The success of a gym for the traumatically injured has caused it to move to a new facility, more than quadrupling its total space. Adaptive Training Foundation cut the ribbon on an 18,000-square-foot headquarters in Carrollton over the weekend.
Additionally, later this month, ATF will partner with Arizona State University’s Pat Tillman Veterans Center to open a 5,000-square-foot, on-campus site to further research the effects of ATF’s 9-week program.
They’re the latest milestones of a vision laid out by CEO and founder David Vobora. A former NFL linebacker and “Mr. Irrelevant”—the title given to the last pick in the NFL draft—who played for a half-decade with the Rams and Seahawks, Vobora was hosting an informal version of his adaptive fitness program, with injured veterans, when he recognized a lack of support for post-rehab physical training. He founded ATF in 2014, acquiring 501(c)3 status that September.
The program offers cost-free services to the traumatically wounded, injured, and ill. Applications from amputees and injured civilians and veterans have flooded in, hence the program’s need to upgrade from its previous 4,000-square-foot space.
In 2016, the gym partnered with Texas Women’s University to research the mental impact and to establish a certification process for trainers, which will allow for geographical expansion. Vobora hopes the certification process will help ATF bring the physical performance and quality-of-life increases he’d seen in his gym’s members to more people outside DFW.
“We want to not just give these people physical empowerment and independence in mobility, but we also want to prime them to become contributors to society again,” Vobora says of his gym’s mission. “Our goal is to restore, recalibrate, and redefine these people’s lives.”
With the new facility, Vobora plans to host events for sponsors and gym members to work toward sustainability, without the need for charity. He plans to host two-month programs pitting competitors from sponsor companies against gym members and other corporate teams in a training program that culminates in an obstacle course. He also envisions sending out ATF-certified trainers for corporate wellness events at off-site locations.
