Hello and welcome to Merritt Method LLC. My name is Christian Merritt, and I am the founder of this company. Merritt Method is a performance training company aimed at improving the athletic ability of its clients so that they can perform on the field and in life at the highest level possible. To fully understand what Merritt Method embodies, I think it is important to understand my past and what led to me starting this company.
I am a California native who fell in love with game of hockey at a young age. I am the first and only person in my family to have played the sport. I spent a lot of my childhood traveling to practices and games and searching for new ways to become a better athlete. One area that I spent a lot of time trying to get better, was in the gym. I was fortunate enough to have a father who had a background in kinesiology, so he is the one who introduced me weightlifting.
Looking back this was a big part in my development into the coach that I am today. He started me on a very basic exercise program and instilled the importance of being really good at fundamental movements. He would encourage me to write down all of my workouts and log my weights and reps. Doing this, coupled with explaining to me what each exercise was designed to help me with, showed me the importance of exercise prescription to achieve a desired result.
Fast forward a few years and I moved out of my parents’ house at the age of seventeen to pursue my dream of eventually playing college hockey. In order to have the best shot at playing in college I played four years of Junior Hockey learning how to play against guys that were older and bigger than I was. While this was a big change in my young life, one thing that never changed was my dedication to the weight room. I saw my work in the gym as a big factor to my success on the ice. I started writing my own programs and having my father check them to make sure I wasn’t going to injure myself. It allowed me to learn what works and what doesn’t. It was about this time in my life that I knew I wanted to get into strength and conditioning after college and eventually open up my own facility.
I was recruited by the University of New England (UNE) to play hockey at the NCAA Division III level in Biddeford, Maine. At school I got to live out my dream of playing college hockey, as well as get a bachelor’s degree in Applied Exercise Science. I graduated in 2017 and started working for a local gym, where I was able to start formulating my methods of training on someone other than myself. My first taste of working with athletes was in Exeter, NH where I was able to work for the hospital in their sports performance department. This was eye opening to me in many ways. I learned a lot from coworkers, and it showed me that athletes and general populations actually have very similar training requirements. From there I went back to my Alma Mater to be the Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for UNE. Working with college athletes was a unique experience because the athletes came from lots of different backgrounds and were all great athletes in their own right before coming to school. The challenge was how to help them get a little bit more out of their bodies to improve athletic performance.
Even though I have not been out of school for a long period of time, I feel like I have seen a lot of different things between these three facilities. I have taken experiences from each facility to form my current outlooks on training both athletes and general populations. One of my goals in life is to help people be able to handle any situation that life throws at them, whether it be coming back from injury, improving their athletic ability, or just being able to keep up with their kids and grandkids. Those are all great goals to have and I truly believe can be achieved with dedicated strategic training. The path for one person might be different than another, even though their goals are the same. That is where I find understanding the science and being able to use that knowledge to achieve a desired outcome is so fascinating.
In addition to my bachelor’s in science degree I am a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). This certification is what has allowed me to work with a wide range of clients and athletes. Since finishing my degree and hockey career I have found a love for the game of golf, which led me to getting certified through the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) in order to specifically work with golfers in the weight room. While I truly enjoy working with people that are at different stages of life and ability levels, I specialize in hockey players and golfers. If you are looking to achieve your fitness goals, whatever they may be, please don’t hesitate to reach out so that we can figure out a plan together that gets you on a path for success.
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