Coss Marte and his prison-style bootcamp employing ex-inmates

Coss Marte is the founder and chief executive of Conbody, a prison-style fitness bootcamp in New York City that hires former inmates as trainers - an idea that came to him while serving time for running a multi-million dollar drug ring.

Coss Marte grew up in New York’s Lower East Side, a neighbourhood that was heavily drug infested in the 80s and 90s, he told Kathryn Ryan. 

“I remember every ten steps I took I saw a heroin needle. It was just something that was a normal thing to see. 

“I saw the guys on the corner making the money, wearing the jewels and it was something that I wanted to be.” 

Before long he was working those street corners, thinking it would lead him to success. 

Marte started smoking weed when he was 11 years old. At 13, he was dealing it. It would only be a year before he started dealing cocaine and eventually, he added heroin and crack to his offerings. 

By the time he reached adulthood, Marte ran the largest drug delivery service in the city. 

“At the age of 19 I was making over $2 million a year, I had over twenty people working for me - it was a crazy drug operation...we changed the way you sold drugs.” 

Things came crashing to a halt four years later when one of his delivery drivers snitched. Marte was arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison. It wouldn’t be his first time behind the wire, he'd been in and out of jail since he was a kid. 

When Marte started his sentence, his cholesterol levels were through the roof. He was told by medical staff that if he didn’t start eating properly or working out, he could die of a heart attack within five years. 

Not wanting to die behind bars, he started working out obsessively in his cell, doing pushups, jump jacks and dips off the side of his bed. In the yard, he started running laps.  

“I started getting creative in my mind with what I could do in the small space that I had with no equipment. 

“It was not easy, but it became my new addiction,” he says. 

“I built myself up where I was working out over three hours a day and I lost over 70 pounds in six months.” 

Eventually, one of the other inmates asked to join him and the numbers grew from there. All together they lost 1000 pounds.  

Things were looking up for Marte, until two months before his release, an altercation with an officer landed him in solitary confinement. 

“I’m in solitary confinement basically banging my head on a wall not knowing what I’m going to do with my life or where I’m going to be in the next couple of years. 

“While I’m in there I was just frustrated, you get two showers a week, it’s over 100 degrees, there’s no air, limited food.” 

Given a pen, paper and envelope, Marte wrote to his family to explain what had happened and to ask for a lawyer. After he’d written everything out, he realised he didn’t have a stamp. 

“I was super devastated.” 

The only other thing in his cell was a bible. Far from a religious man, he says there was no way he was going to kill time reading it. 

When his sister, who is very religious, found out Marte was in solitary, she urged him to pick it up and read Psalm 91. 

“I call her Mother Teresa’s child, she’s super religious, hallelujah everything. 

“I’m like hell no I’m not reading no bible verse. I laid back on my bed and out of boredom, you know I’m in 24-hour lockdown, nothing to do and so I decided I’d open up the bible.” 

Psalm 91 reads: Whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. 

“As I read those words, a stamp fell out of my bible...it gave me chills in my body; it was something that woke me up. I’m not here pushing religion or anything, but this is what happened to me.” 

Beginning to regret the choices he had made in his life; he decided to pray and ask how he could give back. 

“That’s how Conbody was born.” 

When he was finally released, Marte had nothing.  Sleeping on his mum’s couch, every day he would wake up and work out before he’d put on a suit and tie and go job hunting. 

As a convicted felon, he was never called in for an interview. 

“I trusted my faith, I trusted the process and I knew I couldn’t go back to selling drugs. I knew if I went back to that it was just going to be a revolving door back into the prison system.” 

Four out of five people go back to prison, he says. 

He’s now made it his mission to curb those numbers and has hired 51 former inmates to work for Conbody. None of those people has reoffended, he says. 

Part of that success comes from the raft of support Conbody has in place, including providing housing, food and clothing for people upon release. 

When someone signs up to train with Conbody, they’re signing up to be trained by an ex-con. They train in a studio the same floor size as a prison cell and there’s no equipment – just as there wouldn’t be behind bars. 

“F45 is a joke for us...what we do is 45 minutes but non-stop...you literally feel like your heart’s coming out of your body. Your breaks are active breaks,” Marte says. 

With a number of gyms in New York, and a virtual platform, Conbody has trained over 50,000 people. 

“It’s been mostly wealthier white woman,” Marte laughs. 

“It also shows we’re changing the perception of formerly incarcerated individuals...it’s a beautiful thing when you change people’s minds that way.”