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September 29, 2025 13 mins

From a trailer loaded with workout equipment to a thriving fitness community, Honor Bound Fit has transformed the Fredericksburg fitness landscape with purpose and passion. Founded by former Marines Keith Linde and Rich, this isn't just a place to build muscle—it's where veterans reconnect with purpose, where strength training meets character development, and where faith boldly intertwines with fitness.

What makes Honor Bound Fit unique? While many gyms trap members in the "human hamster wheel" of endless cardio and calorie counting, Keith focuses on building muscle for longevity. "We wanted to slow it down and focus on building actual muscle that will give you longevity so when you're 80, you can roll in the grass with your kids," he explains. This approach particularly resonates with their primary demographic—women over 40 who discover the transformative benefits of proper strength training in a supportive environment.

The gym's core values extend beyond physical fitness. "The obstacle is the way. Growth is found in suffering," reads one principle prominently displayed on their wall. This philosophy permeates everything they do, from challenging workouts to monthly "rucking" events that culminate in their signature "Guidon 22"—a grueling 22-mile ruck with 22-pound packs that raises funds for veteran support organizations. The event powerfully addresses the sobering statistic of 22 veterans lost to suicide daily while creating meaningful community connections.

Don't let the dumbbells, kettlebells, and bumper plates intimidate you. Honor Bound Fit welcomes everyone from complete beginners to experienced athletes. Their approach emphasizes consistency over intensity, recognizing that small, sustainable changes yield the greatest long-term results. As Keith puts it, "Don't be intimidated. If you're not used to a gym, you don't know what to do, we will work with you." Ready to join a fitness community that builds both strength and purpose? Visit honorboundfit.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram to learn more about this veteran-owned gym that's changing lives one rep at a time.

Keith Linde

Honor Bound Fit

honorboundfit.com

Keith@HonorBoundFIT.com

+1 540-737-8337

45 Centreport Parkway, Fredericksburg, VA, United States, Virginia

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
, the place where localbusinesses and neighbors come
together.
Here's your host, Dori Stewart.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG
Neighbors Podcast, where weshare the stories of our
favorite local brands.
I'm excited to introduce you tomy guest.
Today.
We have Keith Linde joining uswith Honor Bound Fit.
Keith, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm excited to get to know you and to get to know
your business.
So let's start there.
Share with us a little bitabout Honor Bound Fit.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
So Honor Bound Fit is a group training facility.
We're located off of CenterportParkway in Fredericksburg.
We host group classes and haveopen gym and really try to focus
on building strength andfitness overall to improve our
members lives not just in thegym but also outside of the gym.
We do a lot of characterdiscipline tie-ins where we talk

(01:02):
about consistency andmotivation talking about but
also outside of the gym we do alot of character discipline
tie-ins where we talk aboutconsistency and motivation,
talking about things aboutliving of high moral virtues
that could be being a betterspouse or parent, being a more
spiritual person.
We're very bold in our faithand we don't shy away from it.
Along with that, the physicalbenefit you get from working out
in a communal setting withfriends that can motivate you

(01:24):
and support you, along withgetting outside of the gym and
doing good for your community,is really what we stand for
amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
So tell me a little bit about the journey.
Uh, how did the business cometo be?
What is your background?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
uh, so me and myself and the other owner, rich we're
friends at quantico when we wereMarines back in the early teens
and got out and been lifelongfriends ever since Since then.
This last year Rich brought up,asked if I was ever going to
pursue my dream of launching agym and you know, I said no, no,
now is not the time.

(02:00):
And a few weeks later I gotback to him and said yeah, let's
, let's do it.
And we hosted our first workoutin 2024 on Memorial Day at
Black Rifle Coffee.
They quickly became goodfriends of ours and we hosted
many workouts in their parkinglot.
We hosted workouts at BrooksPark, 511, tactical Downtown and
Cornerstone Church.
That was last year.
All of our gear was on atrailer.
We'd pull up and host free asin a parking lot, just trying to

(02:24):
spread health and fitness andget a community going to do good
things.
From there we got into ourplace in Centerport in September
and have been running classesever since and just growing and
doing good things.
Part of our mission was reallyto connect, really try to target
veterans and try to connectthem with the community and

(02:44):
connect them with their purpose.
Again, we talk often about whenyou get out of the military.
You lose that tribe that youhad, that you were around all
the time, and you kind of loseyour sense of purpose.
You don't really know how tofit into the rest of society
sometimes, or you don't know howto find a group or to find
something to do when you get out.
We want to provide a place forpeople, for veterans especially,

