The Blog

We met with Barron Jackson at his X-Train facility on West Anderson Lane yesterday, and he immediately had us all laughing. Barron started out at A&M Corpus Christi studying to become a radiologist, discovered partying, and then accidentally discovered his love of training when he came back to Austin that summer and moved back in with his parents. Needing a hobby at home, Barron started running, and ran right into the YMCA on Town Lake to ask for a job one day. He laughs, recalling, “When I first started–I hope no one from there sees this–when they first asked me to teach they were like, ‘Are you certified?’ And I was like, ‘Sure…'” Barron did become a certified trainer shortly after, having fallen in love with the satisfaction of helping others get in better shape.

When Barron opened his own fitness facility in 2009, “People started telling me I taught a very unique class, and I think the reason why is my attention to detail… that’s something that we do at X-Train that you don’t find at too many other places. And I’m not trying to knock any other place, all these other boot camp facilities and gyms are great in their own way, and I think X-Train is great in its own way: we keep it open for everybody, and we don’t try to make it a competition, it’s for anybody who wants to learn how to work harder.”

Barron is excited to share the Choose Healthier App with his clients. “I think Choose Healthier can really help people figure out what they want, what they like, and what’s out there… to have something at your disposal to be able to look up the best places to eat, fitness facilities in your area, and someone people can call and talk to for help with nutrition, I haven’t seen anything like that. Besides myself…” he laughs, “But seriously. I think that’s why we fit well together. It’s detail… other apps aren’t nearly as detailed, nearly as diverse. I find that y’all are open to a lot of different kinds of fitness… a lot of different types of resources… Austin being one of the fitness capitals of the world, it’s really cool that this is being built from the ground up, right here in Austin, and I’m excited to be apart of it.”

The class Barron’s most excited to promote through Choose Healthier is his Muscle Fusion class. “That class really encompasses what X-Train is all about. That class is simply group personal training at it’s finest. If you’re really thinking about getting a personal trainer, you come to this class and get more than that… you’re going to be surrounded by a great group of people.” Barron also offers a FREE Saturday morning class at 9:00 for all levels, meant to help you kick off your weekend right, have fun, and sweat, a lot.

Barron measures his success by the feedback he gets from his clients. “One thing I hear back is that they’ve found something they weren’t able to find within themselves before… There are people who were way overweight and had never worked out before enjoying it and hanging out with people who are athletes. I have baseball players, professional basketball players, I have track athletes in here, and then you have somebody who’s never worked out before doing that same class, having a great time.”

All X-Train classes will be listed on Choose Healthier. Sign up to be notified as soon as the app becomes available!