The Decision That Changed Everything

Ryan White was a freshman in college when the September 11th attacks happened. He had made the decision to withdraw from college and enlist in the United States Marine Corps. After boot camp at Parris Island and infantry school, he was stationed with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines — Lima Company — and completed multiple tours in Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps didn't just shape his body. It shaped who he is. Discipline, hard work, camaraderie, dedication — these weren't buzzwords to Ryan. They were the standard. And they've carried into everything he's built since.

Finding His Calling

After returning home, Ryan found functional fitness — and it changed his life. What started as a way to stay fit became a calling. He fell in love with functional movement, with the community that forms around shared hard work, and with the way fitness can fundamentally transform a person's life.

He didn't just train. He competed. As a sponsored athlete in 2011, Ryan traveled the country competing at a high level, testing himself against some of the best in the sport. That experience gave him a deep understanding of elite programming — and how to scale it for every person, at every level.

Building a Community

Ryan found functional fitness in 2009 and was hooked immediately. Within a year he was co-owning a gym — learning the business of coaching from the inside. After several years he was ready to build something of his own, on his own terms. In 2013 he opened CrossFit 727 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

What started with 10 members grew to close to 200. He wasn't just running a gym — he was building a community. He later expanded and served as Executive Director of a second location, growing the organization's reach across the Tampa Bay area. He coached there until the gym was sold in 2024.

Over that decade-plus of ownership, he coached beginners finding their footing for the first time and athletes chasing competitive goals. He learned that the best coaching isn't one-size-fits-all — it's showing up for each person exactly where they are.

Why Honesdale

After over two decades in St. Petersburg, the city had grown up around them — and Ryan and his family were ready for something different. Four boys, a farm, and a life where the seasons actually change. They found it in Honesdale.

Now they raise sheep, tend a garden, and wake up to mornings that feel earned. The work outside — the lambing, the planting, the physical life of a farm — feeds the same part of Ryan that the gym always has. Forged at Iron and Earth is how that discipline and love of hard work shows up here in Wayne County.

My Passion Started Coaching Kids in Florida

Ryan found functional fitness in 2009. By 2010 he was co-owner of his first gym in St. Petersburg, and in 2013 he opened his second as majority owner, coaching there until it sold in 2024. Kids were part of it the whole way — youth classes on the schedule, high school athletes in for the off-season, college kids back for the summer.

That's a lot of years watching the same thing happen: a kid who learns to squat, press and pull correctly at twelve becomes a different athlete at sixteen. Not because he got stronger. Because nothing about lifting scares him.

Thirty Kids, Five Days a Week

For years Ryan ran a nonprofit youth training program in St. Petersburg for at-risk kids. Thirty of them, five days a week, after school. The program covered everything — transportation, coaching, tutoring. Whatever it took to get a kid through the door and keep them coming back.

Alongside it he ran a CrossFit Kids program twice a year, two to three months at a stretch, ten to twenty kids at a time.

That is where most of what he knows about coaching kids came from. Not from the ones who were easy to coach.

A Six-Year-Old and a Senior Aren't the Same Athlete

A six-year-old and a high school senior need almost nothing in common from a training program. So they don't get the same one. Here's roughly what each stretch of years is actually for.

6–9

Learning to Move

Light load, heavy on quality. A six-year-old can hold a barbell just fine — what they're actually learning is how to squat to depth, hang from a bar, land quietly, and be coached. If they leave moving well and willing to try something hard, it worked. Speed work happens outside; when the fields are wet it becomes jumping in the garage.

10–13

The Barbell Shows Up

Load increases here — but only behind the mechanics. The bar gets heavier when the movement earns it, over months rather than weeks. Most athletes who are strong in high school built it in this window, quietly, while nobody was watching.

14–18

Training for a Season

Now it's a job. The program knows what sport they play and where they sit in the year — off-season building, pre-season sharpening, in-season holding on. This is also where an athlete chasing a service academy, a roster spot or a tryout gets a program built for that target.

How Kids Actually Get Coached Here

What an App Can't Do

There is no shortage of places to get a workout. What you can't download is somebody watching your third rep and telling you your knee caved before you felt it. That's the part that changes how you lift, and it's the part that goes missing the second training moves online.

So that's what this is built around. You send video. I watch it and send back what I see. Everything else — the program, the loading, the progression — follows from that.

How It Works

Who's Coaching You

Coaching since 2009, a CrossFit Level 2, two gyms owned in Florida, and a nonprofit youth program that ran thirty kids a day. Ryan has coached people who had never worked out before and athletes who competed nationally. Online doesn't change the coaching — it just changes where you're standing.

Who This Isn't For

If you want somebody to text you every morning to get you out of bed, this isn't it. If you want a program you never have to think about, an app is cheaper and will do the job. And if you aren't going to film yourself lifting, you're paying for something you won't use — take the Program Only tier instead.

Ryan takes a limited number of online clients, because reviewing video properly takes time and the number of hours in a week hasn't changed.