Charlie Guthrie Training

I don’t advertise and there’s no contracts when you sign up with me. It’s pay as you go. If you don’t enjoy the service, you’re not contractually obligated to come again. It’s a referral-based business. I prefer it that way because it means the people are only coming back because they want to and I can vet the new prospects a lot better to make sure I’m getting solid people. It leads to no bad days.

As you saw in the last post, it wasn’t littered with hundreds of athletes that signed up to train. It’s just not possible for me to train that many people, even though every online coach claims they’ve trained thousands of pro athletes. I look for solid people and families that would be a good fit. It’s the quality over quantity saying. I’ve been blessed with that and wanted these posts to show my appreciation for it.

The Morton’s came through with another great family that’s been so supportive of me when they introduced me to the Gallo’s. Ali and John are always traveling to all these baseball tournaments and are always mentioning my name when someone shows interest in training. John is into training and fitness and it’s always fun talking shop with him after sessions. Ali is one of my biggest cheerleaders and she’s always on the same page as me since she works at a school too. I first met the Gallo’s in the fall of 2022 when I started training Jordyn, but put them in this section since their youngest son, Jason, started training with me in 2024. Jordyn came to me with no athletic background, which actually was good because it gave me a clean slate to work with. Without any bad habits ingrained, she picked up on my cues quickly and became a really smooth runner. We’re aiming for her to run spring track at Tottenville High School.

I always joke that if we combined Jordyn’s form with the intensity of Jason, we’d have a high-level runner. What I love about Jason is he talks about baseball the way Mike Deats talks about hockey. Though undersized, Jason has made so much progress because of the work he puts into each exercise and all of the “extra credit” he does at home with his dad. He’s the youngest kid I’ve ever had perform multiple chin-ups. He’s got that love for baseball and is willing to put in the work to become a better player.

Another awesome brother-sister pair that I got to work with is Ali and Fatima. Their father, also Ali, worked out at Intoxx Fitness and reminds me of Konstantin Konstantinovs. He asked John Errichello about training and he referred them to me. Both were very disciplined kids who succeed in the classroom and work hard in their extracurricular activities. They don’t take anything for granted. Ali is an outstanding soccer player and Fatima is a soccer and track athlete. Two of the easiest kids I’ve ever worked with and the hour flew by with them. They gave every repetition their best effort and listened intently to every word that came out of my mouth, so I had to make sure I was on my game. These kids are a coach’s dream.

Back when I started training Alex Diaz, him and his dad, Carlos, would tell me all about this younger cousin they had who they said was going to be a stud. I forgot about it when Alex’s uncle, John, texted me asking about getting training for his son, who was a pitcher and infielder. I was pretty booked, so I wasn’t looking to take on anyone else, but then I said in my head “how can you pass up a Diaz?” Thank God I didn’t. Josh Diaz is everything Alex and Carlos told me, and then some. When Josh and John come over for training, I get flashbacks to when Alex and Carlos were here. Josh is all business working out and John is filling me in on the travel circuit and the MLB. John and Carlos are people that you could talk baseball with for hours. What I try to explain to people when they come to me about training and what their goals are is that there’s levels to this. Josh flies all over the country and is nationally ranked, yet he never comes in and fools around or thinks he’s too good to do anything. I can tell you a lot of things about Josh, but, to put it simply: he’s what a high performer looks and acts like. Follow his demeanor if you want to make it to that next level.

When Jason Gallo started working with me in 2024, he didn’t come alone. He brought along Tyler Goldstein. Tyler and Jason were a solid youth group and made some good progress relatively quickly. Tyler bought into the monotony of training and focusing on perfecting each step before moving up. Tyler has the patience for it which has paid off for him this past year as he continues to grow. He also takes what he’s learned in the session and is working on it at home with dad, Eric. Eric and Leesa have been so great to work with and have made my life so much easier. I only said that he used to train with Jason because now he has a new session partner, his dad.

