Beyond the Brand: Austin Gere of College Bound Nutrition

By: Cathy Padilla | March 20, 2022 |  Local , Beyond The Brand |  Colts Neck , Fair Haven , Holmdel , Lincroft , Little Silver , Red Bank , Rumson , Sea Bright

After competing at the collegiate level alongside Olympic caliber athletes, Austin Gere has co-founded College Bound Nutrition (CBN) with his brother Alex Gere to offer proper training and nu[1]trition to young athletes at the high school and middle school levels. They call it Human Power Training – not focused on any one particular sport or talent, but instead striving to make the athlete quicker and more powerful.

“In high school and college, I was a captain on the track team. Not because I was that good, but because I was a leader,” shared Austin. “I pushed others to do the warm-ups, drills, go in the weight room – I drove my team to improve and get better. Despite finding success, I struggled like most high school athletes. In your town, you’re a star athlete, but when you step up to the county or state level you may realize how ill prepared you are for that level of competition. How does an average athlete make it to a Division 1 college team, let alone get recruited? I did it, I earned a track & field scholarship, my coaches were the Team USA coaches, I competed against Olympians at top meets. This struggle sparked the idea of wanting to figure out a way to help young athletes not only improve, but thrive.”

Graduating with a BS in finance from Fairleigh Dickinson, Austin began a finance career but realized his passion is the preparation it takes to compete at the next level as an athlete. Believing too much emphasis is placed on ‘playing the sport’ rather than becoming ‘more athletic’ overall, he combined two businesses into one.

The first part is Human Power Training (HPT). CBN moves away from the model of focusing young athletes on the skills needed for a particular sport that pro athletes execute flawlessly. Austin contends that professional level skills on a young body often result in injuries. The CBN goal is for the athlete to become faster, stronger, and more powerful in everything.

“Not only do we chart how much weight you use for certain exercises,” said Austin, “we use sensors down to the millisecond to calculate how fast you move a given weight a given distance – helping to determine your Human Power, or HP. To become more powerful, you need to strengthen your entire biomechanical system – ligaments, tendons, and muscles – across a broad range of motion. Parents spend a lot of money at sport-specific training facilities just like my parents did. You see these mega facilities popping up all over, but what you do not see going up is the number of students from our local schools getting real money for sports scholarships. One of my goals is to change that.”

The second aspect is sport-specific nutrition for younger athletes. A line of what Austin describes as safe, clean nutrition supplements based on the nutritional needs of different types of young athletes.

“In high school, I didn’t eat three quality meals a day with nutritious snacks in between,” said Austin. “I was working harder than I ever had and my body was plateauing. I had to take supplements just to replenish what I was burning and fuel my body to allow for the additional muscle growth. But what supplements did I need to take? Which were safe and offered what my body needed? At CBN we answer those questions.”

Austin believes there’s no “magic pill” to make results happen faster, that greatness comes from hard work, patience, and time. But his focus is putting athletes on a better path, earlier in their sports careers.

“I was a good athlete, but at an earlier age had my parents known what it took for me to be more athletic, I might have been great,” shared Austin. “I started to be the ‘athletic athlete’ that college coaches were looking for very late in my high school career. I did not set records nor win the championship, but I was athletic. Coach[1]es could train me to be better because I had the right foundation – which I am bringing now to the youth of Monmouth County through Human Power Training.”