer/coach volunteer activities with the youth football league became my full-time job. I taught nutrition, helped at practices, did conditioning workouts on the field, and ran weight room workouts.
In April 2021, I invested in an ultra-high performance treadmill, which was placed in a gym near where most of the kids in the football league live. This specific treadmill provided me with a way to teach speed training to get results in athletic performance at levels that are otherwise not available. I also did personal training with some parents and taught all parents whose kids I worked with about the role of inflammation and the ways to use nutrition to mitigate the effects of inflammation for both the parents’ health issues and their kids’ athletic performance. I continue to train kids using the treadmill and have used it with some adults, also.
My newest activities include hosting a podcast and developing a Body by Block clothing line. I am in the process of creating a tv show that will air in 12 monthly episodes. Beginning this fall I will teach classes at a local food pantry about how to reduce inflammation and demonstrate how to prepare low-inflammatory/anti-inflammatory meals in their commercial kitchen.
Now, my long-term goals include food manufacturing. I want to create a brand in the food space of the highest quality products that provide the best nutrition to maintain health and well-being at prices that are affordable to everyone.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has been relatively smooth, relative to the complexity of the endeavor and to the chaos and upheaval in every aspect of everyone’s lives for the last 2 1/2 years. I attribute the relative “smoothness of the road” to understanding that ongoing evaluation is a necessary element of success. The most basic elements for success are total dedication, perseverance, and long hours of study and work.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am best known for my 1-on-1 personal training. My philosophy is the integration of applied body-building principles regarding intensity, the organic chemistry of nutrition, and bio-molecular interactions related to inflammatory processes and responses. I use targeted training to demonstrate the impact of inflammation control on the desired outcome.
The results I am most known for are 100+ pound weight loss journeys, breaking speed thresholds of 20+ miles per hour, and achieving extreme body composition, primarily in the context of physique building.
My personal goal is to improve the health of those who mean the world to me. The ancillary “wins” along the journey have meaning because each win is its own victory. My focus is on the overall goal, rather than a small isolated victory. My “proud” moments include when the people I have helped feel proud of their journey and progress.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
My perspective on “risk-taking” is fluid. My focus is on what is in my control. I make “next decisions” as they come, using as much objective data as is available at that time. The data I rely on includes my lived experiences, the research I do, and intensive studying. I am driven by a passion to know more. I am certain that studying and research drive innovation.
It felt very risky when I decided not to return to my position as a Personal Trainer at Life Time Athletic in 2020 after the pandemic shutdown was lifted. Even so, I was convinced that the best way for me to take the next step was to venture out on my own, despite the vagueness of exactly where that next step would take me. As it turns out, the risk I took in 2020 is what led me to be talking to you.
Contact Info:
- Spotify/Apple Podcasts: Body By Block Podcast
- Instagram: @Body.by.block
- Twitter: @Bodybyblock
Image Credits
@digital honcho_ (Taq) and @_walkermediagroup (Rashaan Walker)
Hanif Long