ANOTHER GROUP TRAINING OPPORTUNITY

I enjoy one-on-one and small-group training and do believe it is what I’m best at. But, after making a bunch of trips down to Virginia to see Justin Kavanaugh and what they were doing at SSI, I was interested in large-group training. It can be hectic, but it’s also a thrill because you have to make sure you organize everything and you’re always doing something. You have to keep your eyes on so many athletes that’s there’s never a minute where you can take your foot off the gas. I always left those large-group sessions wide awake because you’re always on the go.

I didn’t know if I’d ever get another large group opportunity after working with Anthony Hillery at Petrides in 2021, but something finally came up in January of 2024. John Errichello gave me the chance to work with the 12U and 14U Red Storm softball teams at Intoxx Fitness. This would be the first time I ever got to train a whole team and I wanted this to go as well as it could. We met once per week for sessions at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and it couldn’t have been a more fun experience. I got the chance to watch both of these teams play throughout the year and saw the 12’s play with the Great Kills squad in the all-star tournament. It really gave me a chance to get to know all the girls and see what great people they were and how committed they are. I’ve watched them practice and got to know the coaches throughout the year and it’s just such a well-run organization. Alyson Chiaramonte, Brielle Kerscher and Christina D’Arpa are just great softball people that understand the game and have been so supportive of me. They always made me feel welcome whenever I went to a game. Watching these girls play throughout the year and seeing the success they had was just as fun as the training. I’m thrilled that the training will continue in 2025 with the 10U, 12U, 14U and 16U squads.

BEYOND THE 10-YEAR MARK

The 10-year mark was officially on February 7, 2024. But, I realized I couldn’t fit everything I wanted to into a single post, so I needed the year to really think things through so I didn’t leave anything out. Of course, as that happened I picked up some more great people along the way.

I didn’t meet her until April of 2024, but I couldn’t write a series of posts talking about my athletes without mentioning Jenna Vollor. Jenna is a senior basketball player who will be continuing her career in college at Bryn Mawr in Philadelphia. I met Jenna through my old principal at P.S. 44, Joseph Miller. Mr. Miller was always great to me during my time at P.S. 44 and always told me he’d have sent his kids to train with me if it wasn’t for distance. He did the next best thing by sending me Jenna. Jenna is always striving to do her best in the classroom and is a student of the game. She understands the value of training and is willing to put in the work to do whatever it takes to get better, whether it’s with school or basketball. I love when athletes follow the pro game and Jenna’s knowledge of WNBA and NBA is unmatched. She’s got her traveling partner in her mom, Vanda, who will be with her at all her games, as well as traveling the east coast to watch all the top college teams play.

Two late additions to the training roster were Dennis and K.J. I used to work with Dennis’ mom, Melissa Roskowinski, at P.S. 44 and I remember helping her move a couch years ago and first meeting Dennis. He was almost bigger than me then. I’ve followed his exploits on the baseball field and basketball court throughout the years and look forward to turning him into the ball player he wants to be. In-between all of the conversations where he has to bring me up to date on everything, of course. K.J. plays baseball with Jason Gallo and told me in August of 2024 that it was my job to “turn this into something” as he pointed to his body. If he can help me get a sports collectible collection halfway as impressive as his dad, Keith’s, I’ll do whatever I can to help him reach his goal.

As I told you in my second post, I never liked selling. I was terrible at it and I didn’t like the idea of having to convince people to sign up for training for me. I want to train people that want to be there and want my services. If I have to plead for your business, it’s not going to work out for either of us.

When you’re training people who are a pain in the ass and aren’t invested, it sucks. It turns a passion into a job. Running my business on my own allowed me the chance to make it what I wanted it to be. I have the luxury of having a full-time teaching job, which means I’m not dependent upon coaching to pay my bills. I don’t have to sell people on my training and I don’t try to either. You either want to be here or don’t. I’ll get into it more in a later post, but I just want to train a group of athletes at all levels who want to get better and will bring it every session. I don’t want to be overwhelmed with clients because I don’t have enough time and I want to be able to really get to know the ones I train.

