Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Ecklund.
Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I knew upon graduating from college that I did not want to do 2 things:
1. I did not want to work with people who had injuries or aches and pains (i.e. Physical Therapy)
2. I did not want to teach or be “up front”
Let me save you the suspense…fast forward 30 years and you can guess what I do:
1. Work with people who have injuries or aches and pains
2. Teach and speak about #1
My story began in 1996 as a Personal Trainer in a large, commercially-owned health club in the San Francisco Bay Area. While I loved helping people get healthy and fit, I realized early on that being in a traditional gym trying to help people get 6 pack abs was not something that blew my hair back.
As several in my family were educators, I decided to give it a shot. I went back to school to get my credential and jumped into high school education. I had a great experience teaching at the secondary level, but after 6 years, it had run its course. As such, I looked more toward university education. In the process of gradually moving in that direction, God moved me from the Bay Area down to southern California (Santa Barbara to be exact). It was there that while I was doing this “fun” side gig that I enjoyed (teaching at Westmont College and the University of California Santa Barbara), I started a brick and mortar gym called Prevail Conditioning Performance Center. This was my primary work and investment for the next 15 years and my first real business.
Over the course of that time, we became a staple in the fitness and strength and conditioning community in Santa Barbara (and it still is to this day). It was also during this time I had the opportunity to extend the teaching and education facets of my work with the National Academy of Sports Medicine. For about a decade, I functioned as a Master Instructor and travelled the United States to put on workshops for aspiring personal trainers, strength coaches, and corrective exercise specialists. During those years I had several opportunities to speak at national and international conventions as a subject matter expert in those areas.
In 2014 (about mid way through that process), God brought a beautiful woman into my life who was to become my wife in 2015 and we began our life together. We lived and worked in Santa Barbara until 2021, when–after 6 years of prayer–God led us to North Carolina to be nearer to my side of the family.
After we arrived and got settled, I realized that after 25 years in the industry and 15 years of running a small business…I was burned out from the world of kinesiology (and quite frankly, had been on the edge of heavy burnout and minor depression bouts for about a decade). I decided to take a break from it and went and did sales work for 3 years in a completely different field.
As 2024 rolled around, I felt the itch to come back. Initially, I took a part time teaching job at Elon University in their Exercise Department, and then began to consider starting a new business here in the Triangle area. Summer 2025 began the formal business of my new venture–Integrated Performance, LLC. It was a new start for me with the hope and desire to use all of the lessons I had learned from starting my first business.
As the Owner of Integrated Performance, I am a Human Performance Coach and Therapist helping individuals and organizations optimize movement, performance, and longevity.
My work centers on optimizing human movement through biomechanics, motor control, neuromuscular efficiency, and education. His integrated, evidence-informed approach bridges science and practice to help clients, athletes, and professionals perform at their highest level.
I currently offer concierge services both in home to clients as well as at various partner facilities across the Triangle.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Oh goodness no. Not a smooth road.
For starters, figuring out what God has wanted me to do with my life, the gifts and talent He has given me, and the loves He has put on my heart has always been a winding road. There have been very few times along the way that He has been specifically clear about what I am to do for my vocation. Over the course of 30 years, that has primarily had something to do with being inside a gym’s walls or an educational institution…but it has almost always been a bit uncertain.
The gym…
They gym was a 15 year battle. I currently have 3 kids (2 biological and 1 foster). And I would still say that owning and running a business was hands down the most difficult thing I have done in my life (granted, I have several Dad years left, so my answer may change). The gym took everything I had to make it happen: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially and economically. It was a 15 year grind. Was it worth it? Of course, I would not change it. But there were several sleepless nights and a lot of pain tied into that effort. I am not a business or entrepreneurial wizard (to this day). It has always taken me a long time to get business going and to a healthy place. As you can imagine, there were a lot of months (and years) that went unpaid and question marks as to whether payroll would get paid more times than I would like to admit.
And then there is the other stuff: I am an introvert who has always leaned on the edge of depression. Layer in the fact that I have always worked and functioned in a highly extroverted (or at the least, very social) industry that requires a lot of emotional energy (think of me as the bartender of the fitness industry). Thus, I operated on the edge for a solid 15 to possibly 20 years of my early career. Challenging.
Through it all, God has been good. He has given me what I needed and always helped me and encouraged me and kept me afloat throughout.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Integrated Performance?
Chris Ecklund, MA is a Human Performance Coach and Therapist with over 30 years of experience helping individuals and organizations optimize movement, performance, and longevity. He is a sought-after author, international speaker, subject matter expert, and university adjunct faculty member specializing in human performance and applied kinesiology.
Chris is the founder and owner of Integrated Performance in North Carolina and the founder and former owner of Prevail Conditioning Performance Center in Santa Barbara, California. His career spans both the private sector and higher education, blending applied performance coaching with academic instruction.
He has served as adjunct faculty in Kinesiology at Westmont College, University of California–Santa Barbara, Las Positas College, and Concordia University Chicago, and previously served as a Master Instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM).
Chris’s work centers on optimizing human movement through biomechanics, motor control, neuromuscular efficiency, and education. His integrated, evidence-informed approach bridges science and practice to help clients, athletes, and professionals perform at their highest level.
What sets me apart from others is that I am often the guy people come to when they’ve tried a number of other things and they can’t seem to get out of pain or get healthy. Some of that, certainly, comes back to education and experience. But I think a significant portion of that is relationship and that I deeply care about my clients.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I offer concierge services that focus on high end manual therapy, applied kinesiology and fitness training. My business offers services to a small number of clients in order to maximize benefit, focus and time.
My services include:
1. In person Manual Therapy & Corrective Exercise/Fitness Training
–> In a clinic/gym
–> In home
2. Online Training and Coaching
3. Concierge Services: in home all inclusive Manual Therapy, Training, Nutrition, Recovery and travel with clients
–> Only available with 1 client/year
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.iperformnc.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachecklund/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachecklund
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdecklund/
- Twitter: https://x.com/iPerformNC
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iPerformNC
- Other: https://linktr.ee/intperformance
