Coach Nic

Meet Coach Nic

(Nicholas John Nakis Amha Selassie)

Health & Fitness Coach

I was raised in a treehouse and grew up in the foothills of the North Cascades, hiking, bicycling, camping, and playing sports. My parents taught me to forage, garden, and to cook my own food. I experimented with diet and exercise from a young age, and began developing my own personal health code.

In the 90s, I was a scrappy, street-fighting youth who did a lot of paramilitary training and calisthenics. I played in punk rock bands and worked tough, physical jobs. But, when I didn’t join the Marines at age 18 (that’s another story), I went to the big city instead, and got myself into a lot of trouble.

After 3 years of hard living, I was in rough shape. Then, at age 21, my appendix burst and I nearly died. Recovering from emergency surgery led me on a quest to rebuild my body and improve my nutrition. I became fitness-obsessed and practiced a series of popular diets, finding success with some and discovering the flaws in others. Towards the end of 2003, I started doing workouts from a little-known website called CrossFit.com and became one of the first 100 CrossFitters in the world

That same year, my younger brother died in the Iraq war. I realized life wasn’t cheap and you only get one chance. So I took it. I entered my dream career working in film & television production. I enrolled at the University of Washington. I did a month-long National Outdoor Leadership Schools course in mountaineering. I trained at the world’s first CrossFit affiliate (CrossFit North in Seattle) and competed during the birth of the sport of fitness.

Then, after graduating university in 2006, I left North America for the first time. In Thailand I met my future wife, and traveled with her across India and to Kenya, her home country. We continued to travel the globe frequently and my love of health & fitness grew as I constantly learned new things and spread the knowledge of the things I’d learned.

When I turned 30 in 2012, I decided to change careers and join the fitness industry. After achieving my CrossFit Level 1, I started as a part-time CrossFit Instructor at Xplore CrossFit in Seattle. Within the year, I was living in Phuket, Thailand, running the cross-training program at Tiger Muay Thai & MMA, working as a Personal Trainer, and teaching Nutrition seminars.

I returned to the USA in 2014 and kept working at gyms. As a partner at Crossover Fitness & Training in my home town of Sedro-Woolley, WA, I brought the do-it-yourself backyard fitness style into an independent box gym setting. From there I went to work for Riverside Health Club, where I became the affiliate owner-of-record at CrossFit RHC and eventually the Personal Training Supervisor, with a staff of 12 Personal Trainers, Nutrition Trainers, Group Instructors, and Massage Therapists.

Over the years, I participated in a vast array of sports and fitness modalities, such as street workouts, logging sports, various martial arts, obstacle course races, and the Highland Games. I added to my knowledge with certifications from CrossFit, Iyengar Yoga, NFPT, TRX, Precision Nutrition, and what I consider to be the crown-jewel: the OPEX Coaching Certificate Program. This program taught me about Individual Design Coaching, the model I practice today with my clients.

In 2019, I struck out on my own with Smart Fit & Clean, coaching remote and in-person clients from my home gym in Sedro-Woolley, WA.