Apoorv Thakur “AT”

If you have seen a military movie where a room full of screens tracks aircraft in real time, AT builds the real-world version of that. He is a Senior Director of Product with the United States Air Force, where he has helped build mission-planning products and platforms that the U.S. military uses every day.

He is a goal guy by nature. Curious, driven, adventurous, mildly competitive, and, in his words, a little more Stoic these days. He trained for and finished a marathon. He decided he wanted into the 1,000-pound club and spent a year and a half chasing it until he got there. Outside of work, his life runs on family, tinkering with machines, soccer, hiking, fishing, boating, and cooking — especially baking, followed by attempting to burn off all those calories.

But like a lot of people carrying a full plate, some of those health and fitness goals slid to the back seat.

The Day After He Got Home

AT was not new to this. He had done CrossFit for years — CrossFit Framingham, then CrossFit TILT, a short stint at CrossFit Synergistics, then Lifetime in Framingham when COVID hit. Four gyms. He knew exactly what a class looked like, what a whiteboard looked like, what he was signing up for.

Where it started: AT at CrossFit Framingham, the first of four gyms before he found Prototype.

His family moved to Westborough in October of 2024. At the end of that month he left for Germany for two months, and while he was over there he started training again and realized he needed to keep it going when he got home. He did not ease into it. He walked into Prototype the day after he landed, found Steve, and asked one question: “What do I need to do to sign up?”

What he was actually after, in his own words, was to keep moving and burn enough calories to keep cooking, baking, and eating. More seriously, he wanted to get his health numbers back into a normal range. He had let some of them drift long enough that his doctor recommended he go see a cardiologist. That was the wake-up call.

More than anything, he wanted something he could stick with. Not a short burst of motivation. Lasting habits — the kind he could model and pass on to his family. What he says now is that he is not sure he understood how much more he was going to get beyond the physical results.

The Part He Didn’t Expect

Every gym he had trained at had the same thing in common: a strong pack mentality. And AT, who describes himself as an introverted extrovert, had always been the guy who showed up, did the workout, and went home.

What surprised him at Prototype was how fast that stopped being true. How quickly he felt welcomed. How naturally people warmed up to him. And, more than anything, how closely the coaches listened — and how much they remembered.

He mentioned to Jon and Brian, once, that he had dealt with back pain after deadlifting. Since then, they have consistently watched his setup and corrected his technique. Not once. Every time. That coaching is why he can now add weight and lift without the same pain, and why he trusts the bar in a way he did not before.

It also changed how he trains. He is learning to listen to his body and scale when scaling is the right call, without feeling like he has to prove something just to belong to the pack. Jon and Brian helped him understand that scaling a workout is not embarrassing — it is training intelligently.

The moment that stands out to him is a deadlift PR he was not sure he had. Gillian kept telling him he could do it. Jon came over, stood beside him, and fixed his setup. He says that without the two of them, he probably would not have even attempted the lift — he would have just assumed deadlifting was not one of his strengths and moved on.

The log tells the rest of it. His first deadlift on the board here was 285 pounds. His heaviest is 377 — and not for a single, for a set of three. He has hit five separate deadlift PRs since. This is the lift that used to leave his back hurting.

There have been a lot of smaller ones too. Finishing something he once would have called impossible. Choosing the heavier weight. Realizing a workout that used to scare him does not anymore. He also credits Tim, whose perfectly timed and completely unfiltered humor apparently does a lot of load-bearing work around here. And honestly, he says, several people have made a difference without ever knowing it — a word of encouragement, a fist bump, someone telling him to leave a few plates for the rest of them.

Consistency Over Perfection

Physically, the change AT leads with is that he has had to size up in pants — not because his waist is bigger, but because his thighs are. Jokes aside: he can do five kipping pull-ups without torching his shoulders. He can run, do wall balls, and get through box jumps in the same workout without constantly wondering what he has gotten himself into. His VO₂ max is climbing.

But the biggest changes he names are mental. He is more willing to be uncomfortable. He recovers from setbacks faster. He has more evidence that he can do hard things. He has more energy, sleeps better, handles stress differently, and has the stamina for his kids’ many activities. About 80% of the time, he makes the healthier choice — and he is deliberate about that number not being 100.

Here is what that has actually looked like. Since December 23, 2024, AT has signed in to 299 classes. That is nineteen months at an average of 3.6 sessions a week, without a stretch off. He has logged 66 personal records in that window — 14 of them on the bench press alone, which went from 165 pounds to 205. Back squat, 245 to 305. Front squat, 225 to 285. And of the 168 conditioning workouts on his board, 121 were done as prescribed.

He is not chasing perfection. He set a nightly reminder on his phone that says “Consistency over Perfection,” and that is the whole strategy. His family gets to watch him make a commitment to his health and follow through on it — which, he hopes, shows them that taking care of yourself is not something you only do when life is convenient.

Still Busy. Still Imperfect.

Life has not gotten simpler. He still has demanding days, still misses workouts, still has moments where the easier choice is right there. The difference is that he no longer reads those moments as failure. He knows how to come back.

Asked how his life would be different if he had never walked through the door, he does not hedge much: he thinks he would still be stuck in the same cycle — struggling with consistency, putting his health aside, underestimating himself. He would not have the same strength, the same confidence, the same relationships, or the same belief in what he is capable of.

Next goal: the Presidential Traverse in New Hampshire, in one go. Because of course there is a next goal.

Hans Solo, closing out a hike the only correct way.

Training for the Presidential Traverse, one summit at a time.

He walked in wanting his numbers back in range. What he found was a room full of people who noticed whether he was in it. That turned out to be the part that made the numbers possible.

“Training is now part of who I am. I treat it as a need rather than a want. It is something I protect time for and one of the main ways I manage stress. Prototype has become more than somewhere I exercise. It is an anchor in my day — a place where I feel good walking in and great walking out.”

Maybe you have trained before — maybe at three or four different places — and it never quite stuck. Maybe you got a number back from your doctor that you cannot un-see. Maybe you are the person who shows up, does the work, and leaves without saying much, and you have quietly assumed that is just how gyms go.

AT’s advice: you don’t have to be fit before you walk through the door, and you don’t need to have everything figured out. You just have to be willing to start, be open to listening, and be honest with your coaches about what you struggle with. Progress doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s adding weight to the bar. Sometimes it’s showing up on a bad day, asking for help, scaling when that’s the smart call, or coming back after life interrupted the routine. All of it counts.

One conversation. No workout, no pressure, no commitment. Just tell us what you’re dealing with and what you want, and we’ll tell you honestly whether we can help.

I’m fortunate to do most of my training at the 12pm classes, which means I get to train alongside AT quite a bit. More recently he’s been bringing Hans Solo in to do some runs with him.

Talking with AT during warm-ups, or mid-workout, or after class, I’ve noticed he’s got a lot to share. I’m fascinated by what he does for work — it might be the coolest job of anyone in the building. On top of that, we’ve gone back and forth about AI and how we’re both using it. He’s one of the first people I’ve talked to who’s using these tools for his own health, which I think is awesome.

Beyond the work and the AI rabbit holes, AT is just a cool guy. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I heard he was a former high-level or professional soccer player? He may have left that out intentionally. I don’t know.

Overall, AT’s been a great fit here at Prototype, and I’m glad he walked through the doors and put his trust in us. A fun fact to close on: the first CrossFit gym he ever went to, CrossFit Framingham, was opened by two of our former members. It’s cool to see how things come full circle — and now AT is here training with us.

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