Athlete Spotlight: Meet Muneeb Ahmed!
Get to know the people who make our Community Strong. This month we’re catching up with Muneeb Ahmed, who joined Defined in 2024.
By
February 4, 2026
Get to know the people who make our Community Strong. This month we’re catching up with Muneeb Ahmed, who joined Defined in 2024.
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From Atlanta and Lagos (yes, Nigeria) to Boston and Chicago, Muneeb Ahmed, a self-proclaimed “30-something,” likely wouldn’t suggest he’s lived 1,000 lives—but when you hear his story, you might disagree.
“I moved to Chicago five years ago after completing my MBA at Harvard,” Muneeb says. “Prior to that, I lived in Lagos, Nigeria, where I helped launch a few startups.”
A management consultant in his day job (something he insists is “largely immaterial” to who he is as a person), Muneeb says he spends his non-working hours living his life to the fullest with friends and family (including, he says, his found family here at Defined).
“Prior to joining Defined, I had been going to the gym for about 1.5 years,” he says. “At the start of it, I only weighed 118 pounds—so my fitness journey has been so transformative that you can see it on my body!”
After moving to the Uptown neighborhood in Chicago, Muneeb was looking for a new gym to call home. Perhaps due to his methodological nature, Muneeb’s research was quite thorough.
“I walked down Broadway between Montrose and Addison, touring every gym and fitness center I found,” Muneeb says. “Defined was the one that stood out to me most—with its welcoming environment and bright, open space. I also appreciated that the pricing and membership options were extremely straightforward and gimmick-free (unlike many gyms I toured).”
Muneeb had no idea that when he walked through those doors, so many newfound friends and experiences were waiting just for him: He’s made what he calls “the best group of friends a young man could ever ask for.”
“I’m looking at you, Matt, Heidi, Sarah, Kayle, Drew, Romy, Mason, Konnor, Lura, Enrique, America, Taylor, Michael, Jarryd, Myriam, Simon, Rahul, and so many others,” he adds. “These are the people who have been through so much. They know my story. They make me happy.”
For Muneeb, his fitness journey—which of course included adding some pounds to the scale—has been marked not only by the workouts and PRs, but the friendships and the space in between life’s big moments; the days, the hours, the minutes that may seem insignificant, but if you look closely, hold so much meaning.
“Defined is my refuge and my reset,” he says. “I work from home on most days, and after eight hours of Zoom calls and random errands, I look forward to coming in, regardless of what the workout of the day is. I look forward to smiling, and being around people who care about me. The workouts flush my brain of everything that happened during the day and allow me space to think and focus on life’s deeper questions afterward.”
One way Muneeb pauses and reflects is by hopping on one of Chicago’s trains, and taking it as far as it will go. He calls it an opportunity to remind himself he lives in one of the greatest cities in the world.
But it’s not just the friendships and camaraderie that keep Muneeb walking through the door; as a result of his training at Defined, Muneeb has made great progress on his fitness goals, too.
“My body has changed,” he says. “I’ve grown muscles in places I didn’t know I could (like my latissimi dorsi), and I’ve become much stronger—I still only weigh around 148 pounds, but I can squat 250 pounds and deadlift nearly 340 pounds! If you had told me two years ago that this little body could hold up so much weight, I would have not believed you.”
For 2026, Muneeb’s got some great goals, both in and out of the gym.
In the gym, he wants to string together at least 10 double-unders, snatch at least 140 pounds, and clean and jerk at least 175 pounds. He says he uses SugarWOD to track his scores and progress over time—plus “Coach Drew takes wonderful pictures of us working out (some of these could be repurposed as thirst traps), and I like to compare these across time to see how my body has changed.”
Outside the gym, he wants to take more trips with friends around the country, explore more of the South and Southwest sides of Chicago via his bicycle, and attend more live music and theater performances than he has in the past.
His advice to newcomers at Defined?
“Say hi to the person next to you in class. Nine times out of ten, they’re going to be friendly. Eventually, you’ll have made a new friend whom you’ll look forward to seeing, even if you’re not looking forward to the workout.”
Inclusivity and compassion for others are hallmarks of Muneeb’s character. When asked what his final words to live by are: “F**k ICE; we are nearly-all immigrants and strangers in someone else’s land. Let’s act like it by being good neighbors and stewards of this earth.”
Muneeb says his experience at Defined demonstrates why our slogan of #MoreThanAGym is more than just words on a sign or a hashtag on social media.
“If you’ve ever watched The Office, you know Andy Bernard says in the series finale: ‘I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days, before you’ve actually left them.’ Well, I always know I’m in the good old days when I’m here at Defined.”
Thanks for making our Community Strong, Muneeb.
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Naija No Dey Carry Last (literally "Nigeria does not finish last" in Nigerian Pidgin English). It actually means that Nigerians strive for excellence. I am not a Nigerian by birth or ancestry, but Nigeria adopted me when I was a 26 year-old who was down on his luck. And it made me a better man than I was before.
I love to hockey skate. Anytime we have a prolonged spell of 5+ days of freezing temperatures, you can find me on a frozen body of water, carving my name into ice.
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It doesn’t have to look like the one you just read. How has Defined help transform your life? We want to hear from you — reach out to Coach Reid or Coach Cara to get started!
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