(03:05):
to show up and belong tosomething and also help find
their purpose and get them backon the right path if they had
fallen on hard times.
That also extended to firstresponders, emt, fire, police
because they are such a vitalrole of this community as well.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I love that.
I love that.
It's so nice to see that you'recreating a space for veterans,
and so you've been now in yourphysical location for a year.
Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
We hosted a big Memorial Day party.
You know, one year strong.
There's some stats, somethinglike 90% of gyms don't make it
through the first year.
So we made it a year, we gotthere and now we're just going
to continue to grow and spreadgood word through Fredericksburg
.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's amazing.
That's a big milestone.
So tell me this your gymfocuses on strength training,
but you mentioned some otherthings too character things like
that.
So talk to me about I imagineit's not just physical, it's
mental too.
So dive a little bit deeperinto the benefits of your gym

(04:19):
compared to maybe others.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, aside from the health benefits that strength
training brings to someoneincreased bone mass, increased
muscle density you have a bufferagainst illness If you really
focus on building muscle and fora long time, especially women
have been targeted on thePilates class and the
lightweight and like the HIITand all the cardio, and all

(04:42):
you're doing is living thishuman hamster wheel of in cap.
You know, calories in, caloriesout, burning, burning, burning.
We wanted to slow it down andfocus on let's build some actual
muscle that will give you thelongevity so when you're 80 you
can roll in the grass with yourkids.
Um, now the the character aspectof it.
You know we have our corevalues printed on our wall, we
wear them on our hearts and webelieve that if you want to have

(05:05):
live in an intentional life, ifyou want to live a moral life,
you have to think about it, youhave to have conversations, you
have to discuss and debate kindof some of these principles that
that guide us, some of ourcharacter developments.
One of our core values is theobstacle is the way growth is
found in suffering, and what itreally means is that that thing
you don't want to do, that thingthat you're really afraid of
doing, be it homework, be it,you know, cleaning out the

(05:31):
garage or showing up to aworkout.
That thing you shouldn't, thatyou don't want to do, is
probably the thing you should bepursuing to yield the best gain
and growth for yourself and foryour family.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
I love that and I understand that strong muscles
equals life longevity, and sohow do you balance pushing
people and challenging peoplewith you know potential injuries

(05:59):
or things like that?
Talk to me a little bit aboutthat.

Speaker 3 (06:03):
Right, talk to me a little bit about that, right?
The funny thing is, majority ofmy clientele is actually women
over the age of 40, which isgreat because they're finding a
place where they can lift.
But with age, you know, comes alittle bit of injury risk and
it's more about showing upconsistently than having super
intense workouts.
Now you want to push theintensity and you want to pursue

(06:24):
hard things, but the consistenteffort over days and weeks and
months, that's where yourbiggest results are going to
come from.
So small changes of showing upto the gym, cleaning up your
diet a little bit and getting alittle more sleep, drinking a
little bit more water, thosesmall things will build a huge
changes.
So if you're sore and you'retired, yeah, come in, maybe do
one set of the program workout,or come in and just have a

(06:45):
mobility day, or you just don'tgo to full intensity, manage
that fatigue over the weeks andmonths as you make gains across
the board.
Um, so, really big on the injuryprevention and a lot of it is
is the mobility aspect that Itie in.
Um, spend a lot of time workingon shoulder mobility, you know,
internal, external rotation,all these things that if you're

(07:06):
not a gym goer it may not makesense to you, but getting people
to focus on can you squat tofull depth?
If you can squat to full depthin your forties, hopefully you
can still do that in youreighties.
There's only one way to do thatand that's the mobility, the
strength and just the consistenteffort, cause if you don't use
it, you lose it.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Amazing.
So you've built a lot of trustin what you do with your clients
.
It sounds like you have a lotof expertise in that, so they
feel safe pushing themselvesworking out with you.
That's amazing.
I love that.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
I definitely hope so.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yes, so clearly it took a lot of hard work to get
your business up and running andyou've hit this big milestone,
being in your physical space fora year.
So what advice would you givesomeone who is thinking about
starting their own business andtaking that leap?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Pray, pray and pray and work, work hard, but pray
first.
Like I said, we're very bold inour faith and if you're not a
spiritual person, totallyunderstand.
Find time to connect, to think,to meditate, get off your phone
and start brainstorming ideasand then follow through on the
ideas that seem to be workingbest for you.
So you know the the number ofideas we've had.

