Practical Powerlifting

Hello and welcome to the first episode of practical powerlifting. This is a new

project that I'm undertaking and I'm really looking forward to it. My idea is that

I want to speak to some of the best and most experienced powerlifting

coaches both in Australia and in the international community. I've obviously

been involved in powerlifting for basically my entire adult life since I was 18, 19, I

suppose and I did my first company I was 20 years old and in that time I've

developed a huge amount of experience and interacted with many great athletes

and many great coaches and my you know opinions have changed and my

understanding of things have improved and developed and and changed over the

years too. When I first started lifting and coaching a lot of the information

that I found was obviously online and even more so today and a lot of that

information was really theoretical it was very much like this is how programming

works this is how biomechanics works this is how this is what a moment arm is and

this is where which muscle groups are involved when you do this exercise and

this is how to do this and you know if you look at some of my old content

especially on YouTube a lot of my material was very concrete and very I guess

scientific in some way presenting clear understandings and and and knowledge. As

I've gotten older I think I've grown a much deeper appreciation for a much more

subtle understanding of training of grown up appreciation for experience and

the power of intuition and the power of developing hundreds and thousands of

hours of experience and practice and I find that to be a very interesting part

of coaching and a very interesting part of training and so over the next however

long I'm able to continue this project I look forward to speaking to some of

these experienced coaches and hearing about how they apply the knowledge that's

already freely available how they practically apply how they practically

incorporate theoretical knowledge and understanding into their daily work

and to their into their career and so in today's episode I thought it wouldn't be

I thought it would be prudent to start by speaking with none of them my own

wife Billy who we run the strength fortress together and she has a huge amount

of experience for those that don't know we're gonna go you're gonna see it in

the episode shortly but she started the fitness industry much like I did but

even younger I would say opening her own gym on the central coast I think she was

19 she says which to me is insane when you think about it and to this day is you

know co-owning the strength fortress with me working with people of all ages

and abilities her strength is working with beginners and getting beginners into

the gym and it's interesting the conversation that you're about to listen to

because she talks a lot about you working with these people and how you know

you need to understand that the person in front of you is a human being and not

just not just a theoretical idea that's told to you in your in your personal

training course and so I hope you enjoy the conversation so on to the episode

thanks so obviously you're my wife and I know you probably better than anyone but

you obviously have been in the power of fitness space forever so I dare say that

everybody listening to this would already be familiar with you or I or both of us

because you know it's a person one and because we're married yeah and because I

can't imagine that you know a random person on you know the other side of the

world who's never heard of either of us is like oh this looks like a great

podcast I'm gonna listen to this and so I think some sort of introduction is

worthwhile and maybe you can just tell listeners a little bit more not so much

about who you are right now but who you have been and like how you've kind of

come into the role that you do have and what is that role?

Cool thanks for having me on. I said that powerlifting in 2014 had yeah been

involved in sport and some capacity from a pretty young age and came into power

lifting from bodybuilding I guess like already being in a gym base sport it's

like a pretty natural transition. I did my first competition 2015 and it was a

really misguided endeavor but dare I say a very positive one like retrospectively

anyway because it was such an enjoyable experience with such a positive

empowering all of those types of things and yeah I mean it's like birth me my

whole like career and most of my life from that so I think I was really positive

ultimately I've been coaching powerlifting since like realistically not too

long after I've been involved at TSF in some capacity since it's inception eight

years ago I've been coaching there for the last six or so years obviously you and I

co-owned the strength fortress together which is a strength and powerlifting gym in

Melbourne in a West yeah I coached there that's my full-time gig and I guess

primarily like my passion in the coaching space and the coaching that I primarily

do at TSF is running total beginner programs and taking people from yeah total

beginner with absolutely no gym base experience whatsoever through to

commonly their first powerlifting meet. You said that you did your first comp and

you're pretty much for coaching quickly after that I think were you already in

fitness when you did your first comp like were you already in the fitness industry

working as a personal trainer? Yeah exactly I already owned my first gym at the time of that first competition

so I had been working in fitness for probably three or four years at that

point and just for context how old were you at this point? I started working in fitness

when I was 19 I opened my first gym at 20 or 21 and I did my first comp at 22 so

pretty young like for a lot of people this is especially other coaches or personal

trainers you know there'll be personal trainers and coaches who are like you know 30

it's just getting started. Yeah yeah it was super young so yeah I did already have the

gym which was my first gym was a women's only sort of group fitness type

studio but I mean the beautiful thing about owning a gym is that it can take the

shape of whatever interests you and yeah wherever your passions are so

naturally when I started having more of an interest in powerlifting people around me

started having more of an interest in powerlifting and we started doing more

strength-based training there already. And so you're actually like birth into

the fitness industry was like a very typical one because I think a lot of

powerlifting coaches that I see nowadays actually almost skipped that step like

you know they were sports people they did other stuff they start powerlifting

and they go wow I like fitness I'm gonna start coaching people through fitness

and strength and they actually don't go through the experience of what you had at

Bella which was your gym which is very quote unquote Gen Pop right it's very

personal training. Yeah I get very much personal training it's not powerlifting

coaching it was just like group fitness instruction personal training I

run boot camps. Right and you know I think a lot of powerlifting coaches including

myself never went through that stage I have ever went through running boot camps

I never did that I never you know logged tires down to the park and like made

people run on jump and stuff. I made my own sandags I filled them up at the beach

yeah so when Billy says that she had her first gym it's not a wasn't this

empire I mean I became one but it started from very baby beginnings I suppose

right feeling sand yourself at the beach I think that's we have to get you in

with four thousand dollars in the bank I went to I went to tie a shops and asked if I

could have their old tires and I filled the sandbags at the beach like it was a budget

damn gym and it got good upgrades like we did well but it was humble beginnings. I

mean as it would be when you're 21 and then now I'm jumping a little bit but now

you know obviously right to SF we're running you know powerlifting specific gym

it's like very very different look to what you're doing 10 years ago and you

commented that your passion now is more towards the beginner side of things so I

guess my first like real question from a coaching point of view is

you know can you elaborate a little bit more like what is your coaching

passion and what is your coaching philosophy like how do you approach coaching

you know what is your perspective or what is your place in the in the coaching

space yeah cool I mean yeah powerlifting is obviously my passion and it's the

exercise modality that I most enjoy so when it comes to coaching it's like yeah

the coaching that I do is powerlifting or at the very least powerlifting inspired

training like certainly a large percentage of the people I coach aren't

competitive powerlifting but they're people that enjoy powerlifting yeah my real

interest is like getting people involved in exercising in general but getting

people involved in sport there's obviously a lot of benefits to simply being

physically active but there's also a lot of benefit to having competitive

ambitions through being involved in a wider sporting community through having

a mode of self expression through challenging yourself in these kind of ways

but I like the path way of introducing people to that not taking someone that's

already good and making them a little bit better I'm very interested in taking

someone that is like I don't know I have a little bit of an interest in this

thing I'm a bit nervous I'm a bit timid I don't really know where to start I

feel like a bit of an imposter I don't even know if I can do this thing and then

just showing them that like of course you can do this thing like powerlifting isn't

