Fitness influencer starting music career

J.D. Krompass is a fitness influencer and burgeoning musician. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

J.D. Krompass inspires through fitness and music. He is a burgeoning influencer sharing a positive message.

The 17-year-old, who resides in Michigan, decided to share his fitness journey to help others.

“It originally started with bettering myself and trying to show the people around me that this world is not going down the path that everyone wants or thinks it's going down,” he said. “I have a message to share and I thought showing my progression from going from skinny as skinny can be to the biggest, best version of myself would be the best way to show it.”

J.D., who’s far from skinny now with an already impressive physique, posts clips from his workouts, which include weightlifting, pull-ups, push-ups and flips.

“Two to three hours a day for six days a week,” he said. “Sundays are my rest days. The only idea is to show people my progress.”

J.D. splits up the muscle groups.

“I have a powerlifting schedule currently,” he said. “I also got a five-day split. Day one, Monday, chest and shoulders. Day two, Tuesday, legs and back. Day three, Wednesday, chest, arms. Thursday, rest day. Day four, Friday, legs, arms, back. Day five, Saturday, legs and back. Sunday, rest day.”

Although J.D. already has added plenty of muscle to his frame, he’s going for more.

“I want to get up to 200, 250 pounds of lean muscle,” he said. “I'm on a lean bulk right now, though, because I struggled to bulk. I naturally was super skinny, so trying to put on the weight is a little harder.”

J.D. will be incorporating his pending music career into his content.

“As I grow and as I build, I'm planning on introducing music into the picture,” he said. “Start showing people the music that I create. Kind of experimenting in the guitar, melodic hip hop era right now. Hoping to really get grounds on what I'm doing. By the time I hit roughly 5,000 followers, I'll start putting it out to people.”

J.D. started focusing on fitness after experiencing a rough patch in life.

“I was going down a bad path and I had the realization that someone that works out lives longer than someone that doesn't work out,” he said. “Every one of us need to take care of ourselves in a specific way. I thought that me pushing myself to the best version of myself physically would help me grow mentally also.”

J.D. made a comparison to describe how essential fitness is.

“The way I think of it is it's like we're cars,” he said. “You've got to maintain a car. You've got to put fuel into a car. You've got to change the oil. You put a lot of work into it for your car to actually take you places, for your car to have the full amount of life it's going to have. If you try and run your car without any gas — if you don't eat enough per se — try and run a car without any gas, it's not going to go anywhere. You run your car nearly almost out of oil all the time, you're going to burn up your engine. You got a leak in your transmission that you never fix, you're not going to be going anywhere after a while.”

J.D.’s long-term goal is to lead by example.

“To maximize my ability for others, to motivate people who are lacking thereof to be consistent in taking care of themselves,” he said. “Personally being a musician that's not all skinny and scrawny, but on the bigger side, more fit, more healthy, more able to actually inspire people to see the change in my life. I feel that would be a little bit more not relatable, but impressionable if people would see me on a stage and see that I take care of myself. That would have a different effect because you look at all the musicians we have even back to Juice WRLD, one of the newest ones that passed away. He had chunk. He had a stomach. And a lot of the newer ones are all skin and bones.”

J.D. intensified his workouts late last year.

“I did calisthenics the past few years, but not very consistently,” he said. “I really started buckling down at the end of December because I wanted 2024 to be my year of change. At the end of 2024, starting in 2025, I'm hoping to have music released. I'm hoping to be at 5,000 followers on my social media platform, and I'm hoping to be moved to Canada to be working in a studio.”

J.D. has a good reason to select Ontario, the site where his musician father lives. His dad is a former member of a popular band.

“A long time ago, my mother met some guy that turned out to be an artist,” J.D. said. “She was going to marry him. His name's Mike Krompass. Had me with him, then they didn't end up getting married. He's grown significantly in the music industry. He's made songs with people like Meghan Trainor or Skylar Grey. He was in Smash Mouth, so he has a lot of really good opportunities. I reached out to him because I told him I wanted a music career. He's the CEO of a company that is run through Sony, so I'm planning on moving out there in the next six months to a year to start working on making tracks for other people and making my own music in the background.”

He wants to seize the chance to make the music connections.

“That's a really good start for me,” J.D. said. “I know that most of the songs that he makes with people. He gets a minimum of a million views per song on the songs he's putting out, so I already know that I would be able to have a large audience I would have my music put out to. It's just a matter of putting the work in. Right now, where I stand, I don't have many resources. I don't have many teachers, many influences, many resources. I got a guitar. I have the Internet to learn how to play the guitar, and I got me, myself and I. But when I get to my best stage and I move out to Canada, I'll have a whole studio just put right at my feet that I'll be able to work with. That's such a blessing to be able to have. I'm going to jump at the opportunity.”

He found music inspiration from various sources.

“A few people inspired me to start going down that path,” J.D. said. “Smaller influencers, bigger influencers like Eminem. It wasn't for the words they said, but it was how they put it together. Eminem, his style, it's pretty disrespectful to a lot of people, but not even that is what's impressive. What's impressive is how he will take a whole song, and he'll make it like science. He'll put all the words into where they're supposed to go, like puzzle pieces. He's just writing down words. That's so cool to be able to make that sound scientifically good, that every human cannot deny that it's good.”

If time permits, he will also work in fitness.

“That would be pretty cool,” J.D. said. “I've noticed that I have the ability to teach people and inspire people. I don't know about a physical trainer because that would take a lot of setting aside from my music to support people. But I feel like putting my content out there, working with people like that, maybe even making workout plans for people, that would be all things that I'd be interested in. It's just I can only put so much into it without taking away from the other side, but definitely as a side thing. I want to keep that going for the rest of my life. I'll always have the fitness page, even though eventually the music page will be the main one.”