To keep this business going, I had to expand my reach. Fortunately, Gabe Pimenta, who I’ve said has always been in my corner, put me in touch with Marc Goldberg. Marc, who I can’t remember everything he does, so I’ll just say he’s very involved in the sports scene on Staten Island, let me train his daughter, Annalise. Annalise is a stand-out flag football player and just one of those kids who gets it. She was in fourth grade at the time, but had the maturity of a high-school kid. I really had to be on my game training her because she listened intently to everything I said and made training observations that kids her age don’t make. Three years later, Marc sent me he son Brylan to train, too.

Marc was another guy that was always looking out for me and supported what I did. He made training his kids easy because he was always accommodating. He also sent so many kids my way when parents reached out to him about speed and agility training. The biggest reason I’ve been able to expand my reach has been because of Marc. Any coach will tell you working with quality parents is just as important as the kids and that’s a trend you’re going to see throughout this post.

Marc always sent me good people and the first good one came in August of 2021 with Taylor Morton. Taylor was a soccer player and reminded me of Juliana Carrara. Those girls soccer players are just built different and can make a case for being the toughest athletes. I still remember our first session and it was hot at the Bloomingdale Park turf and Taylor was running through every drill without taking a break. It got to the point where I had to force her to take a break. I also remember she didn’t really talk much for the first six months. I’d have to get all my information from her parents, Jimmy and Theresa. Jimmy, who was a wide receiver at St. John’s, was always somebody good to talk to when I was having a bad day because he’s on the same page with me when it comes to the Giants and Yankees. Theresa, from her many soccer travels, helped fill me in on what off-sides meant and we would count down the days to summer as fellow teachers. They told me Taylor’s silence wasn’t the case at home and now I get everything from her when she comes for her lifts. I get good lifts and all the gossip. Watching her grow up and make it into her dream school, St. Joseph by the Sea, has been so much fun to see.

The summer of 2021 also gave me my first opportunity to run a large group session on my own thanks to Anthony Hillery. Anthony was the varsity baseball coach at Petrides and ran a sports camp over the summer at the high school. He posted online that he was looking for recommendations from friends on coaches who would volunteer to help for a day. Steve Hemmes and Patrick Murphy both knew Anthony and were both nice enough to throw my name into the hat. Anthony gave me the opportunity to take a large group of high school athletes through a morning speed and agility session. I’ll never forget that day. Anthony is a great person who was just so good to me that day and made sure everything ran smoothly for me. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a morning person. I went into that day pretty tired, but left ready to conquer the day because it was exhilarating being the head person in charge of a group session that large. I did get flashbacks to my first speed session at SSI in 2016, but this one ran smoothly thanks to things Kav taught me since then.

Right before 2021 ended, I picked up an old friend from Intoxx Fitness in John Schulman. When I trained John at the gym, he was playing flag football and his dad, Bryan, was telling me how he was going to get him into tackle. When John came back to me a few years later, I was worried my gym wasn’t big enough because the young flag football player turned into a 6-foot-4 monster offensive lineman. I only had him for a few months because he was moving to South Carolina, but he went hard outdoors on the turf and in the gym to get himself ready for playing football down south.

My first big addition of 2022 came when Morton’s delivered the Carlson’s. The Carlson’s are your prototypical sports family, in addition to just being all-around great people. The father, John, is a football-guy through-and-through and somebody that would do whatever it took to help his sons succeed. Jeanine is a sports mom who not only racks up the miles driving to her kids sports games, but goes across the country taking her kids to see all the pro stadiums. The training started with Justin in 2022 and a couple of years later Jack joined in. Justin is a football player entering his junior year at Manalapan High School, but we still got plenty of baseball talk mixed in there as he would tell me about all of the baseball stadiums he visited. Unfortunately, he’s known as the “baseball fraud” because he would bring both teams hats to a game to try and get balls during batting practice. Jack, if you couldn’t tell from the face in the picture, is a linebacker who doesn’t shy away from contact. He’ll also crack you up with one of his one-liners when you least expect it. The fact that this family travels from New Jersey to come train with me makes me grateful for every session we have together.