something that's like very inhibitive it's it's endlessly scalable so

whatever someone's starting point is whether that's squatting body weight where

it's squatting a goblet whether it's squatting a barbell you can absolutely

take them from that point to being very very capable in a competitive setting if

they have the interest in the drive to do so I think as a coach I'm a very

compassionate coach and I'm someone who really wants to work with the people in

front of me so yeah if someone has like as I said interest in drive but it also

has like ample obstacles in their life that make that something hard for them

to do I'm very interested in navigating those and finding ways that we can work

through it so they can weave exercise and sport into a life that might already be

very very full and very robust for those that don't know you know you were a pretty

good lifter in your time and lifted at nationals and even more international

stuff what's that in my time yeah in your time I mean you're not doing palifting

now right and so why do you think that well why is it so important to you to work

with beginners and get them started like as you described you know I guess like

a lot of people that have experience in like competitive and good level sport

lean that way you know they end up wanting to coach a national team they want to

coach you know good lifters whereas you've almost gone the other way where you

like you almost you almost prefer to work with people who've never done

waits for full absolutely I don't think that's because you prefer it is in this

they're you know they're easier clients or anything like that it's clearly like a

passion like why do you think it's important that you're doing that work I think

that sport can often appear prohibitive prohibitive

it can seem exclusive it can feel like something that you're either built for or

you're not built for you're either a sport person or you're not a sport person

as far as like recreational level sport goes I just think that's absolutely not the case

of course a committee at a higher level is prohibitive it is exclusive

but at the grassroots level at recreational sport level it's not exclusive

I think that's the visibility of that is a lot more

yeah I guess that is more visible in maybe more team-based sports or I think

strength sports feels particularly exclusive if someone wanted to play

social netball they might feel like I'm not really a sports person but I could probably play

social netball or I'm not really a sports person but I could probably run the Melbourne Mara 5K

that I've seen those catch-a-5k apps I could probably do that there's something that

feels particularly exclusive and prohibitive about strength sports and about

individual sports I think and so I want to break that down I think that yeah

individual sports and strength sports of unique benefits but they also might very well

meet the interest of an individual person like there's a there's a kind of meme that floats

about around that says hey to all those girls that hated pea in high school how's powerlifting going

it's like it is this sport that kind of like lends itself to people that might not feel athletic

in the typical sense and so I think that there's all these benefits that sport offer in the sense of

yeah empowerment self-expression and then like fitness strength psychological benefits all these

types of things social networks all of this kind of stuff and someone has to open the door to people

that haven't done it before it's like there's plenty of coaches that are like eager to coach the

the top guy but like how many coaches are very eager to introduce people and say like hey I can

show you the ropes I can do this with you and I don't only mean in the sense of I can teach you how

to squat I can teach you how to adjust a squat rack but also like I can teach you how to get ready

for competition I can show you the things that you need to buy to do that I can show you how to enter

a competition I can support you on the day I can help you manage your nerves a powerlifting coach

is not a strength coach so some powerlifting coach has to be passionate about helping people that want

to get started initially because you can't just go from like commercial gym PT who like knows how

to squat to top tier powerlifting guys someone's got to be in the middle you use the term like you know

opening the door of sports to people that haven't done much sports before and one thing that

I thought of as you were talking was like you know you earlier said that you've always been in sports

you know like you'd always done sports you're in sports from a very young age it wouldn't be

unreasonable for someone to look at you and consider you as someone who as someone who's done

sports the whole life it's like how do I say this like no yeah like what do you know about

it's getting started in sports because you've always done it you know I think of like when I first

started coaching like I was a good athlete and I found it very hard to relate to people that weren't

good athletes because they didn't have the mindset they didn't have the understanding they didn't have

the physical like development even if it wasn't lifting related but they didn't have the like

coordination the you know so it actually took many years so I mean it really like empathize and

understand oh okay you really don't even know how to do the basics how do you feel like what is

what does it that you do that you think makes people you know attract it to you in this way or how do

you kind of come across as more relatable when someone you know someone walks into the gym they

look at this like taller flirty person who's been who owns a gym you're a gym guy and someone's

walked into the gym who's never done weights before never done sports before how do you kind of bridge

that gap between who you are and who they are it's a really good question I think the first thing is

you don't have to have had a shared experience with someone to cultivate empathy okay that's good

yeah I think that's that's first and foremost it's like you can cultivate empathy for experiences

that you have absolutely no idea what that would be like so I think that's the first one the second

one the second thing I want to say this is a kind of hard question it's maybe I'm not relatable in the

absolute sense of our athletic experiences or our experiences in gyms our experiences in sport our

body types our profinity for sport but that doesn't mean I can't be relatable in a bunch of other

in a bunch of other ways an example that comes to mind was there was many years ago I had this

client who trained me very very early in the morning and she kind of said that she'd rolled out of

bed and like none of her clothes were like clean they were dirty they were torn and she was like a

little bit self-conscious about growing coming into the gym but she said if I know Billy at all her

pants are probably torn and like sure enough she got to the gym and I had a hole in my track pants

and it's like yeah okay maybe I'm not relatable in the sporting sense but I'm like just a very very

normal person I just happen to like fitness I just happen to like sports but we can have a bunch

of other common ground the second thing that comes to mind on that is that I'm also not afraid to

try new things and I think that's a great lesson in called to many empathy well I can't be

brand new at powerlifting again well I can't be brand new at sport again well I can't invent the

experience of coming into sport at an older age I can certainly have an adult experiences of being

a total new but something I've you know very recently like changed sports and I've been a total

beginner at a new sport I've been a very beginner at learning a language I'm like newly a very beginner

dancer and so while I might not be able to empathize with coming into a powerlifting gym for the first

time in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s I can absolutely empathize with walking into a new space

feeling like you have no idea what you're doing you don't know what to wear you don't know where to

stand you don't know who to talk to you don't know the first step of buying anything you need for

this thing you don't know the pathway to learning and I think all of those things like really feed into

the cultivating empathy but also having shared stories of saying like oh you embarrassed yourself

at the gym this week oh this is the thing that happened to me at dance class um yeah clearly not so

I'm afraid to start new things you're always doing new things and I think there's a great way to

relate I suppose and understand like the position that people are in in terms of getting started

one thing that I think is very unique about the way that we operate at TSF is that as you describe

people can kind of get started in our gym setting under guidance almost straight away

I think about the origin stories of a lot of good fitness uh personalities as I suppose in the

you know Melbourneian specifically palafaxine yeah obviously yourself myself Josh and Jeremy at the

gym but as well as a broader community a lot of them will have similar stories to you

didn't my first comp had no idea what I was doing fumbled my way through I think Josh went 5 out of

nine I wore weightlifting shoes for my deadlifts in my first comp you know and I think you know we all

fumbled our way through do you think there's actually some value in fumbling your way through and do you

think there's things that people miss out on by starting with good coaching you know like if I

not having to figure it out themselves like do you think there is any any value in somebody saying

I really wanted to start into palafaxine but rather than going to billy I'm going to go to my local

gym first and have a go for six months and see if I like it and then you know what make a decision

later on or do you think that the work that you do especially with the yet complete beginners is

the best way forward I could probably write a pretty solid pros and cons list um I think it is

what we're here to do let's write the pros and cons. I think it's like a competition like that

like my first common absolute shocker like I did the most hectic weight cardio weight in like five

killers too light I thought I went like six or seven from nine but you used let off the scoreboard

and I went five from nine I actually didn't know if you guys have been red-lided like I missed my

first deadlift I cried afterwards like it was the whole thing was extraordinarily hysterical and very

unbranded. I was by contrast it's just interrupted by contrast you know a lot of our lifters and

their first comp ever will go nine out of nine perfect days you know look like season veterans.