(08:25):
Um, one of the things that wealso do at our gym is we do
what's called rucking Um.
Rucking is any you know, urbanbackpacking, basically put on
some, put some weight on yourback and go for timer distance.
We start every year with sixmiles in the spring, um, and
then every month we do a groupruck and we add a few miles onto
it.
This this Saturday, the 20th Idon't know when this exactly

(08:46):
airs we have a 15 mile ruckComing up in October.
We go 18 miles to ourculminating event in December,
which is 22 miles, called Guidon22.
That event is a fundraiser forHeroes Bridge, which is a
veteran support organization inManassas, but that one is 22
pounds over 22 miles, targetinga.
The statistic that was mostknown about 22 veterans a day

(09:11):
remove themselves from ourpopulation.
We wanted a place whereveterans can connect, do
something that they're familiarwith, but it's also great for
anyone of any age to walk fortime or distance with a little
bit of weight on your backbuilds grit, builds
determination.
It's challenging, but you're inthis, this community, together,
and that was just an idea thatwe came up with from our past,

(09:31):
from our experience.
We ran with it and it's beenwildly successful and it's a way
to give back to the communityalong with it.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
I love that.
I love the higher why of thatand the community aspect.
So, all of your members, thatyou all get together and you do
this is something that you alldo together.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
And we'll have between 20 and 30 people on our
rucks.
If you check out our Facebookpage or Instagram, there's
videos of the events and justthat, but it's.
We're all together, we ruck, wehave rest along the way, we
have a safety vehicle that'sthere in case there's any injury
which we haven't had one yet,you know knock on wood, but yeah
.
So we get together and it'sfree for the public.
We post the events on Facebook.

(10:08):
We've had a lot of other peopleshow up and just do the RUC,
even though if they're notmembers of the gym.
But it's just a really goodenvironment and really good
community we belong to.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Very cool.
I love that.
So clearly you're very busy inthe business, so my question is
when you're not working, whatare you doing for fun?

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I spend a lot of time with my fiance.
We've been hitting theme parkslike crazy this year.
We were down in Disney recentlybut it's really that quality
time with the friends.
I'm much more of an introvert,even though I am coaching in
front of people all day.
So when my time's off I like tobe kind of secluded, but most

(10:51):
of my time is caught up here inthe gym.
So when I'm not, I spend timewith with my fiance and my mom
and my friends and just try toyou know, you know ground myself
um church, clearly, with churchgroups, um and Bible studies
and things like that.
So I'm also staying groundedwith God.
Even if I'm busy doing thingsin the gym, I try to set time
apart to really connect and workon that relationship as well.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Nice.
That's so important.
So what is something that youwish the listeners knew about?
Honor Bound Fit.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Don't be intimidated.
It looks very much like aCrossFit style gym.
We have dumbbells, kettlebells,bumper plates and a big rack in
the middle.
But don't be intimidated, comein.
It doesn't matter if you're acomplete newbie or if you're
experienced.
Don't be intimidated or don'tbe arrogant.
You know like be willing.

(11:44):
One of our, one of our corevalues is talking about.
You should be an eternalstudent, willing to learn from
anyone because someone mightknow more than you.
The same thing I learned frommy clients all the time.
I have clients that have beenor are personal trainers, that
work out with me and we go backand forth.
So don't be intimidated.
If you're not used to a gym,you don't know what to do.
We will work with you.
We'll guide you through theworkouts.
You're with people that are,that are pursuing the same goals

(12:05):
as you, and then, if you dohave a lot of experience, come
learn something new.
Maybe it's something I haven'ttried before.
Some of my clients they talkabout how you know.
Yeah, I worked out all the time, but I've never done this kind
of stuff and it's nothing crazy.
It's just a different approachon some of the same principles
that everyone already uses.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I'm really glad you shared that, because I know a
lot of women are veryintimidated when it comes time
to finding a gym, so thank youfor sharing that.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, so if the listeners wantto connect with you, visit you,
learn more from you, where canthey find you?

Speaker 3 (12:41):
We are.
Three main ways arehonorboundfit.
com On there you can sign up tojoin a class or just to get more
information.
We also have our Facebook andInstagram, honorbound Fit.
Those have reels and videos ofpeople working out.
We're doing our own socialmedia and we're not the best at
it, but hey, capcut helps us outa lot, so don't be too harsh on

(13:02):
the quality of the videos, butwe're just trying to spread the
word and that's the best way toget ahold of us.
The website, facebook andInstagram.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Nice, Keith.
Thank you so much for joiningme on the podcast today and
sharing Honor Bound Fit with us.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
It was my honor, thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg
Neighbors Podcast.
To nominate your favorite localbusinesses to be featured on
the show, go tofxbgneighborspodcast.
com.
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