Man inspires others to start self-improvement

Liam Crowley does tricep dips. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Liam Crowley is motivational, inspirational and thought-provoking. The athlete works out and runs marathons while helping folks build better lives.

In addition to covering his exceptional fitness and running, Liam provides food for thought. The content creator also works with individuals to improve their lives.

“It’s more one-on-one in terms of lifestyle and building positive habits through implementing things like fitness, but I’m not a fitness coach so to speak,” he said. “It’s more of a life coach.”

Liam, who formerly was a lean runner, started working out as a teen.

“I started working out about eight and a half years now,” he said. “It's changed who I am for the better. I wouldn't be the person I am without it. As time progressed, I realized more and more how important it was.”

Liam, 24, of Florida ran competitively as a youth.

“Specifically cross-country, I'd done since grade school, but I never liked it,” he said. “I did it in high school. I ended up quitting my senior year because I was completely over it, but I continued working out. I was always working out. The reason I quit cross-country was because I wanted to gain weight and gain muscle.”

Liam resumed running when he realized it wouldn’t be a detriment to his physique.

“These past few years, I got back into running,” he said. “I personally see the benefits in it.”

Liam detailed his regimen.

“Typically, my exercise routine will consist of a 4:30 a.m. alarm to head to the gym to work out,” he said. “Along with that, I will always take 10 to 20 minutes to stretch either before or after my workout. Depending on the day, I will do 30 minutes of cardio on the stationary bike as well. If I do not do the bike, I will be going for a run ranging from three miles to 20 miles.”

Liam’s running varies depending on if he’s training for a marathon at the time.

“Before the marathons, I based which cardio I'd do on a specific day off of how my body felt,” he said. “With the marathon in mind, I will run all the days on my plan unless I truly feel a rest day or adaptation is required. This has happened two to three times in which case I would hop on my bike, swim or take a complete rest if truly necessary. So put simply, work out in the gym six days a week, stretch everyday, some form of cardio everyday.” 

Liam learned his progress in fitness can help others.

“I just thought it was awesome because people would tell me you motivate me,” he said. “I would work jobs and the people I work with would start working out or they would start eating better. Just the impact that I could have on those people just doing the things I do on a daily basis, I think was amazing.”

Liam was inspired to broaden his impact.

“What prompted me to start the social media was maybe I can do this on a larger scale,” he said. “It's something I would just do anyways, so I might as well at least try. I show my working out, show what I'm doing, but that's not particularly my main focus. I'll show my workouts quick or I'll talk about my running, whatever I'm running that day.”

Liam adds a personal touch to the proceedings.

“I try to make them, one, fun through showing my personality,” he said. “And then, two, thought-provoking because I want people to think. It's so often to where you can just fall into things and not even think about it. You're like, this person next to me is doing it. I'll just do that, too.”

Liam poses questions to spur contemplation.

“I like asking questions because they don't get the answer that I give,” he said. “They'll have to answer that question for themselves. That's really cool because they have to literally think for themselves and figure out this is what I do or don't like, this is what this is or this is what that's not. That's the main angle that I want to take with the social media.”

Liam mixes verbal and written messages.

“I was initially doing talking videos and now the more thought-provoking ones are handwritten notes with a little doodle that I write next to it,” he said. “I think that somehow will correlate just because that suits my creative side. They might fall back into talking videos because a lot of people probably don’t want to read them all the time because sometimes they're a little bit longer.”

Liam stimulated discussion with others heading group sessions.

“We would start off with some sort of prompt whether it be I wrote it or I found it somewhere and I thought it was interesting,” he said. “And then everyone can give their perspective on the idea and go back and forth and say why they might agree, why they might disagree, where they're coming from. By the end of the meeting, you could have potentially four or five other perspectives on the same topic.”

Liam hopes the sessions lead to personal growth for those who participated.

“You're also growing in a sense of interpersonal skills, learning how to talk to people that you literally don't even know,” he said. “For me, when I write something oftentimes, they'll just come to me in a moment and I'll write it down and I will think of how that correlates in my life. But I can read that same quote the next day and think of it in a completely different aspect or different realm, which I think is really cool. Having different people have their perspectives is super interesting because it can go a million different ways.”

Liam posts such notes to provide food for thought.

Liam knows people appreciate others listening to what they have to say.

“Another aspect of it is feeling heard,” he said. “For me, I'll post these videos. No one's asking me to post these, but I could post a video, get zero likes, but I feel like someone's listening. And that for me feels really good because all my life I've just held these things in. So that's another aspect of those meetings I think would be super useful for people. In a way, it could almost be like therapy. I'm not a therapist, but just having people listen to what you're saying is super nice, super helpful.”