Yeah you know are they missing out on like the the bumbling their way through phase?

I think it's make or break I think it can either like put a bit of a fire in your belly and you're

like a boy you're wanting to start a redemption arc you might very well to be ignorant to how bad

the day was which was probably the case for me. You can either put a fire in your belly and go like oh

man like I want to look like these guys that know what they're doing I want to learn if you don't

even know how to get started with a coach it might at least put you in the right room with coaches

that you can then ask to coach you afterwards but I do think on the other side it can be like yeah

it can be quite embarrassing it can be yeah very confident shattering um

dare I say it's just like largely a waste of time like I kind of look back and think

I really could have gotten started earlier sort of like learning the rules training more efficiently

training smarter um you know my technique was very very sloppy for a long time I got hurt

unnecessarily I could have skipped a lot of that how I had guidance. The other side of that though

that I have thought about a bit is I think about like when I'm traveling in a training commercial

gyms and you'll almost always see like a small group of like teenage boys on the bench press and

like they'll have a weight on the bar they bring it down a quarter rep half rep they're made fully

like takes the bar they press the bar out and then they're like that was sick and they put more weight

on like uh you look at that and you're like god what are these guys doing like you know that was

absolutely ineffective probably dangerous this is insanity but it's like that's also where the

love of the game grows like I think for so many of us we got started in the gym because we were like

just reckless idiots in our youth when fortunately our bodies were like a bit more robust and could

handle more stupidity um but like I remember this session that I did with a girlfriend in the gym

when I was like probably like 18 and like every time one of us got a deadlift we just add weight

and go again and we'd add weight and go again like we probably did like 30 heavy singles like that

which is absolutely putrid but I was stoked I was like I'm happy I'm pretty strong like I love this

this is just fun I love pushing myself in the gym with my friend so maybe yeah maybe your first

competition has an element of that maybe those like early training training blocks if you can even

call that when you're not even following a program maybe all of that does have benefit

I'm not gonna say that training with me and like having a coach from day one is the best way I

I think it probably is but I think there's probably some merit to just like being a bit of an idiot

and like just like just like cultivating love and enjoyment

yeah for legal purposes it's where our HL training is a bit more smart as well

sorry I didn't drop you the illegal purposes for our HL department training with us is the

best way to get started but if it wasn't if it wasn't then training with 16 year old boys in the

commercial team is probably the second I wonder if there's like a like a survivorship biasing as

well right it's like he said before that make or break you know someone has like the shocking first

experiences of the gym they feel embarrassed they feel silly because they didn't know the rules

and stuff and the few of them that actually get past that end up becoming you know the only way

you get past it is by going back home and researching and figuring things out and you know and then

you end up becoming super passionate and you end up becoming Joshua you or I or Jeremy or the

other way is they just leave the sport and I didn't actually think of that until you were just

talking and I realized actually I think most people that go about it the proper way like with

an actual coach and figure things out and get taught things so they actually have success the first

time I'm all likely to repeat like they're more likely to do their second and third coms whereas

and this is just totally anecdotal like this is just of vibes and not off anything off any

dataset but maybe people that go on the going on their own yeah I have maybe like a more more

veriability in their results like some end up becoming super passionate and many end up never

doing a second or third com yeah I'd love to see a dataset of the number of people that I've done

one com two coms three coms four coms five coms and of that dataset what percentage of people were

coached in their first meet versus went in self-guided yeah I'd be really interested to see that

did you have any mentors early on like you know you're figuring things out on your own you did your

first comp by yourself like how did you kind of transition from I have no idea what the fuck I'm

doing to now having a palatine gym being a you know being a palatine referee coaching at good

coms going to good coms like what was your transition from I know nothing to now I know a lot yeah I get

really to just start of like love of the game and just like personal interests so yeah that first

comp I didn't have a coach I obviously I was a personal trainer already so I had some idea what I was

doing but I say very little like again I was 20 and I was also I was studying exercise and sports

science at uni so at the time that I was like writing my own programs I was learning about periodization

and like you know gathering you know my very early level of education so like my early programs

like me and like this like study partner from uni we would like write my programs together and like he

came with me to the first comp and we were like yeah yeah I can we can figure it out it's like early days

like honestly it was a great experience as a student too because it was yeah I was like really like

using myself as like a bit of a case study to practice the things that I was learning at school

shortly thereafter I think I self coached all the way up to junior nationals

2015 where I took silver um yeah I self coached up until there and at that point I was able to

compete at Asia asianis which was think four or five months later um so at that point I thought

I probably should get a coach um and at that point I mean you got the nationals right you got

to ocean is like did you have someone who you who's guiding you like how did you learn the rules

or was that all self like was that all autonomously autonomously um first comp no guidance the second

comp I had Nathan backs to coach me on the day so I mean that helped a lot that helped a lot from

the first comp to the second comp at least I had someone like telling me when to warm up and how to

warm up I remember sending him like hey I think this is what I'm gonna do for my comp plan and he

was like the hell we are I was like I'm thinking I'm gonna open my deadlift at this number and he was

like no you know it minus 20 so at least I had someone to like offer a sounding board and some

a voice of reason but in terms of my actual training no in terms of like learning the rules that

know he was just there with me on the day um and then yeah after that Andrew Tang coached me into

oceanias in December of that year um I mean online coaching was like pretty rudimentary in 2015

I don't remember I don't know if or how much technical feedback I even got at my well I've just

been programming um at my well I've been you know if you get training blocks like three training blocks

between August and December I don't I can't remember how comprehensive it was but I don't think it was

extremely comprehensive um and you coached me at Asia asiannis which I mean we had a shock

to be fair I'm starting up an excellent love story though sort of an excellent love story is

shocking value degree um and yeah you coached me thereafter and so it sounds like your

development was like a gradual thing right it wasn't like you had one because like even a lot of

this time right you were just training on your own you know all with a friend not necessarily

in a powerlifting club surrounded by other powerlifters you didn't have like training partners or

teammates or someone to like ask questions from the way that you know a lot of people who are training

of powerlifters especially in Australia especially in Melbourne have now you have so many good gyms

where people actually training surrounded by coaches and peers you just didn't have any of that

so it was a lot of like online like were you watching were you reading blogs and watching YouTube

videos or was it just figured like I don't even know I'm gonna say like a dinosaur but like

powerlifing gyms were not that common then either right I know that's something where I was living

there was none like there was none short of me driving a Sydney for two hours and even in Melbourne like