The Goldberg tree of referrals continued into the summer of 2022 when he sent over the prodigy, A.J. Galli. My favorite A.J. story happened during our second session together. For our first session, his dad, Steve, who was another parent that just treated me fantastic, gave me five kids to run a group session the first time I met him. A.J. was one of the five and this was the first time he’d ever been with me. The next time we met for a one-on-one session, he remembered every exercise all the way from the first warm-up and the order they were run in. He actually told me when we ran one exercise out of order. He was 7 at the time. A.J. was a star in the classroom, on the baseball field, when he played flag football and, especially when he played golf, where he traveled all over for tournaments. He was so mature about training at 7 years old that you couldn’t talk to him like a regular kid. His demeanor and processing made it where I treated him like he was in high school. Iy took me a while to adjust. He honestly did not mind training in any condition and we did. His last session with me was in July of 2023 because he moved to Florida and you can see it started raining when we took our picture. I actually had to tell him the session was over because he was ready to go for another half-hour. A.J. and Steve were just so great to work with and I miss them everyday.

What you notice throughout the writing of all my athletes is how great they are to work with and the great families they come from. When you’re working with kids, the families are just as important as the athletes you’re training and these people, along with the ones I’ll talk about in my final post are all tremendous people. The hardest part when writing all these is figuring out different adjectives to use instead of great and awesome.

On a frigid Friday night in January of 2016 I was driving to New Jersey to get some gas when a strange phone number popped up. Those that know me know I’ve gotten plenty of strange calls in my life, but this one had a Miami area code. Unlike those other calls, this was actually a good one.

It was Justin Kavanaugh reaching out after I emailed him back after SWIS. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think he was ever going to reach out to me. He asked me if I wanted to come down during my February break to his facility in Virginia, the Sport and Speed Institute (SSI), to watch him train his guys for their NFL Pro Days and discuss some things to write about. When I left newspapers in 2013, I didn’t ever think writing would come into play again. Turns out, writing was instrumental in getting my foot in the door in both teaching and coaching.

I was down to check out this stranger’s gym, even though I had no idea what to expect. Little did I know, this trip would change the entire course of my coaching career. I was about to walk into a world that I only knew of from my time at SWIS. Without this phone call, I’m most likely not in the training business anymore. I would have eventually flamed out.

2016-to-2019 was a game-changing, four-year span for me. My knowledge and network would grow exponentially and my business would slowly go in the direction I wanted it to. Because so much happened, I broke it down into two posts. The next post will get into the business side because that doesn’t grow without all of the experiences that took place outside of Staten Island.

That trip to Virginia during President’s Day Weekend, turned into another trip over the summer where I was humbled, to say the least, running my first speed session with 10 minutes notice, to experiences that would change my life. This is where I learned what true training is and learned about the things you can’t just find online. I went into that trip not knowing what I was getting into to leaving feeling that I was truly on the right track for the first time. There were glimpses here and there before, but this trip gave me hope because I believed I had someone in my corner that would show me the right way to do things. Right after that first trip, I used my winnings from the SB911 contest to attend the CPPS certification weekend.

Every year I went down I was exposed to NFL and Olympic training. I watched how Kav and Dylan Seeley worked with these guys for hours and saw real high-level coaching that you hear about, but never see. I also saw how sessions should be run from the youth through collegiate level from watching Allan Africa, Conner Crowell, Jon Lamb, Lars Stevenson, Thomas Mayhugh, Harrison Leep and Amy Driessen coach. Like the Saban Coaching Tree, they’re all off doing bigger things now.

Every year I would be down at SSI during President’s Day break to watch him train his guys for their Pro Days. You have to be more than a spectator when you’re with Kav, so he gave me the opportunity to speak to his guys about dealing with the media and I’d even get the chance to run a little “arm farm” session at the end of certain days. Some of those guys are still in the NFL and I’d like to think it was because of the one “fill the sleeves” session they ran with me. Over the summer, I got the chance to watch him prep Jason Rogers and Nick Mayhugh for the Olympics. I mean where else are you going to get these type of opportunities as someone who works at a commercial gym?

