About Cristy “Code Red” Nickel

Cristy “CODE RED” Nickel has been involved in exercise and wellness since 1994. The middle of 3 girls, Cristy’s childhood was spent helping to maintain the family ranch in the mountains of northern Idaho. Getting wood, bucking hay, milking cows, shoveling snow and training horses year after year produce a very “physically fit” Cristy.

When she was 17, Cristy’s dream to become a fitness competitor took seed and began to grow after watching a “Ms. Fitness” competition on TV. After graduating and moving to a bigger city, Cristy began to lift weights, watch her diet and study about the sport. It wasn’t until the summer of 2003 that Cristy finally competed in her first competition. During that summer, she competed in 3 competitions and placed in the top 5 of all 3 shows. But the extreme dieting and twice-a-day training took its toll on Cristy and she burned out by the end of the summer. She began looking for a workout that would allow her to maintain her fitness level yet be fun at the same time. Alas! There was boxing! She signed up for a boxing class at a local YMCA despite the fact that she had never adorned a pair of boxing gloves and had NO KNOWLEDGE of the sweet science. After the first day of class, the boxing coach approached Cristy and told her she had a natural ability for boxing and offered to train her to fight pro.

Cristy began the rigorous, exhausting, time consuming and demanding training to become one of only 2,000 women in the world who fight professionally. In April 2004, Cristy made her pro debut.

Her spiked hair and intriguing fight wardrobe choice quickly won the hearts of the local fans. Word began spreading across the country of this strange college student/waitress who smiles when entering the ring, then knocks out her helpless opponents. Cristy fought every month for almost a year and every single fight was sold out. Over the course of 12 fights, so far Cristy has been Main Event fighter for 8 fights and semi-main event for 2.

Cristy climbed the world ranking system into the top 10 and in the spring of 2005, she got an offer to become the first female to ever fight for a world title in China. It was an honor to be chosen as one of only 6 Americans sent to Beijing to represent the United States. Among the 6 included Eric “Butterbean” Ecsh and Mia “The Knockout” St. John.

Cristy’s career continued to skyrocket as was evident when she got a call in the spring of 2006 from the producers of MTV’s hit reality show “MADE.” Producers were looking for a boxing coach to turn a lazy high school quitter into a hard-hitting boxer in only 6 weeks and put her in a real fight. Cristy auditioned against coaches from all over the country and after an intense and lengthy screening process, she was offered the position. The episode was chosen as a season premier and continues to re-run to date in over 60 countries. The success of the show landed Cristy an opportunity to move to New York City.

Cristy came to the Big Apple in June of 2006 and started her own business as a personal trainer and boxing coach. She trains clients at “Peak Performance,” New York’s exclusive private training facility on West 21st and 6th in the Flat Iron District. Her clientele list has exploded to include celebrities, CEO’s, athletes, writers, editors, new moms, stressed-out wall street brokers, to name a few. Cristy specializes in boxing and teaches her clients how to actually FIGHT. This entails putting them through the same workout she goes through when preparing for a professional fight. Cristy also trains her clients in strength, conditioning and fat loss.