I think we had a city in strengthen Melbourne and that was about it like they're yeah powerlifting gyms

were not really a thing so there certainly wasn't like a physical community around me I think I

mostly just learned on the fly like I've never been someone to like watch heaps YouTube or anything

like this it was really like I like use myself as a case study I practice as I went along and I was

studying at uni and I really just learned on the fly it sounds ridiculous when you reflect on a right

like how do I how did I learn anything it all just happens over time I suppose yeah like I mean

like at that point in time like I wasn't I wasn't a great powerlifting coach like I wasn't

powerlifting coaching at that time I was really just learning my own experience I was yeah gathering

my own experience of the sport and learning as I went and like I guess that was really just like

it was just cultivating love hmm yeah like you're you're still like in the getting to know you phase

I suppose a lifting you're still figuring out what it was yeah me empowering with dating yeah exactly

yeah yeah now you're in a long-term community relationship um powerlifting is me I am powerlifting

palving the son of five um you mentioned you know power online coaching was very rudimentary at that

time there weren't any gyms now we've been in a very different world you know it's 2025 you've been

online coaching for many years now we've got the physical gym and we're surrounded by so many gyms

you know we recently had our TSAF team champs a big team event with many gyms across Melbourne

bringing their groups of lifters over and a lot of the gyms are fantastic gyms you know we're

how style gyms like us uh with coaches that are working in person um but yeah on the other side of

that is is like an online online front I wanted to ask you a little bit about what you think about

you know online and coaching versus in person coaching um and the reason is because you know one of

the reasons why I wanted to even start this podcast was um I really value personally like face-to-face

coaching as a as a concept and as a developing coach like if you're a developing coach I think

getting many hours in face-to-face is very important for your development whereas a lot of coaches will

start just online and like never coach people in person which could be a valid way to go about

doing it but I don't think that's the best way um how's your coaching practice developed like when

you first started in the fitness industry in 2011 or whatever it was you know you had a physical gym

you started in that space you didn't have any online presence like the you know online wasn't a

thing like Instagram was barely born there was no you know you know you didn't you probably didn't have

an email address like or you know not one that was functioning the way it functions and now how has

your coaching practice evolved over this time and like how do you actually apply that coaching

practice yeah cool I am often think back to like I ran a whole gym like I had a whole gym from

open to close without having an email signature like I didn't even know how to fake an email

sent from my phone yeah it was it was such a different time like online coaching was so rudimentary

so yeah as I said it was like it all my career completely started face-to-face I was living on the

goal coast and I started with boot camps that was how every personal trainer on the goal coast

started because it was like if you were 20 like you're not charging a top dollar and the people

that you're charging don't have top dollar so yeah this stuff we're running was just like I was just

running group stuff because it was cheap accessible and like lined up with my skills set up time

and then that funneled into yeah working in face-to-face in a gym because the seasons were

chaining basically I did start actually like offering some form of online coaching at that time

though that was 2012 2013 what was your online coaching what was that it was programs delivered in

PDF format right and oh use the term coaching loosely PDF format typically sets and reps with no

intensity prescription so this was alive like you weren't doing live like you weren't doing live

classes or anything like that it was programming right very very loose programming with some degree of

email communication to like touch base and see how things were going and you're accepting money for

this more shockingly people were paying me right people were parting with their own money

that continued on for some time but it was during that I actually had been growing a degree of

an online presence I think on Instagram but Facebook more so at that point in time from my hometown

which was close to Newcastle so I had yeah dealt with some sort of eating stuff in high school

and then in the years following like I had like been doubling in strength training I'd like

yeah been become like educated in the gym and had like yeah recovered a lot

and I guess people were seeing that and I guess like you know I'm from a small town people were

seeing like oh Billy's kind of like the fitness girl now so I'd end up being that a lot of the

inquiries I was getting online were from my getting in general were from my hometown and I was at

that point that I thought okay I'll go where the money is and I moved back home and opened a gym um

so yeah it went back to like largely face to face then like when I opened the gym I don't know that I

was really coaching online in any capacity then my efforts were exclusively in the gym space um I

wanted to touch on what you sort of said before about like a lot of people want to come into power

often coaching and just start coaching online and I'm interested to hear what you have to say about

this because I think I have this opinion that it would be best to start coaching face to face and

I do think probably a lot of those maybe personal bias I don't know how founded that is I think I

have a lot of personal bias because it's like oh that's how I started or that's how things were done

when I was younger um I think there's a lot of benefit in coaching I think I still to this day

think that face to face coaching is the best coaching I think if you can access a coach face to face

if you can access them geographically if you can access them financially I do think face to face

coaching is the superior coaching format like feedback is live in real time if you need to have any

kind of tactile stuff you can do it but I think more to the point it's like everything is live in real

time you can demonstrate you can adjust everything is perfect um however is that necessary to develop

in-person skills if you are only going to go on to work in an online capacity what do you think?

I don't think it's necessary like nothing is really necessary right like the the biggest example

I can think of someone who just does online is like much easier and like yeah if I'm not mistaken I

don't think he actually coached in-person like you know the way that we are describing at all before

he really like took off as an online coach um but I think it's a very different like groups that

like it's a different like yeah client base that he would be working with it's people who don't need

as much literal instruction about how to do exercises the people that you know someone like Mike

works with and for those who don't follow Mike to share is one of the you know most decorated

palafin coaches in in modern times and coaches um out of his company called RTS but someone like

in that position he doesn't need to teach people how to do like deaf is deadless he doesn't need to

motivate people as much potentially as maybe like we might have to with our clients and try to

when I say motivate we're not like you know jumping up and down and clapping for them but I mean as in

cultivating motivation and cultivating a sense of like consistency and whatever whereas

everybody's working with error and really need that and so it's very hard to learn those skills

unless you're like working with people in in person and he said that coaching in person is like

the superior form because it's tactile because it's live and you know conversation I was having

recently is like with someone actually just yesterday is that the coaching service is a relationship

building service you're you have to build relationships with people and I think I think that's one

of your strengths as a coach is that you build relationships with the people that you work with

very very well it's not like when you go to the when you go to a cafe and you order a coffee you

don't necessarily need to develop a relationship with a Bristol that would be nice sometimes and

you know many people have their regulars that they like to see and go to but it's very transactional

it's like I give money you give me coffee or you go to you know came out and I give you money and you

give me clothes it's that's that's very transactional whereas a coach in a relationship it's not

transact it is transactional in some sense like I give you money you give me program but there is also

a lot more to it where you know the relationship with things like very important you're not paying

attention to the life that you do in a program technique advice given it's like a very yet's a

relationship as you said yeah like you're you're actually trying to develop a relationship with people

like I think like we're actually very much in a relationship industry where you're trying to

you know earn trust and earn your place in someone's life over time that's very hard to do

online and I guess if you want your coaching to be more transactional like I give you money you

give me a program I give you money you give me guidance then like online is a very reasonable way

to do that and like I'm coaching a line for like 10 years now you know so and that's not to say

that I don't build a relationship with my with my clients online but definitely the relationships

are built in person I 10 times more profound and you know easier to kind of facilitate so it's just