Over the years, Kav showed me the seminars to attend that led to me meeting Adam Feit, Bobby Smith and Alison Culley through the Speed and Power Summits run by Athlete’s Acceleration. These events were held at Reach Your Potential Training in New Jersey and Adam and Bobby ran a phenomenal facility. Alison has also come through in the clutch numerous times in helping me get me CEUs. After hearing so much about them, I got to finally attend the CVASP seminars in Richmond, Virginia run by Jay DeMayo.

Going to all these events gave me a better idea of what to look for in a seminar and where to find some to go on my own. I started listening to more podcasts and that’s what led me to the PLAE Seminar that was held at the Under Armour facility in Baltimore and the Pro Coaches Clinic, which actually took place in New York City. That seminar always stands out to me because it was a short trip to the city in the middle of a school week. I’d also make the trip to a baseball-centric conference in Boston when I attended the Elite Pitching Performance Seminar.

During this stretch, I was also attending SWIS each year and my confidence to go up to the speakers grew as I got more comfortable. One of the big conversations I had was with Dave Tate, the owner of elitefts. He gives everybody his full attention and had a long conversation with me that eventually went into writing. Funny how it keeps coming back to writing. He offered me the chance to write for his website, which gave me the opportunity to write about my time at SWIS and, also, the trips I’d make to Ohio for the elitefts Sports Performance Summit and Business seminars.

As I started to get to know more of the speakers at SWIS, one presentation that was always must-see for me was Matt Nichol’s. Matt’s presentation in 2015 was actually the first one I ever attended. I still go back to it because in-between the Simpson’s references and funny stories about his trip to Westside, Matt talks about seeing the forest through the trees. It was a part of his presentation I’d refer back to frequently because it gives you some guidance when you feel like you’re drowning in new information to the point where you’ll never catch up. At the last SWIS in 2024, he joked with me that this was where we would have our annual meeting.

In addition to all the traveling, Kav held a lot of in-house seminars at SSI where he brought in the best the industry has to offer. Kav took away all of the guess work in trying to figure out who to listen to and just brought the best to his house. These events were all inclusive, too. Not only did I get to listen to these people present, but the intimate environment made it where I got to know them on a personal level and had the opportunity to have dinner with all of them. On the training side, they all gave me something that I still use or remember to this day.

These events gave me the opportunity to truly meet the main sources of information. Ian King and Henk Kraaijenhof are two coaches who get referenced often in the presentations of others. King, who I’m going to go into more detail in another post, really woke me up with his in-house presentation and changed my view of training. You won’t see many with his approach to training and it led me to taking his Level 0, 1 and 2 KSI courses. Going from one legend to another, I got to see the renowned sprint coach Kraaijenhof show the technology he uses to test hamstring strength on Nick Mayhugh.

Another coach who’s work led to me taking their online courses is Mai-Lin Dovan. I got to see her present and worked with athletes with Lea Thibault. There’s a lot to go through with her courses so I’m still in progress towards finishing them. She was just a great person to talk to and she changed my view on what is considered lean.

Dr. Ken Kinakin, the creator of SWIS, gave a great demonstration on muscle testing, but his best work is what he did to fix my shoulder. I was dealing with anterior shoulder pain for months and he needed approximately five minutes to fix it. Once again, I saw firsthand how the best in the business find solutions fast. Through Kav’s in-house seminars and the times at SWIS, it was always great getting to see Ken. Even when he’s got thousands of things going on and he’s running around everywhere, he always takes the time to welcome you. Jason Dhir is one of the nicest people you will meet and also one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to supplements. His Amino Code by Ultra Human supplement has been one of my go-to’s for years and one of the first things I recommend to people.

I’ve gotten to watch Julia Ladewski and Mark Rogers, two experienced coaches and power lifters, give a hands-on demonstration of the big three lifts and their checkpoints are what I use to this day, especially with the bench press and deadlift. Jeff Moyer, who is one of the best when it comes to vision training, gave me tips for improving batter’s eye that I’ve used on myself and others. Nicole Rodriguez went into the systems she used at EXOS and gave me a way to progress and regress plyometric exercises that became pivotal when I started building my youth client base.

