Zac and Lynndsey Eldridge are the owners of Big Moutain Barbell. They met in college in 2009. Zac was a collegiate football player, and Lynndsey was finishing her degree and managing a coffee shop. In those early days, Zac took Lynndsey, an avid distance runner, to the college gym for a workout and showed her how to lift weights for the first time. Almost instantly, she was hooked and fell in love with perfecting her form and getting stronger.

After they graduated college in 2011, Zac used his Human Performance Management degree and athletic experience to help a local man open a CrossFit gym at Weber State University in Ogden. He helped with the gym layout, choosing equipment, writing the programming, and managing the facility’s day-to-day.

During this period, Lynndsey saw considerable changes in her health, body, and mindset from ditching the cardio and embracing strength training. Her friends and co-workers were seeing changes in her as well and started asking her to help them reach their goals. After doing so casually for a bit, in 2012, she made it official and became a Certified Personal Trainer.

Lynndsey worked as a trainer and continued her efforts to grow her knowledge base around exercise science, nutrition, and diet psychology. She took college courses, obtained multiple certifications, and attended various seminars from experts in the field.

Meanwhile, Zac transitioned into Wildland Firefighting, where he worked on an Engine Crew in Jacksonhole, WY, and he even provided fitness readiness training for his crew. In his second year, he transitioned to a Hot Shot crew in San Bernadino, CA.

Coming from a college football background, a Fullback no less, Zac’s stature differed from his comrades. He was tall, broad, and muscular – an ox– compared to the others, who were built more like mountain goats. Due to his physical advantage, he started carrying the crew’s extra supplies like water and equipment and earned the nickname “Big Mountain.”

Knowing that they eventually wanted to get married and start a family, the plan was never for Zac to be a firefighter forever. So, the couple was saving as much money as they could. Lynndsey even had a second job waiting tables to add more to their savings.

By the summer of 2014, they started looking for somewhere to rent to open their very own gym.

And that is where Big Mountain Barbell was born. Their first version, now affectionately called BMB 1.0, was a small warehouse gym in Sandy, UT. They had a couple of squat racks, some used barbells, an old treadmill, and a vision to create a positive, productive training environment for humans from all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. While the first version was modest, it got the job done.

By 2017, growth had surpassed their initial expectations, and Zac and Lynndsey knew it was time to grow. In June 2017, they moved into the Big Mountain Barbell 2.0 facility in Midvale, which boasted 11,000 square feet of gym space. Initially, the space felt a little barren as they didn’t have enough equipment to fill it, but each year, they have filled the gym little by little to make it what you see today.

Over the years, Big Mountain Barbell has attracted many top-level athletes and some of the top coaches in the industry, but the Eldridges take pride that newbies can feel comfortable in the gym, too.

Nowadays, Zac and Lynndsey are parents to their daughter Lucy, born in 2019, and Lynndsey spends the bulk of her time running a national online coaching business, Fitbliss Fitness. However, you can still find Zac in the gym regularly managing day-to-day chores, fixing equipment, and addressing the inevitable unexpected.

Although the gym has come a long way, you will observe that the couple is committed to bi-annual facility and equipment upgrades to improve the gym space for the BMB community.