I guess it's just different but yeah I mean I guess at this time of your career when you're working

at the gym and you're running Bella you're really doing online coaching was online coaching something

you did specifically or explicitly I should say or there's just kind of happened it really just kind

of happened and I think I guess it's just supplied a man right it was like cool I was getting these

kind of inquiries I lived in to state from where they were coming from okay I suppose that I will

provide a service so that I can like satisfy these kind of inquiries um yeah it wasn't something that I

and that definitely speaks to like the lack of quality also and like thoughtfulness of the service

I was offering at the time it wasn't like I'd spent months or years mapping out a service that I was

going to provide it was like oh yeah I suppose I could do that here he's a he's a service certainly

as yeah as I've matured and like grown in the industry it's like of course now like if someone asked

me to provide a service and it's not something that I currently offer I don't just say you're right

it's like no I would like sit down and like really like think about like is this something that I

actually even want to do what would it involve how would I offer that to a high standard back then

it was like yeah I was young and the industry was like in much more of an infancy it was like things

were a little bit more on the fly so how has your oh I want to stick to online for a little bit now

like as an online service like how is your online coaching evolved over time like what's different

about it now and I kind of want to like transition slowly into like this idea of systems like what are

your systems like and maybe sharing a bit more of your actual you know your flow your day-to-day work

schedule what are you doing now that you weren't doing eight years ago or 10 years ago especially in

an online space and maybe we'll we'll redo the same you know concept for face to face yeah it's got

almost nothing in common with what I was doing 10 years ago yeah no PDFs and now has intensity

prescription um no I think I really think of the coaching that I provide now is more like athlete

management it's not just here's your program go to your training it is okay what are the skills

that you have what are the challenges that you face how's your stress how's your sleep what like

how many children do you care for how stressful is your job how much time do you reasonably have to

devote to exercise per day you know how much can you recover okay great with that in mind here's

a program that I have tailored for you this is how I would like it executed go away and do that

this week and in a week's time we can come back and we can review the whole week and how it all went

how was your stress how was your sleep you know how you able to recover from everything like

yeah how did the actual sessions go of course but there's so many factors that influence the

training so in large part it's like the actual prescription of exercise and the technique

of exercise the overload of training the progression of a training block is like one part of

a coaching service but I think all around that and I think where my like strength really lies is like

I have to manage a person I have to help manage a person's that they're actually able to do the training

I think that a lot of um a lot of coaches and maybe coaches that work with like a top level

lifters that don't require a lot of motivation the coaching that they provide is like how to optimize

the micro cycle the lifters that I work with are how do I make it so you can complete a micro cycle

so you can complete a method like or so you can complete a training block what do I need to do to support

you so that this can be completed on time and a timely amount up to a really high standard where

technique is like bang on where intensity is bang on where I want it how do I make that happen

and so okay that's interesting so then my question then is how do you make that happen like what I

like I mean what are your actual systems how do you get this stuff from people and what are the

challenges that you face when you're working with people who like you struggle to even finish

training blocks and actually get all the training done yeah um do I mean to talk about how I kind of

set up my week now or just very much like what is the system for like one client um I have a

view on kind of answer and I suppose like what's what's the I mean I've got a lot of questions you

know I'm thinking about how do you actually apply this um like your work but I'm thinking also

like you mentioned about here's a program tailored for you like how do you go about individualization

how do you go about tailoring programs and like working with individuals like I just got a lot of

questions about how this will happen you know it's one thing in theory to say you know I'm telling

my programs to clients and I'm factoring in their sleep and they're and they're a fatigue and they're

kids and blah blah blah but like how do you actually do that like are people feeling and I know the

answers to a lot of these questions sort of but you know for you obviously because we work together

but there are still things that I'm actually thinking about like I use do you ask people do you

fill in an app do they fill in a question there are they reporting to you daily are you communicating

with them are you having phone calls are you sending emails like what's how does it all work oh they're

like the bread and butter of the service revision all exists um like online via google sheet programs

and training videos so feel like one left arm okay at the start of the week here's your training

program for the week go off and do your training at the end of the week come back to me complete all

of your training notes how many sessions you do how many reps a day are what load what was the

RPE any other notes you'd like to share with me send me your training videos of all the exercises

that I've stipulated for a total beginner that might well be every single exercise so I can make sure

it's performed well for someone who's new with me I want to say like how well can you report RPE

relative to what it actually looks like um can I make sure that you're actually reforming exercises

in the way that I had intended um and then there's a weekly check in form which really covers off

a lot of lifestyles up there's opportunity to have a suraflect on training nutrition um

opportunity to ask questions but really reflect on life as a whole once I've got all that information

gathered okay great now I can provide technique feedback on the week now I can provide adjustments

to your training program for the week ahead now I can yeah respond to the other like lifestyle

factors um that you've mentioned whether that's providing adjustments in the training or simply

like talking about troubleshooting and working through it I provide my weekly check-ins via loom um

I do have pretty regular phone calls with a lot of my online clients but the frequency of that really

depends on the individual I do have clients who I have a phone call with every single fortnight

and those people are a typical it goes one or two ways either someone who is like extremely motivated

who like has aspirations to become a coach wants to ask questions wants to learn and really wants to

yeah like utilize me as a resource or it could be someone that really really struggles with like

keeping power power acting as a priority in a very busy schedule who who needs someone to like

yeah continue to bounce back from and say okay cool like how do I keep showing up for this

other people I coach might well just touch in with me on video call like once every six months

because their life might not permit the luxury of that of just being at a carve out time to chat with

the coach perhaps just getting the training in as a stretch and at that point it might just be okay

cool like let's touch in on quarterly or six monthly intervals and like yeah map out the next

three or six months let's discuss like overarching challenges and blah blah blah blah blah

that's kind of how the systems of how things run in terms of how I like yeah tailor for the individual

and write a program that suits them I'll talk about like what I mean about that from like a more

lifestyle perspective rather than from a optimizing the athlete for strengths and weaknesses blah blah

it's like it's like it has to be totally personalized in many many many cases it's like you can have

a general idea of like how you want to plan a trading week or like a general template of how you

to be the coach a general template for a programming system that you might have but there are going to

be so many cases where you have to modify that so much that you end up just throwing it out the

window because it doesn't even work so examples that I might have for that is like I have got one

client right now who consistency has just been like a really really really big struggle

and so sessions have to be like twice a week for 30 to 40 minutes it can take me 30 to 40 minutes to

put my knee sleeves on someone's like writing a session that could be productive that would have

any kind of effective training dose in such a small opportunity to get training in in a week

is like a very very real challenge but you have to find a way it's like if this is all the person

that can give you can give you and this is important to them it's like okay cool I'll do my very best

managing expectations there might be blocks where it's like we're not going to improve in this

or actually give me such tight constraints the best I can do is just have you not regress

but you do have to work with a person there and go okay cool like what things can we

superset what like what are the exercises that we're going to get the most bang for our bark what are

the things that are going to be most potent for you right now and putting them in those exercise slots

if you've got six exercise slots in a week then like how can we best use those exercise slots?