Liam didn’t set out to promote self-improvement, but he’s glad that’s where he landed.

“I didn't even really step out on a journey to intentionally get into self-improvement,” he said. “I can look back on my life and see how the breadcrumbs leading me here, but it wasn't an intention, which is super interesting. I just fell into this stuff, which I think is beautiful in its own little respect. I just hope that I can maybe be something, be that for anybody, for one person.”

“I want the videos to be true to me showing my personality but mixing in those thought-provoking things.”

Liam started running as a youth.

Liam is inspired by others’ achievements.

“I see a lot of the kids I'll look at, they're my age,” he said. “I'm inspired by a kid my age but usually I feel they have to be so much older or they're younger, which I think is cool, too. A lot of kids just getting after it — and I love to see it — using their bodies and using their gifts. It doesn't even have to be working out. Someone could be great at math and be the next Einstein.”

Liam’s content is thought-provoking without being too dry.

“That's one of my angles,” he said. “While giving those thought-provoking things or even deep, hard-hitting things, I'm not a super serious person. I want the videos to be true to me showing my personality but mixing in those thought-provoking things. So making it fun or at least to what I think is fun or at the bare bones is true to me and hopefully people will pay attention to that and then grow from that, from the words I say or just seeing the actions I do.”

“There wasn't a specific moment that prompted me to work out. It was just moments in my life before where I was like, you need to start.”

Liam continued to run as he aged.

Liam encourages others to be open about what they desire.

“Part of the reason I feel so passionate about wanting to push that on other people is because I naturally am a shy person and an introvert,” he said. “I was not good at speaking for myself. I would think my thoughts, but I would never really act on them. I would just go with what other people are doing even if I knew it was wrong.”

Liam wants others to be true to themselves.

“You're scared to be yourself,” he said. “Eventually, you grow up or just become more aware. You realize what you're doing. I'm lucky enough to feel like I'd learned that at a pretty young age.”

Liam focused on fitness after finishing his freshman year of high school.

“My dad was very active,” he said. “He's a very fit guy, and he was muscular. I always remember I was like, I want to be muscular. I don't want to be small. I was very skinny. I had run cross-country, so it was naturally I'm skinny. I just hated being skinny. I was like, I want to be a strong guy. I was also very insecure about it, so that was another thing that prompted me.”

Although Liam wasn’t consistent with his workouts in the beginning, that changed.

“It was just before I got my license when I started going consistently, because then I could go to the gym whenever I wanted,” he said. “Since then, I have never stopped. And then I added in different forms of cardio. Right now, it's running. There wasn't a specific moment that prompted me to work out. It was just moments in my life before where I was like, you need to start. If you're gonna complain about it, you need to do something about it.”

Liam recalled the irony of people’s initial reactions to his new focus on fitness.

“When I first started, a lot of people would think that I was lying that I was working out,” he said. “If you're working out for a month from nothing, you're not gonna gain 50 pounds of muscle. For the first year or so, a lot of people wouldn't believe me. I didn't even care. I was like, I know what I'm doing, so whatever. And now, it's everyone that knows me, knows me for working out, which I think is funny.”

Liam credits hitting the gym for teaching an important attribute.

“Another thing that working out really builds is patience,” he said. “You can't build big muscles overnight.”

Liam discovered running doesn’t detract muscle growth.

“One of the reasons it took me so long to get back into running is because I thought if I started running, I would lose all my muscle,” he said. “I also didn't think my legs would be able to handle it, so I slowly would just get into it. When I first started to get back into it, I'd run a mile or two a handful of times a week. And I was like, well, I guess I'm not losing all my muscle right away.”

Liam found he could do both.

“I was scared in my head because I had that PTSD of I'm going to get super skinny again, so that was always what scared me or steered me away from it,” he said. “As I started to slowly pick back up running, I realized I'm still moving the same weights in the gym and I'm running more. It's fine. I just made sure I eat a lot.”

Liam maintains the proper diet to retain his muscle.

“Probably over training nerves and maybe lack of sleep, but my appetite's been shot,” he said. “I'm still eating what I would always eat, but I'm just not hungry. If I didn't have the discipline to eat what I know I need to eat, I definitely would lose a lot of weight. I haven't really struggled with losing a lot of muscle with running two marathons and weeks apart, which surprises me, too.”

Liam does a machine row to work on the back.

Liam graduated from North Carolina State University last spring.