He wants his followers to receive a positive message from his content.

“That's kind of the mindset here,” J.D. said. “There's too many people that weightlift with anger. They constantly put their anger into their workouts, so I'm going to channel my anger. For me, it's more or less, I release the anger and I have the mindset that I'm growing and loving myself. I'm doing the best version of myself and I'm being the best I can be. I feel like that's what people need in this world because there's too many people that are super jacked, but they're all stuck in their own egos and they're so aggressive and angry. It's all about them. There's not enough people that are trying to heal the world anymore. Even our musicians. It's all rap these days. It’s about guns, sex and money. Nothing is about healing this world anymore.”

When things got rough, he opted to make a change rather than not try to improve his life.

“I had hit the lowest point I had hit in my life,” J.D. said. “I was letting my actions consume me, and I was going down a really bad path. I wasn't thinking about anything other than myself, and I was constantly in fear. I lost my license temporarily. I felt like I was being chased by the universe in and of itself. I had one moment where I just stopped. I said, oh, Lord, I need to make a change right now before I end myself up in jail. I need to be healthy. I looked in the mirror. I was like, I'm 17 now. Why do I look like I'm 15, 14? I realized that I always wanted to help people, and I can't go through any experience by myself without feeling like I want to share it with other people. I realized that's just a gift I was given, and I was not treating that gift the way I should.”

Once he started working out, it didn’t take long to notice a difference.

“I think genetics had a lot to do with that, but it was actually really quick,” J.D. said. “Two weeks to a month, I started noticing I was bulking up and my back was getting bigger and my whole physique was getting larger. I quickly became glad that I started posting because you can even see it on my posts of the exponential gain from January to February. With how fast I've been growing, especially all natural, I'm excited for next year because I'm making some intense growth. I started with 85 for 10 for three sets on my bench press, and I've now gotten to 145 for 10 for my three sets. In a month and a half, I went from being able to get 150 pounds up to 185. Next month, I’m going for 205 to 225.”

He noticed how his strength increase changed everyday life.

“There's little things throughout the day that I'll do,” he said. “I work at a restaurant right now, in a hotel. I remember that it was usually when I was smaller, pulling the trash out, it would be like a two-hand job because the thing is one of those massive trash cans. And I pulled it out with one hand. I was like, dude, this is not as heavy as it used to be. I stood outside. I gave one swing in my hand and I threw it and it flew, and I was like, whoa. I feel like Superman. Made it right in the trash can.”

He makes a point to stay motivated no matter what happens.

“I remember that everyone feels that way, and to let myself succumb to that will just put me a step backwards,” J.D. said. “I've been there before. I've been to the spot where I just wallowed in my self pity per se, where I let my discouragement get the best of me and it didn't feel any better. You just sit there discouraged. Even if I didn't go to the gym and I just skipped because I didn't feel like it, I would feel even worse than if I told myself to get up, forced myself to take the cold shower that I take every single day and then go to the gym every morning and every night. At the end of my shower, I'll flip it all the way to cold just to try and condition my body into the dealing with cold temperature without getting all shivers. I feel like that's definitely been helping with overall everything: mood, growth, mindset, the way temperature affects me, all of it.”

He said it’s not a bad thing to be uncomfortable at times.

“I had the realization that humans always are trying to be comfortable,” J.D. said. “Specific temperatures don't make you feel anything extra. You don't feel hot or you don't feel cold, you just feel normal. I realized, what's the point of life if you're always trying to escape a feeling, to feel comfortable? Most people, sleeping is one of their favorite things because they just feel that pure warmth and coziness. I realized there is no coziness without discomfort. Even based on religion or not religion, discomfort is something we're going to go through. It's something that's not going to exist when we die, because it's just a human concept of how to perceive what's going on around us. We don't like this, so our mindset tells us this sucks. I flipped that switch in my brain, and I realized every time I feel uncomfortable, I feel alive. I don't feel like I'm uncomfortable. I feel like it's just part of life. It's just one of the many feelings we feel every day.”

He said starting a car in the winter may be unpleasant but it’s not harmful.

“You'll want to go start your car, and the thought will be, now I got to go walk in the cold,” J.D. said. “But then I just tell myself, I'm like, you feel weak, stop being weak. This is just life. I mean, there's not hot without cold. You're just filling the other end of the temperature. It doesn't damage body. It's just the mindset. If you can train yourself to feel that way in cold or hot, on the opposite ends of the spectrum, neither being too hot or too cold, let's say 30 degrees to 70 degrees, 80 degrees. If you can deal with that on both ends and make them both feel just as comfortable in your mind, everything changes.”

He dispensed advice to those wanting to start their fitness journeys.

“The goal shouldn't be to start working out,” J.D. said. “The goal should start being to love yourself and everything will come with it. You can't rely on someone else to take care of you or to support your emotions. Once you start taking care of your own emotions and learning that you are valued just like every other human is and have just as much significance just as every other human does, everything will come with it. You'll realize that you need to take care of yourself in the best way, and you'll realize that to be the best version of yourself. You can't ever stop growing. Every single day you have to try and be better than you already are. That's what puts you in your best version of yourself is not thinking that you're there, but you can be better. So as long as you're constantly trying to better yourself, you'll find it easier to pull yourself out of the black hole that is your mindset and emotions.”

He said nothing will impede his growth.

“I have nothing holding me back from being my best self. I just have to keep going.”

J.D.’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjd01/