What would you say to you know a lifter who wants to take on coaching but they feel like

you know the life so busy right now that it would be a waste of time money you know like for

example you said you've got something like you've got someone to do two sessions a week for half an hour

you know they're paying for coaching and from what I can tell they're not exactly getting the most

out of their coaching in some sense right like they like there'd be a lot of people who would feel like

I don't really want to do that until I feel like I'm in a position where I can actually give it my all

what's your like a pinion or perspective or advice for someone in that position?

My actually this is this exact this case that you're talking about like do you feel

I don't know like at what point do you say like do I need to pull your socks up and actually get some

training in because you're wasting not wasting your time but you know you're not getting the most out

of yourself versus like I mean like you need to meet a client where they're out but like how far can

you go before it's like not even a coaching service anymore? Yeah I think when you just

said about pull your socks out it's like that's the role of the coach so my general attitude is like

a coach is most useful to you when you have more constraints when things are going worse for you

it's like the coach's job is a very very easy job when everything's going fine

when you don't have any injuries when you have no time constraints it's like at that point the

role of a coach is very easy and if someone is like reasonably educated this lift is actually

like very smart and very intelligent as far as training goes um you know she could ride her own

programs um but as it stands it's beneficial to have me in her corner because I'm the one that can

say okay actually you you have put too many constraints right now and I need to put your socks

up or we can live with these constraints for the next month but at the end of that we need to pull

our socks up um this training dose actually isn't enough so we can get away with it for a few weeks

that understand you have these constraints and then we need to push it more um yeah the role of the

coach is that the role of the coach isn't simply the riding programs it's also that the um yeah support

and like giving hard truths when that's what someone needs to hear right so it's like um like is there a

way that you like can systemize this or like you have frameworks or like rules or thumb or like ways

of knowing like I guess like how do you know when to push and when to pull think that coaching is

an art and a science and that's like that really boils down to empathy right it's not like there's

like it's like I have a checklist that says okay on this eight point scale I'm going to determine

at one point I need to start being firm rather than being so compassionate it's like that doesn't

exist at some point you just need to go okay cool like I have an understanding of like how lifting

works and how strength training works and how to improve and I also know the person in front of me

because I've been working with them for some length of time and so yeah it's empathy it's understanding

a person in front of you and understanding when they when you push like asking the questions and

having the empathy that you know if I push you right now it's because I actually know you have

the capacity to do that whereas if I pushed you last week that was going to be that wasn't going to

work that wasn't going to be effective because you actually didn't have the capacity to push last week

and that only comes from getting to know someone and asking their art questions and working with them

if you push someone when they actually don't have the capacity to be pushed they're not going to be

your client next week like and nor are they going to improve like it's actually no one benefits from

that you have to know when pushing someone is actually an effective thing to do so do you think that

you know like working on an athlete's mental game you know being respectful of like ideas like

burnout fluctuating motivation it very much sounds like that you think that's very much your role as a

coach as opposed to you know like there are some like there are people I know in the industry who

would say things like if a lift it doesn't want to train it's not my job like they need to do it

from the cells or like I'll even see personal trainers or coaches put out advertisements that say

you know if you're ready to make a change like shoot me a message or I'm looking for people at a

motivated that really want to make a change or whatever it might be so those are the people I want to

work with like do you think there's some validity in that and that you know I lift a has to have

I mean of course I lift a has some autonomy in that sense but how much of it or how much responsibility

do you take for helping manage someone's mental approach to their training and their and their

fitness and their strength yeah I think first thing I want to say is that coaches absolutely have

the right to like to say like who they're actually willing to work with and if a coach doesn't

want to be a motivator that's actually like a totally reasonable like population of people to work

with online coaching does require a degree of yeah self-motivation more than in person does

it's like if you are someone who really struggles with motivation then doing like one-on-one

personal training is probably a great way to go because that you have to make your appointment

whereas if you're someone that really really struggles with self-motivation then online coaching

is going to be something that's quite hard because I can't come in like I can't come and do the

session for you I can't come and be like hey come on let's go to the gym like I'm online so with

that in mind you do need to have a certain degree of self-motivation but also self-management

in online coaching often so like the weeks that you that your training doesn't go to plan at the

weeks that I most need to hear from you if I want to give them week you only get one out of three

sessions in it was done kind of shit and you're like oh I didn't do much checking because I didn't

get much training done in this week sorry coach I'll talk next week like that's useless

whereas if you say how training was shocking this week I was hit with x-y and z challenge

I only got through this much training here's the videos of what I did this is my plan for the

week ahead or hey coach can you help me with a plan for the week ahead hey what do you think I should

do moving on from here given that I didn't get all my sessions on this week that's the role of me

as a coach maybe that's not a role of all coaches but that's the role that I play as a coach

it's like okay cool if life's not going so well if things aren't really going to plan how can I

help you so that next week can get closer to on plan tell me a little bit about your face-to-face

coaching philosophy and how it's different to online either people that you work with in person

differently we work with online or they tend to be very similar demographic and what are the

challenges I think that's probably more and more interesting like what do you think you know it's

talked a lot about the challenges of online what are the challenges of coaching in person people

I work with face-to-face tend to have a lower training age the people I work with online tend to

have at least a slightly higher training age in the gym face-to-face I am very enthusiastic to work

with an absolute total beginner online I do find that much harder and I would be more inclined

to say to someone go spend time with a ptator local gym for a month even first so that you can learn

the fundamentals because teaching absolute fundamentals online can be very very challenging

so the people I work with in the gym tend to be even more beginner

terms of challenges in the gym I think it's like the challenges I see it's a gigant like I'm working

with people that are beginner too early in the media for the most part the people that I'm working

with in the gym have a lot of the similar challenges it's like creating routine creating consistency

and managing life stresses if training hasn't been something that's had a you know a pro a priority

position in their schedule for their entire adult life to date that's how to cultivate that in

there I do think that that's a lot easier to manage face-to-face it's not all the time but in many cases

because you do have the physical thing to come from you do have the person that you're seeing you do

have training partners around you there is a lot of benefit in training in a very supportive environment

that's like we're not working in a commercial gym we're training in like a very community oriented

space so therefore encouraging someone to come on in and get their training done is a lot easier

when they know that they're going to have a coach that a supportman on the day when they've got

training partners that they're excited to see when they're in an environment in which they're

comfortable training those barriers might exist much more online when it's okay I don't have

community I'm nervous back on the gym I'm nervous about judgment I don't have an training partner

for accountability I'm not excited to go because I don't particularly like the environment so I mean

those challenges of consistency exist face-to-face but I think it's just a little bit easier to manage

