- Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology/Kinesiology
Full Academic Scholarship, University of Maryland - Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education
Summa Cum Laude, GPA: 3.989, SUNY at Cortland - Founder and Producer:
“Healthy IntroDougtions to Strength Training” DVD Series - Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
National Strength and Conditioning Association - Author of “Permanent Weight Control,” “Stand Firm,” & “Shaping Up with Doug Jones”
- Former Director of Fitness, Wilton YMCA
- Former Director of Fitness, Washington Hilton, Washington, D.C.
- Instructor of Exercise Physiology at Undergraduate/Graduate Levels
- Producer of Several Instructional Exercise Testing Videos
- Life Member, National Registry of Who’s Who
- Member of Wilton and US Chamber of Commerce
- MENSA Member, Certified “Eccentric” Genius
- World’s Most Eccentric Personal Trainer
- Founder and Creator:
TheBestWayToExercise.com and Super7System.com
An IntroDougtion to Doug
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!
First… I want to help you begin a safe and productive journey toward a superior level of health and physical well-being. I truly believe that a fitness-oriented lifestyle is a vital tool that synergistically promotes success in many other areas of life. Developing self-control over such an important and often neglected component of our lives yields a feeling of accomplishment and confidence that is impossible to develop through other means. You decision to become healthy is more than half the battle.
I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!
Second… I want to help you achieve your desired and 
potential level of fitness with minimal time investment. As a father of four and owner of multiple businesses, I realize there are many priorities in our lives that are more important than exercise. Therefore, I will continually strive to teach you how to allocate the least possible amount of time toward exercise while simultaneously achieving the best results. My goal is to encourage you to develop optimal levels of health and fitness while maintaining your focus on the many other important aspects of your life.
Doug Jones
…is the Founder and President of The Best Way to Exercise, LLC, based in Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii. In 1994, in Connecticut, Doug founded Stand Firm Fitness, LLC to provide in-home personal fitness training. His business gradually grew into an 18,000 sq ft facility, 
one of the largest personal training centers in the Northeast. Doug has used hisprofessional expertise, coupled with the experience he hasgained through his own health and fitness challenges, to design a facility and range of programs providing the most effective exercise in the most time-efficient manner. In 2009, after over 25 years in the industry, Doug hasnow afforded anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere around the world, the opportunity to access his proven teaching and personal training techniques, albeit eccentric, via his online enterprises, www.TheBestWayToExercise.com and www.Super7System.com
If you ever have any questions or comments for Doug,
please feel free to contact him personally at:
Doug@TheBestWayToExercise.com
Doug’s Personal Story
of Struggle and Success
For two years
I learned the most about my health through disease.
For two years
I could barely even walk and I definitely couldn’t run.
For two years
I couldn’t shake a friend’s hand, let alone hold a dumbbell.
IN TWO MONTHS
I was determined to completely reverse the previous two years.
I hope my own story of struggle and success can help you with your decision to develop a proactive plan of action. I’m in this battle with you.
In the 80′s & 90′s (at least most of the 90′s), health and fitness was my passion. As a 4.0 GPA exercise physiology student, full graduate academic scholarship recipient, fitness author, competitive triathlete, fitness director, etc., I lived the healthy lifestyle − at least to the best of my ability.
In 1992, six months into my first real job after graduate school, I cracked my L5 vertebrae in my lower back and separated the cartilage from a bone in my chest. I was completely out of commission for an entire year − not a fun experience.
So what do you do when you have twin newborn daughters and zero income? You move from Maryland to Connecticut, live in your mother’s attic for a year, heal, pray, and try to start afresh. At least that was my game plan.
Thankfully, I recovered physically and my fitness business succeeded fiscally. However, in March of 1997, I was suddenly, and almost completely, crippled with the sudden onset of a very severe form of rheumatoid/psoriatic arthritis (so I was told). Basically, this overnight autoimmune attack totally disabled my hands and my feet − and I mean totally.
Even with what I consider a high threshold for personal pain, I couldn’t walk or shake hands without screaming. I literally couldn’t squeeze a tube of toothpaste. I couldn’t imagine lifting weights or exercising, and couldn’t even train any of my personal training clients personally. I was a physical mess.
If a struggle doesn’t destroy you…
…it makes you stronger.
After spending almost $20,000 on treatment (including going out of the country for “high-tech” techniques), I started to see a glimmer of hope. Though I was feeling a little better, I still couldn’t perform even one push-up, one calf-raise, or one chin-up − and formal regular exercise definitely didn’t seem to be a viable option.
However, at the end of 1998, a couple of my friends and clients really started getting serious about their training programs. Ironically, I was actually designing some of these programs for them. I was still talkin’ the talk even though I wasn’t able to personally survive walkin’ the walk. But based on their excitement alone, I decided it was time that I should also focus, once again, on my own personal fitness program − hoping my friends’ enthusiasm was strong enough to carry me through.
My first goal was to complete my first workout without hurting myself. By the end of the first week, I outlined the ten or so exercises that I could safely perform. Success is always relative, but that first consistent week of exercise rekindled the awesome feeling of being fit. By the end of the second week, my body began to respond quite favorably. No longer was I just a passive spectator. I can honestly say that, after only two weeks, I was already feeling better than I had in at least the previous five years.
My routine was scientific and my diet was strict. Because the consumption of any type of animal product wrecked havoc on my joints, I consumed a primarily raw vegetarian diet − lots of fruit, salads, and fresh-squeezed vegetable juices. I was never really hungry (since I was eating 6-8 times per day), but I was never really full either. Focusing primarily on fat loss for the first month, I was hoping to just maintain my lean muscle weight by performing light and strict strength training.