Now, on the advice side, that’s where I turn to the presentations given by Joel Proskewitz and Heather Pearson. Joel, one of the leading spinal experts, talked about how the things he was teaching aren’t meant to be used right away and that it takes time to learn them. It was a tiny part of his day-long presentation, but it stood out because most people talk about takeaways you could implement right away. He really went in-depth and, I’ll be honest, a good portion of it was over my head. That line always stuck with me. Another one came from Heather. Heather is known as a “magician” in the rehab world, but she talked about visualization at the end of her presentation. She said when athletes are visualizing success, they need to do it from their own eyes and a first-person perspective, not from the outside. That struck me because so many times when I would visualize myself succeeding, it would be like I was watching myself from the outside. I still use her technique to this day. Kav also brought in Brett Bartholomew right as his Conscious Coaching book was taking off. I learned that movies aren’t the only things made with alternate endings.

Then, Kav got me involved with his Coaches Room Mastermind where I’ve been able to connect with great coaches from all across the country. I reconnected with the Beard Boss CJ Appenzeller, who in addition to being a great friend has been a valuable resource. I first saw CJ present at the CPPS in 2016 and met up with him at the elitefts seminars and Pro Coaches Clinic in 2018 before the mastermind. He’s been so helpful with me when it comes to baseball training and does great impressions. Unfortunately, it’s a small niche of strength coach impressions. Then there’s, Gary Mahabir, a fellow NY native, who is not only one of the nicest people you’ll meet, but has a physique that people half his age would kill for. Driving back from one of the masterminds with him was one of the quickest four-hour drives I’ve ever had. There’s a lot of things you can say about Gary, but, to put it simply, it’s great having somebody like him in your corner.

I’ve got a lot of fond memories of the coaches I’ve met from the mastermind. It features people from all over, but New York is well-represented with Nick Tintle and Eric Chessen. Nick was in California when I met him and is now running a lacrosse business in Texas, but he was a standout lacrosse player in Long Island and he gave me the chance to break out my limited tri-state lacrosse knowledge from when I was in newspapers. Eric, also no longer a New Yorker, runs Autism Fitness and his dry sense of humor is top notch. He’ll make a joke out of nowhere and at the most random times that will crack me up. Then there’s Dave Brix, who puts David Goggins to shame. This guy truly lives what he says. The capper for me when I was coming back from a night out in Vegas and he was just getting done with his workout. On the west coast there was Javier Miller-Estrada and Jason Maher. Javy is another solid person and it’s been great seeing what he and Rob Gambardella have done out in Arizona with Ignite Performance. Jason is an awesome guy to talk sports with, even though he’s a Boston Red Sox fan. I’m sure I’m missing people because the mastermind has grown, but Kav filled it with quality people and it let me know I was in the right room and on the right path.

These masterminds covered everything and Kav would bring in people from all walks of life to help your business. Two of my favorites to learn from came on his social media/video creation side with Ryan Magin and Chris Perrilli. I also learned Ryan is a great guy to have with you when one of the events is held in Las Vegas. On that trip, we got to check out the UFC Performance Institute and then Ryan took over for the nighttime festivities.

So much went on during this four-year stretch. Writing about it was hard because I’m trying to pack in so much information and do it as concisely as possible. Any of the events or people I mentioned I could write a whole post about. I put off writing about it for a while because I just didn’t know how to go about it. I just decided to write down the key events on a piece of paper and go off about them.

This post also gave me a chance to look back on some fond memories. Going through the 10 years reminded me of where I started and then this post reminded me of how much opportunity and growth took place. This stretch made me who I am today. In my first two years, I’d have people coming up to me trying to tell me what I was doing was wrong and I’d actually give them the time of day. Now, there’s not a chance of that happening. I wouldn’t have that confidence without the experiences and people I’ve met over this time.