I think a really interesting thing that I want to comment on is you're talking a lot about the

challenges that the client's face and I want to ask you about the challenges that you face one of the

things that you find more difficult about working in person one of the things that you as a trainer

and coach find this is challenging my practice this is making it hard for me to do my job rather than

the challenges that the actual clients themselves are facing. Hmm a great question. Like for example in

the earlier you're talking about you know if you're with your online client set if you ask the right

questions you'll get to know them and you know then you'll know when to push on or when to be a bit

more empathetic and you know is that is your ability to get to know someone in person different or

easier or harder are you in this frequent contact for the people in person as you are online and

I mean the contact is different right like are you do still have online communication with people

that you see in person very much what things do you wish I guess like you know maybe another way to

rephrase it is like what things you wish from your online practice you could just apply in person

or the other way around like I guess like I'm curious to compare the different modalities in your work

yeah I guess right now it's like I very minimally do one-on-one type coaching face-to-face the

model we have at TSF is more like club based coaching whereby I'll be coaching a number of people

at the same time so online coaching I obviously have this like yeah very private communication

channel whereby we can you know a client like feel very comfortable to share with me things that are

like really real challenges that they having that they wouldn't want anyone else to hear but they

want to tell me as their coach or as a trusted person in their life in the gym it can be harder to

to find those opportunities I suppose they're not impossible like there's absolutely members in

the gym who will message me and say hey can I meet you for x-line at certain times we can talk

about x-line z-thing or you know we'll find opportunities just to stand aside of the gym and have

those kind of conversations but I guess in a in a community gym based setting it's harder to have

yet maybe more private opportunities for discussion but on the flip side of that the people that I

say every day you know I'm seeing these people in the gym you know three four times a week that's

like that rapport building can be a lot faster face-to-face they're just different I wouldn't say

that one is like a better or worse than the other in terms of like fostering relationships to be

honest I think like you kind of said before like I probably have much better relationships my

face-to-face clients in online actually don't really believe that to be the case I think online is

in people I've been working with for a really long time you know we have like in-depth communication

every single week it's like those relationships are very robust and I might never well meet them

they're just different so what do you what do you do with those people in person to get like the

most out of them like you know for those that don't realize the people that we work with at TSEF

specifically tend to be people who not tend to but it's a shared responsibility you know between

the coaches work we're all working on them I guess like how do you get out of them the most that you

can when you have like a limited capacity to develop those relationships I suppose yeah obviously

the model at TSEF is quite unique so yeah no one at the gym is coached by an individual coach

they're coached by the team of four coaches but naturally within that lift is within the gym

we'll probably gravitate to one or two of us more than the others they'll be a coach that they

more closely align with that they find more inspiring whose systems they prefer more and that's one

of the beauties of the model is it's like you can kind of you can learn from four different people

but might well seek more support from someone that you yeah that you tend to be more aligned with

with that in mind it's like our rostering is also such that we are going to be seeing you know

the same people many days throughout the week so you can actually build quite a robust relationship

um yeah I don't know I guess it comes down to we're always adequately staffed so that if there's

someone that does need need to have a lot of attention it can happen if we like if we identify

that someone in the gym is like yes struggling it might need more help the roster can be adapted

to permit that to happen so that someone can have more attention if we can if we can identify

that it's needed it's like we're only a small team it's like we're this massive coaching squad where

and it's also like not a good this huge member base where the members are just a number that's

not the case at all it's like we're a small gym with a small coaching team in a small member base

so therefore the needs of the members are very easy to be identified and you can spend that time

with them so if there was someone in the gym that I could say like hey like this person needs to be

like elevated this person needs more support it's like very reasonable to make that happen

um and similarly it's also just recognizing that everyone in the gym is a different individual

person and spending the time with them that they need and getting to know them

so I don't know if I answered your question

no it was great um we know we talked a little bit about your background and kind of how

you know you got into coaching and you know what your role is and stuff

do you feel like you're in a state of flux now in your coaching because you think things are

changing like you know what things have changed in the last year or two in your practice are your

passions shifting you know right now you're talking about your passion lying primarily in working

with beginners and really intermediates giving them started giving them through their first comp you

know making sports were accessible is that has that does that feel like something that's been quite

static or do you think that's even things that are changing now that you're shifting towards or

you're feeling more excited about i think the demographic that I like to work with has remained

like reasonably static and that's something that I still really enjoy I think something that does

fluctuate over time is how much time I spend face to face versus how much time I spend online

coaching um something that I've definitely found in my career is that I can't be doing all of one

or all of the other um if I am entirely online I do struggle with like I like having face to face

interaction I like coaching face to face I like being in the gym so in the times that I have coach

explicitly online for example during the pandemic and when you and I were traveling um you know I do

feel like I'm missing something in gratification I also miss out on comp day coaching which is like

kind of the pinnacle of like our work years so if I was excused the line that's like that I would

really miss but similarly I do like I love coaching face face something that I really want to do but

it's extremely exhausting um and the nature of the fitness industry is such that we work mornings

and we work nights it's like I'm not gonna work every morning and every night of the week I simply

cannot so it's like I definitely oscillate between doing more of one or more of the other depending

on like yeah what like my personal preference is at the time and I let that kind of flow at the

moment I am loving being in the gym so it's like I'm doing much less online coaching and I'm loving

being at TSS I'm loving running the beginner programs um yeah and being with the members on the gym

floor so like that's where I'm like putting my time effort and then Gina I think that's

something beautiful about coaching is that you can like your career can have an open flow based on

like yeah what you're doing and and what you have capacity for. Do you think your approach of

coaching has changed over the last couple years now that you're not doing powerlifting so much or

do you think your relationship with powerlifting doesn't matter so like is that like is that even relevant

like do you feel more disconnected more connected I mean ultimately it's just fitness and like you're

in the gym and you're still training and stuff but is it different. I don't know if it has evolved

because I've been less involved in powerlifting as an athlete or if it's evolved because like I've

gotten older and my clients have gotten older and I've become more attentive to the idea of just

being a generally healthy person so I've obviously like yeah stepped a little bit away from powerlifting

as an athlete and have been doubling in other sports and with that has meant that I have been like pouring

into like other exercise modalities I've been working more of my fitness and I've been working my

or my mobility for example. Have I seen that more in my clients training at the same time yes

but I don't know that that's necessarily driven from my own interest as opposed to their awareness

and my awareness that that's something that's important you know my clients are saying like hey like

you know I'm pretty strong like I haven't been doing much cardio so I'd like to do that or like the

