Think you’ve got to be on some inside track to become a celebrity trainer? Not really. Jay Cardiello, creator of the J-Core program, did so by accident. Literally. A martial artist for most of his youth, Jay left his New Jersey home after high school to attend the University of Arkansas where he was part of the 1996 national championship track & field team. He was there to become a lawyer, but an accident on the track would not only send the disks in his vertebrae “flying every which way,” but also his career plans. He landed wrong during a jump and the damage to his spine would require 13 major surgeries over the next few years. 
“I knew my career as an athlete was over,” he told us in a recent interview. His life was far from over, and arguably, just getting started. He had some down time for a couple of years as his body repaired from the damage. Back on his feet, he went returned to college at William & Mary where he worked as a volunteer assistant for the men’s and women’s track teams and “got to fall in love with coaching people.” If Jay Cardiello had a calling, this was it.
What happened from there played out like a case study for being in the right place at the right time. Jay could be called a poster child for having your whole life planned, and one small accident can change the entire course of your life for the better. After William & Mary Jay moved back to New Jersey to work as the head strength and conditioning coach for the Red Dogs for two seasons. After that, he was an unpaid coach’s assistant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. At only 26 years old, he was compared to the best of the best and it was evident he knew what he was doing by now.
After some time in Tampa he was ready to put that expertise to a different kind of test and decided to work one-on-one with clients. He moved to New York City to be a trainer at Clay, an elite gym. It was there that Jay’s career took another hard right. During his third session working with a client named Curtis James Jackson III, better known as 50 Cent, and having just signed on a NYC apartment, Jay was asked to be the rapper’s dedicated trainer. “You’re coming with us,” Jay says 50 Cent told him. It was supposed to be a three-month gig, traveling as part of the entourage and keeping 50 Cent in shape. It turned in to four years. “I lived with him as a trainer and nutritionist,” Jay told us. “I was glued to his hip.” (more…)