When I was starting out in 2014, I couldn’t ever imagine having these experiences. I figured that I would start going to conferences, but I couldn’t picture it happening anywhere close to this level. And none of this would have been possible without Kav reaching out to me with that phone call on January 2016. He told me never to write a post about what he did, but I can’t tell my story without mentioning it.

Just when I start feeling good about myself, I figure out something else to wonder and worry about. I got into training because I wanted to work with high school athletes. It’s nothing against the adults I trained, I loved all of them. But, it wasn’t what drew me to training. I wanted to help kids and I wanted to be around sports. But, I had no athletes and there were no leads in sight.

I know I work with mostly youth athletes now, but the idea of youth training didn’t cross my mind at the time. I was working in a gym where the youngest people there were in high school. Instagram and social media wasn’t what it is now, so I didn’t really know of anybody that was doing youth training.

I finally got my break in 2015, but it came with a caveat. I hated selling, but you better believe I put on my best salesman work when Joe Desilvio and Luke Santore came in. I sold to them like my life depended on it and I was able to land them both. Unfortunately, they told me ahead of time they wanted to do one contract’s worth of training. Joe had baseball coming up and his summer was swamped and Luke just wanted to get started so then he could go off and train on his own. They were upfront about it and they gave me a chance, all I could ask for.

Not what I wanted to hear, but beggars can’t be choosers and I was determined to give them the best experience they could get. Joe was a baseball player at Monsignor Farrell High School, where I played growing up, so he was everything I was looking for. I was excited landing him as a client because I always wanted to work with high school baseball players and I got the opportunity to break out some of the baseball and athletic training exercises and drills I’ve been reading about. I didn’t have him for long, but the good news was he wound up making the varsity team and then, two years later, continued playing baseball at John Jay College.

Joe I had a couple of months, but the 15-year-old Luke and his dad gave me a year. Luke wasn’t on any teams, but definitely could have been a football player. I thought we were going to have to take things slow, but he was a gym rat by day one. Over time, I gave him stuff to do on his own and I’d see him every week getting after it. The year was awesome and his lifts went through the roof. On his last session, he deadlifted 345 pounds and was close to bench pressing 225 pounds. I knew he would be good on his own, but man it was hard letting him go knowing what could have been if I had another year. I still see him at the gym and he’s a monster.

So far, things were looking pretty good. But, the trajectory shifted and it had me questioning myself. Luke and Joe were awesome, but they were soon gone. Camille was doing amazing work, but she was moving. Jess was flipping tires, box squatting and pushing sleds, but she moved, too. I was losing people. And, while it was for circumstances out of my control, it hurt. These were people that helped me grow up in this business and losing them never crossed my mind (except for the boys, I knew I only had them for one contract). I’d pick up people here and there, but they’d either do the three-session trial or sign up for a month and then be gone.

The doubts start creeping in again. How am I going to sell myself to more people? I thought I was starting to get passed that. Then, I’m looking at myself in the mirror and wondering if I’d ever actually get myself in any real shape. How could I be a trainer if I can’t even get myself in better shape? The doubts were coming out of the woodworks.

For the past couple of years, I’d been following Joe DeFranco and running his training programs for myself. He came out with a podcast in 2014 and made an announcement in March that he was coming out with a new program. His “Westside for Skinny Bastards” program was his main online program that he was known for and he was coming out with the upgraded version called SB911. If you were a part of his Insider group, which I was, you’d get to test out the program and be a part of a transformation contest.

I’ve never really made a transformation in my own training before, but was willing to go out given the stakes. I didn’t care about winning, I just cared about placing in the top 3 because that would give you a one-hour consultation with Joe D. and Jim “Smitty” Smith. I felt like it was perfect timing because I needed a kick in my training and would be going to Las Vegas for the first time over the summer, where I’d have to take my shirt off to go into the pools.

I figured it was put up or shut up time. If I’m really as upset as I claim to be and want to do all these things as a coach, well here’s my chance to take a stand. I’ve written and talked about it so much, so I’ll just save you some time and tell you I won. I talked about winning the contest on my site here.