people around me are focusing on being more fit so that's something that interests me too and I

would like to do more of that or like I'm noticing that I'm waking up pretty stiff in the morning so

like yeah let's probably address that so I think that those things have happened alongside each other

but I don't know that that's so much a byproduct of like my personal interest so much as maturing both

of me and the people that I work with. I mean it's the natural continuation right like as you aid

you evolve your practice evolves like we've already spoken about how your like workers evolved

over the like years and the people you're working with has changed and I'm sure it'll continue

to change over the next few years. Do you think you know like it's a bit of a lame question but I

suppose like how do you see it evolving over the next few years like where do you see yourself in

five years or 10 years like is this something that you think you'll continue to just like do because

you know you enjoy your passion enough or do you foresee you know even changes to your

passions leading to changes in your in your work and practice? I don't know I am curious I often said

like when I introduced someone to TSF for the first time I said when TSF first opened it was a

powerlifting club it was like we are competitive powerlifters and we powerlifting here I'm once

upon a time someone was like we did a cardio equipment and you were like no way we're a powerlifting

gym and it's like that's evolved over time right we went from being like very powerlifting mad

to kind of recognizing that you know we just we like being strong we like strength training

and I can play a very different role for a lot of the people. We have cardio equipment in the gym

and we now have cardio equipment in the gym but powerlifting can be avenue to compete at a very high

level it can be something that you participate in competitively at a recreational level or maybe

you just strength training because it's good for you and you know TSF K does for all of those things

so that's been like a very obvious progression for I think you and I over the last eight years

as for like how things go over the next sort of five 10 years I don't know I'm really interested

to see I often think that like you know the good percentage of personal trainers are probably under

30 you know am I still gonna be running a warehouse style powerlifting gym when I'm 50 60 I have no idea

I don't really know how that goes as it stands currently I love running the gym I do probably expect

that maybe like I'll do increasingly less online coaching over time as like my interest goes

towards more like growing the community in the gym and like being a more active participant in like

my local community I kind of see it going that way and maybe diversifying a little bit more into

strength training to support other sports I don't know just preliminary thoughts but I don't

know I'm curious how it goes I just think that like yeah again working in fitness it's like you're

able to chase your interests so I'm yeah I don't know I don't know where my career will go to probably

just full of my interest what do you think it is about you and the way that you work that you think

makes you so well suited to work with like beginners and get them started I suppose like

compared to say other coaches you know like maybe like another coach who's working with a beginner

versus yourself like what are your strengths and weaknesses or mainly strengths I suppose

that kind of help you get get someone going or like what are things that let's say another

coach is listening to this who he's getting started as a coach in general who will inevitably be

working with beginners I need to take it I need to keep in mind I'm afraid this is going to sound

gloaty I think I'm personable and I think my biggest strength is that I'm like I'm warm I'm

extremely open and like I have love pouring out of my pores so like when someone walks into the

room and I say that they're nervous it's like my very natural response is to like make sure they

feel comfortable it's like it's not like oh this is my job this is what I have to do it's like oh I

see that you're nervous and I see that this is a really big step for you like it's a very natural

thing for me to want to support them so I think if you want to work with beginners if that doesn't

cut if that comes naturally to you like I think you'll do great if that doesn't come naturally to you

it's like how can you see that this is a very hard thing for someone how can you come to

empathize that like strengths gyms are horrifying like gyms terrifying so it's like if someone has

taken like the brave step of contacting a strength code of contacting a powerlifting coach and then

stepped over the threshold into a gym that is like loud and grungy and full of stuff that you don't

know how it works and metal and like big strong people it's like yeah how do you cultivate that you

can see that and go like this must be really really hard for you what do you need what do you need

how do I how do I make this comfortable for you it's funny that you answered the question what

you know how do you work with beginners wasn't um wasn't related to actual training like it wasn't

like I'm knowing how to assess someone's big background or knowing how to teach a squat to a beginner

it was makes someone feel comfortable because if you know how to coach that's easy it's like that's

easy to learn like teaching someone how to yeah conducting pre-exercise screening teaching someone

how to control their pelvis helping troubleshoot a squat so they can squat to depth making

someone comfortable on a bench it's like that's like that's the basics that's the stuff you you learn

in in your surgery for that's so easy like the stuff that comes hard is like yeah the other stuff

it's like of course that wasn't answering my question you're a powerlifting coach you should be doing

that already yeah it's like the contrast between soft and hard skills right yeah like if you if you can't

teach them to control their pelvis like what are you even doing here it's all that out it's like that

that's the absolute like bare minimum of being able to work in in in this role and so how do you

get good at those soft skills like how do you actually figure that figure out those intangibles

time in the trenches and like just being a good person I don't know read fiction

reading is in the moment learn about how different people think go outside make some friends touch

some grass go do something new the first time for yourself like if you've only ever done things that

you're good at go into something you're bad at like walk into a space you've never been into

in never been in before walk into a dance studio like walk into a tennis club walk into an improv class

and see how uncomfortable it is to walk into a room you've never been in before to be surrounded by

people that you think all know each other and they're all buddies and they're definitely looking at

you because it's your first day and you obviously have no idea what you're what you're doing there

and you're probably dressed in appropriately because you didn't know what the dress code was like

go walk into that room and like you'll learn really quickly that like this is a really uncomfortable

experience and like you're very quickly realize what you need to feel comfortable in environment

when we're even inquire at T.S.F. about like booking a trial session I always reply and say I tell

them what to wear I tell them what to bring I tell them which door to enter through

hey when you arrive walk in through the roller doors tell anyone that you're here for your trial

session and they will grab the coach for you wear whatever you're comfortable training in

flat-sold shoes to preferred but whatever shoes you have are amazing you can wear anything that

you're comfortable training in bring a bottle of water and towel that's all that you need

it's like I had a panic attack trying to go to dance class on the first day and I couldn't even get

on the bus they didn't know if I was wearing the right clothes so it's like yeah learn what it's like

to do something for the first time and then it becomes much more simple to provide the support

than other person needs it's funny how you relate like other like not related things to like

coaching and work like you know I guess like you're taking lessons from other areas and

unwind them in a very direct way to to training and like the finisentry I suppose because it's all

relevant again it's like the actual specifics of like lifting away pretty simple but it's like

being supported enough and brave enough to actually get in the room in the first place it's

probably a bit harder for the population than I work with right um thank you for your time I think

this has been a great conversation it's good to hear the energy and passion come out of you because

I hear it all the time and so to put on record and hopefully have more than seven people listen to

this probably my mom jules um maybe josh and jerry and like three other people probably will

listen to it but um no I appreciate you sharing sharing all of that because yeah like obviously

our respectful as a coach and I hear we have these conversations all the time but to formalize it

in a way like this has been been really pleasant thank you for having me on as a guest it's been

really special yeah you can say thank you for the opportunity I really am grateful for you thank you

and I'd like my office back all right okay thanks a lot