Alex Viox

Alex Viox has checked into Prototype 634 times. That's across 46 different months, going back to November 2022, and 184 of those check-ins came in the last year alone — about three and a half times a week, every week, for a guy who travels for work.

Here's the thing about that number: it has almost nothing to do with why he walked in.

Alex grew up in the Midwest and has been in New England for twenty years now. He's married with two boys, 14 and 12, and he coaches several of their sports teams — "for now," he says, "until they get sick of my dad jokes." Sports have been the through-line his whole life: soccer, baseball, track. After that came four years in the U.S. Army, doing a lot of training and never deploying to a combat zone, where he found the same two things every team had given him.

"The camaraderie and physical fitness elements of the military were natural extensions of the sports teams I was on," he says.

Then came triathlon — half a dozen Olympic-distance races after he got out. Alex loves cardio and he's good at it. Running has been part of him since high school track. What he couldn't crack was the strength work he knew was supposed to go underneath all of it.

That high mattered to him for reasons that went past the physical. A good push left him feeling great in his body and, as he puts it, just as importantly, in his head. Lifting alone in a corner didn't do that.

So when he finally came to Prototype, the goal was simple and specific: get stronger. Two members — Dan McCarthy and Mark Higgins — had been encouraging him to join for some time before he did. His family had recently moved to the area from Natick. And he was starting to work from home full time whenever he wasn't traveling.

What He Was Actually Looking For

Alex will tell you he came for the strength. But read what he wrote and there's a second thing sitting right underneath it, and he knew it was there even then.

"We had recently moved to the area from Natick and I was also seeking a solid community," he says. "Beyond the improvement in strength, and just if not more importantly, I found an awesome group of people — made even more important as I started working from home full time when I wasn't traveling."

Ask him what surprised him most about this place and the answer is one sentence long.

One of those folks in particular. Ask Alex who's meant something to him here and he doesn't hesitate — it's Coach Brian Zancewicz.

"Brian Z. has been a huge inspiration," Alex says. "His laid back, humorous and incredibly knowledgeable approach never ceases to amaze me. He's taught me a ton about how to move better — and I love the Longevity workouts and the group of people in those classes."

What It's All For

To understand why Alex trains the way he does, you have to know what he does with it. Outside of family, church and the gym, his list is long: downhill skiing and snowboarding, cross-country skiing, ski touring, trail running, hiking, backpacking, road biking, a bit of mountain biking, canoeing, fishing.

"There are few outdoor sports I don't truly love, especially mountain based activities," he says. "And what we do at the gym translates to what my family and I love to do in the mountains."

That translation shows up closer to home too. The Boston HYROX in the fall of 2025 was, in his words, a huge highlight of the past few years. "It was a ton of fun — thankfully Mark Hardin dragged me through the events and I lived to tell about it!" This past spring, he and Chris Macomber ran the 7 Sisters Trail Race out in Western Mass and had an awesome time.

None of that was on the list when he signed up. He wanted to squat and deadlift so his running wouldn't fall apart. What he got instead was a group of people who drag him into things.

And when you ask him the hardest question — what would be different if he'd never walked in — the answer isn't about a race or a lift at all.

"I wouldn't be able to keep up with my boys the way I can now," he says, "and I wouldn't have such a great community of folks to hang with on a daily basis."

Two boys, 14 and 12. A dad who coaches their teams. Four years from now the older one leaves for whatever's next, and Alex will have spent that whole stretch able to go step for step with him up a mountain. That's what 634 check-ins actually bought.

He came in for strength. He's still getting it. But that was never the part worth writing down.

"The workouts and the awesome people at PTS have not only led to an improvement in my physical health, but more importantly have significantly improved my mental health."

Dan and Mark worked on Alex for a while before he finally walked through the door. Six hundred and thirty-four check-ins later, he's glad they didn't let it go. Start the same way he did — with a No Sweat Intro. It's a conversation, not a workout.

I've had the pleasure of coaching Alex at 5am... I actually remember him joining and starting right in that class.

Early on he had some back pain challenges and we had to make some adjustments, nothing dramatic, just figuring out what worked for him. And since then I've watched him do some incredible things.

He's a great athlete. Humble about it, too, which I love... works really hard and never makes a thing out of it. And he has this way of making the people around him feel comfortable, which honestly is not something you can teach.

He's a great guy and an awesome part of the Prototype community.

— Mike

This story was developed from written responses submitted by the member and shaped with the help of AI writing tools. The facts, quotes, and experiences are Alex's own — AI helped organize and present them in a format worthy of the story he's lived.