Charleston DeLa Cruz, CSCS, USAW-1, FRSC, FRCms

Sports Institute

Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach

Charleston has spent the last 9 years training some of the best athletes in the world in the speed, strength, conditioning and performance field. He has worked with athletes of all levels and from many different sports. His experience includes working with a Super Bowl MVP, multiple Pro-Bowlers, numerous first-round draft picks, NCAA Women’s National Champions, athletes in the NFL, MLB, NBA, UFC, NCAA and even a couple little league 3rd stringers.

Charleston’s passion for optimizing performance first started as he was growing up playing sports in San Diego, California.  He graduated from Mission Bay High School in 2006, where he played football, wrestled and threw shot put and discus. Charleston was offered a scholarship to play football at North Carolina Central University where he attended for 1 year, then transferred to Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas to play out his last three years on scholarship and earned a degree in Exercise Science.

After college, Charleston was selected as a summer intern at Todd Durkin’s Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, known for being included in the Top Ten Gyms in the Nation via Men’s Health for multiple years.

At the completion of the internship, he left San Diego to take a job offer overseas, working as the Head Strength Coach for the Hohenems Blue Devils, an American football team in Austria. Upon returning back to the states, Charleston served as the NFL Combine assistant coach and became an official performance coach at Fitness Quest 10 immediately after.

Charleston became the Director of Football Operations at Fitness Quest 10 in 2014, where he directly managed qualified coaches to assist in the daily operations of a professional sports performance program. This position also held the responsibility of leading the NFL Combine Preparatory program, coaching athletes in preparation to compete at the highest level.

During his time at Fitness Quest 10, Charleston was also able to further his coaching experience outside of the gym. In 2013 he served as an assistant sports performance coach for the University of San Diego Torero Football team.

During the fall season of 2015-2018, Charleston worked as an assistant football coach at Cathedral Catholic High School, winning the state Championship in 2016 with an undefeated record of 15-0. In addition to coaching football at Cathedral Catholic, he also worked with the Varsity Rugby team as a forwards coach. Lastly, Charleston was also selected as the Defensive Line Coach in the nationally recognized Makasi Bowl, a San Diego based high school all-star game two years in a row.

Outside of coaching and working in Strength and Conditioning, Charleston has also dabbled in rugby, boxing and muay thai.

Charleston has earned certifications through the NSCA, USAW-1, FRCms, Kinstretch (June 2020)