“My degree was in what's called Design Studies,” he said. “But my job is in landscape architecture. It's like land planning, but on a smaller scale, which I think is a cool job, but it's cooler on paper. All I do is I sit at a desk all day, which is nice on days where it's like Saturday, Sunday, I run 20 miles and then Monday, I get to go sit at my desk. I can't complain. It's not all bad, but in general, not what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

Liam lives in Tampa, but was spared the worst of the hurricane damage this year.

“The first one, I stayed here,” he said. “We just worked from home, but I stayed here and it was fine. And then the second one, I did evacuate, but that was because everyone I worked with was leaving and I was like, I guess I should leave, too. But as far as damage goes, everything was fine. So I'm very fortunate for that.”

Liam appreciates having enhanced strength from working out in daily life.

“I work on my car a lot,” he said. “You deal with rust. There's a lot of bolts that are very, very tight, or you just have to lift heavy things or be in an awkward situation. Many times I'm like, if I didn't work out, I wouldn't be able to get this bolt off. I worked at a solar panel company, and we would install solar panels on the roof. We had to carry up each solar panel one by one. And all the dudes I worked with, they could barely do it, or they'd get winded after one or two. I was like, I could do this all day. I was just like, this is cool, that what I do for fun has some actual utility in life.”

Liam also races.

“A big hobby of mine is cars and karting,” he said. “I've posted very briefly me working on my car but never a main focus for my social media pursuit. I race in karting leagues here in Florida to scratch the competitive racing itch outside of marathons. Eventually, I would like to become more competitive within a true karting series going wheel-to-wheel in my own kart.” 

“I know what I have to do and I'm going to do it. I don't even think twice about it. If my schedule says you're running eight miles, I'm running eight miles.”

Liam knows improving his fitness now can only help him as he ages.

“It's definitely in my mind,” he said. “A lot of the kids my age and a lot of my friends that I know, they still drink. I don't drink anymore. That's by choice. I don't think it provides me any value. They drink all the time and they eat crappy foods, which is perfectly fine if that's what you want to do. It's just not for me. When I eat those foods or I do drink and I stay out late, I don't feel good. That's another thing where with working out, you become so aware or just in touch with your body.”

Liam is conscious about what he consumes and doing the extras related to fitness.

“I realized as I started working out that the food you eat is important,” he said. “I've gotten more serious about that. And then stretching. No matter what you do, everybody should stretch. If I didn't stretch, I would not be running. I can guarantee that. That provides an immense value for literally everybody.”

Liam started with motivation to develop self-control.

“I don't think anyone's motivated all the time,” he said. “That's where discipline comes into play. The first marathon, I was so excited for it because I had no idea what to really expect. I didn't know if I was going to do terrible. I didn't know if I was going to do good. So that whole time, every run, even the ones that suck, I was very excited and I was like, just do it. You got to do it.”

Liam’s excitement diminished, but not his drive.

“Going into this second marathon, that fire of this is a new thing isn't really there,” he said. “I'm still doing all the workouts. I'm not skipping anything, but I don't have that drive like I did. In these moments, I'm just doing it. I know what I have to do and I'm going to do it. I don't even think twice about it. If my schedule says you're running eight miles, I'm running eight miles. I don't give myself an option.”

Liam applies that to being a content creator as well.

“For posting on social media, I think even if no one's relying on me, in my head, people are relying on me,” he said. “I'm gonna let these people down. It’s having discipline and sticking to your word. You're gonna talk all this talk, but you can't walk the walk. What kind of example is that? One of the biggest pet peeves of mine is being a hypocrite. I really despise that.”

Liam encouraged those wanting to start working out or running to take action.

“Get started,” he said. “And don't start too fast.”

Liam cited the example of training too hard in running at first.

“I wanted to run, run, run,” he said. “I ended up getting injured. I got a stress fracture on my left shin because I couldn't relax. I kept trying to run and then I felt the pain and it hurt. I was like, I'll run through it, I'll be fine. And then one time I was out running and I felt a snap or this pinch. It really hurt. So for six months, I stopped running.”

Liam also learned to not rush lifting weights.

“When I first started lifting weights, I went to the gym every other day because my body wasn't able to recover fast enough for me to go every day,” he said. “Going Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday was more than enough. When you're a newbie in the gym in terms of lifting, you don't have to do too much to get a good result. Since your body's not used to a stimulus like that, anything is gonna activate growth.”

Liam explained the most beneficial part of fitness is its impact on a person’s overall life.

“I can think of growing moments that taught me things in terms of how to move forward better with working out,” he said. “And then those things transition into your actual life, which I think that's the most important thing about working out is it's transition into your actual life. It doesn't really matter how much you can squat in the gym and bench press. It's more the mentality you build that's so important.”

Liam’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liamcrowley_/