To my surprise, in the first four weeks alone, I had actually gained over 8 pounds of muscle while simultaneously reducing my waist by 5 ¾ inches and reducing my hips by 3 ½ inches. In only 4 weeks! By the end of twelve weeks, I had lost 20 pounds of fat, gained 15 pounds of muscle, and reduced my waistline from 39.5” to 32.5” − a decrease of 7 inches off of my waist in only 12 weeks!!!
"Nothing is more motivating than results... ...especially dramatic results."
The key to my staying committed during the challenges of my physique transformation was that I actively exercised the most powerful muscle in the human body, the tongue − not by eating, but by speaking. The Book of Proverbs states that people are snared by the words of their mouth. The tongue is a small muscle, but it directs your entire being. Whether you like it or not, what you say is what you get. It is so important to speak about what you want that you don’t have; don’t speak about what you have that you don’t want.
Once you begin a fitness program, you have to truly visualize yourself at the fitness level you would ultimately like to achieve. Eat like that person and train like that person (within reason, of course) and you will become that person. Success breeds success. Your body will eventually believe your brain.
So − let’s make my long story longer. I whipped myself back into shape just in time to lose it all again. In May of 2001, just after I finished a great workout, in fact, I was in a severe car accident. Thankfully, everybody was “all right.”
I was hit head-on while going 40mph, which launched my SUV into a “Dukes of Hazzard” rollover sequence. Unfortunately, the only part of my car’s roof that was crushed was the section right above my head.
I ended up having a major brain injury. Of course, I’m thankful it wasn’t worse, but my neurologist said it was as if I had just come out of a three month coma. And the effects lasted for at least a year − or was it two years? I had a very bad short-term memory for at least a year − or was it two years?
I can joke about it now. I did try to fake my way through it as best I could, but I did embarrass myself on a fairly regular basis. Have you seen my DVDs yet?
Perhaps not remembering much helped me to get through the pain, but it was bad for my family, bad for my business, and also bad for my health − since I didn’t have the mental fortitude necessary to aggressively and proactively pursue proper medical treatment. Though I had numerous X-rays, CAT scans, and MRI procedures, nothing showed too much of anything. I hurt a lot, but nobody knew why − and I started to sense that most people probably didn’t even believe me. But after months of complaining, my team of physicians finally sent me for bone scans.
Good news − bad news. Good because the bone scans finally proved that I was indeed hurt − bad because I had small fractures all over my body. Basically, everywhere that the seatbelt touched during impact had been broken. But at least my seatbelt prevented me from having large fractures all over the rest of my body too. Remember, it was a head-on rollover.
However, because of the delay in diagnosis, things healed kind of funny − and kind of crunchy. I still have quite limited range of motion in my shoulder and neck. Granted, it could have been a lot worse, but it was still pretty bad. I’m in pain every day, but I count my blessings on a daily basis as well.
Years went by, once again, before I could begin a formal exercise program. My body was a mess − much, much worse than my initial before photos on the previous page. Doctors also thought that the stress of my car accident sent my body into another auto-immune arthritic attack. All of my joints became severely inflamed and all of my symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis were back in full swing. Although I had “only” injured my head, neck, back, shoulder, chest, and leg in the car accident, my auto-immune response was systemic. In other words, everything in my body went bad. My body was in such horrible shape that I won’t even show you the pictures. Me, myself, and I were a terrible trio.
My symptoms of a systemic problem continued to worsen − so more tests, right? I had one of the most expensive tests performed for a very specific disease. And it came back positively positive. I was stricken and tickin’ with Lyme disease, probably the most popular affliction in the state of Connecticut (also known as Connecti-tick). FYI: Lyme disease is named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut.
Anyway, at the time, there were about 60 known major symptoms of Lyme disease and I had half of them. Worse yet, some of my physicians believed that I may have had Lyme Disease for the entire 8 years. Nobody ever caught it. But I had.
My entire fight against rheumatoid arthritis in the late 90′s was probably in vain. Though I was tested for Lyme back then too, many tests are false-negative, meaning that, even though I may have had Lyme disease, the tests didn’t show it. Regardless, I knew I had it now and it was time, once again, to get on with my life. A little aggressive treatment and I was good to go. Here we go again!!!
I always tell people that, just because I own a fitness center, it has been no easier for me to get (or keep) myself in peak condition. I always seem to get “distracted.”
However, I think that all of the physical struggles that I’ve been through allow me to see things from a different, perhaps more relatable, perspective. If you aren’t in the best of shape right now, I can definitely put myself in your shoes. I can relate. Despite what you’ve been through, or where you are now, you can change your situation and change your health.
Having been there and having been here, I can honestly tell you that it’s worth it. And you are worth it.
I am so thankful that I have been given the opportunity to help thousands, and now millions, of others begin their own journey down the road to good health. And I appreciate the potential to help you, too. The first step is usually the toughest and sometimes the longest, but putting the blinders on for a few weeks is usually all that it takes.
Today, at least make the decision to proactively pursue renewed health and well-being. Step by step, exercise by exercise, and workout by workout, I look forward to helping you to learn everything you need to know to achieve your own personal physique transformation − from the inside out.
I’ll be with you for the entire journey and I look forward to seeing your success!
Your Eccentric Trainer,
Doug
