When I was 22, I finally reached that huge goal. Now I'm going for another one. It's so satisfying. It's something that I worked for for so long, and just to know that I got it feels so great.

I changed my diet drastically. In college, I was a typical college guy who ate junk food all the time. When you're in college, your metabolism is through the roof. I felt like my body started to change when I was 22 or 23, so I started meeting with a nutritionist and it completely changed everything.

Part of being a good gymnast is being very disciplined - you have to know how to train right, eat right, sleep right.

It's hard to put what it means into words. It's just a dream I had when I was a little kid. It's not every day [you] get to make your lifelong dream come true. The point of doing things in life is you pursue a goal, and you go after it, you reach it and you pick another one. But they're hard to attain.

It was definitely a big change in my life going from the college scene to really kind of being on my own. I got married and moved to Houston and started a whole new journey. It was scary in a way, but what's great for me is just focusing on gymnastics and my wife. I'm really able to put 100% into what my goals are.

I'm no perfect gymnast. I want to go out and eat junk food, or I maybe don't sleep as much as I should, or some days I'll leave the gym and think, "Maybe I should have worked a little harder. Maybe I'm not as tired as I need to be." Every day you push a little harder, eat a little better, maybe go to bed a little earlier.

There is a period of tapering when we're not in the gym quite as long to try to save our bodies, but leading up to the competition we try to keep things similar to the rest of the year.