At the early age of 9 years old, Coach Adam Kessler began his strength training journey. With the help of his father, he gained a big head start using 4-inch movements and 5-pound dumbbells for his routine lifting.
Upon entering high school, it wasn’t long until he made an impact.
“When I got to my senior year, I was breaking school records and shot benchmarks,” said Coach Kessler, Merrillville’s new strength and conditioning coach.
During middle school, Coach Kessler played baseball, threw shot put and played volleyball. High school added football and wrestling to that list. Strength and conditioning would be a huge part of his success.
“I had a dad who really helped me start my whole strength conditioning path,” he said. “I separated myself from the high school then, and when I got to college, I continued to get stronger with that.”
Coach Kessler attended Eastern Illinois as a shot put thrower for two years. He’d then go to Southern Illinois to continue to pursue his exercise science degree. After a final stop at Drake for more mentoring, Coach Kessler knew he wanted to dedicate his job to helping others.
“I had a dad who started me, and when I got to college, I realized that a lot of these people don’t have those figures in their life. So I want to be that for those guys and gals,” he said.
As the new strength and conditioning coach at Merrillville, Coach Kessler has big goals for the program. He hopes to use his key factors to help improve Merrillville.
“I want to unify the strength program. I think the strength program is the only factor in an athletic program that unifies everybody… I think further tightening that bond between all teams and making it one big program,” Coach Kessler said.
As the freshmen roll into high school, many of them have never been in a weight room. Freshman Curtis Walker believes that Coach Kessler has helped him in the weight room.
“The traits that I like about him that make him a great coach is his seriousness and motivation,” Walker said.
After the transition to a new strength coach, Senior Taylor Brown appreciates that Coach Kessler adds different varieties of workouts that help build muscle.
“He motivates me by explaining the workouts and going in-depth about what the workout is doing for your body,” Brown said. “He is also a powerlifter so that makes me feel like he knows what he is doing and not just telling us to do workouts that won’t help us in the future.”
Coach Kessler wants the average, when it comes to all the main lifts, to be higher than it was when they started. He is also an advocate for more people to join his class and be introduced to the weight room.
“I would love for a lot more coaches to get introduced into this room and grow there with them,” he said.