Making that much progress, getting compliments from people and finding out I won gave me a huge boost in confidence. I thought maybe I actually can do something now that I’ve shown that I could actually get myself in shape. This contest opened up the door to me traveling to seminars.

I’ve heard so many coaches that I followed online talk about what they’ve learned from going to seminars across the country and interacting with different coaches. For the longest time, I had no idea where to even look for these events. I developed a small online friendship with Joe D. through the contest, so I finally got the courage in late August during one of his Q & A’s to ask him if he would be presenting anywhere.

That’s when he brought up the SWIS Symposium. He said it was up in Toronto in November and it was one of the best seminars that was out there. If you were going to go to any seminars, this would be the one to go to. He said the things you’ll learn there will blow you away. After going to SWIS every year since, I can tell you it’s the best run seminar there is. I’ve never flown anywhere solo before. It was costly and I wasn’t making much money, so I did have a conversation with my mom about whether or not it was worth it. I was leaning towards doing it and she pushed me towards booking it. She became a fan of Joe which helped.

At the time, I had no idea that I was going to be making a trip that would change the entire course of my training career. And I wouldn’t have any idea of that for a few months after the fact. The trip to Toronto started off with a bang because I met up with Dr. Tom Bilella, who most know as Dr. Tom. Dr. Tom came up to me when we landed because he saw I was wearing a DeFranco hoodie and introduced himself and offered to pay for a cab to the hotel. Dr. Tom was speaking at SWIS and worked closely with Joe D. for a lot of years. Here I was, a nobody in a sea of some of the best coaches in the world, and Dr. Tom made sure I was comfortable. He was an awesome man and actually worked with my mom, my aunt and me on nutrition and taught us a whole lot.

SWIS was part inspirational and part disheartening. Seeing all of these high-end presentations opened my eyes to what is truly out there in the training world. I saw there are so many things out there that the average person couldn’t comprehend. It made me want to get to that level. While that was good, it was also quite humbling. It showed me how little I know. I didn’t really know where to go for certain time slots, I was mostly there for Joe D’s presentation, and wound up sitting in presentations where I had no clue what was being said. The stuff was going right over my head and it had me wondering if I’d ever be able to learn and apply even a fraction of the things being discussed. This was a conference was so high level that you could be in a presentation where the attendees are more distinguished than some of the presenters.

I’m just sitting there listening to stories about these guys training and treating all sorts of pro athletes, Olympians and teams and their state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. These guys have all these stories and I’m making $10-to-$15 an hour training out of a commercial gym. I was the small fish in a very large pond. I did take some pictures and talk to some people, but the imposter syndrome was kicking in. I did not feel like I belonged.

On the last day, I ran into Justin Kavanaugh and Dylan Seeley. Both of them could see that I was the odd man out, but came up and talked to me. Justin bet Dylan that I wouldn’t email him and connect with him. I’m a terrible salesperson and not good at being social in crowds where I don’t know anybody, but I am good at getting back to people after connecting. That was one thing I learned from working in sports media.

The first thing I did when I got home was send Justin an email. I didn’t know much about him and I didn’t know if he would ever get back to me. He never responded to my email, which anyone who knows Justin will laugh about, but he did friend me on Facebook in December.

I had no idea if anything would come of that email. I just went about my days wondering where I would go as a coach. I would find out the implications of that email the next year.

I’ve been asked by a couple of people over the years about getting into personal training. Each time, I look back to my first year doing it and tell them two things: don’t make it your full-time job right off the bat and you better love the process of training people. I don’t say that because I hate what I do. I say it because you start at literal zero and it takes quite a while before you make it out of the basement.

Social media clouds people’s judgement. You get the full spectrum of BS on there. You’ve got the mixture of young kids just out of college and mediocre powerlifters telling you to “DM them for online training” even though all their posts are just them lifting and they’ve never trained a soul. Then, there’s the social media coaches that even other coaches follow who claim to have trained thousands of pro athletes, but there’s not a single post of them with an athlete. On the other end, you can’t forget the “coach of the coaches” that claim you’ll make $10K per month with them even though they have no real success stories. There’s so much garbage out there and you don’t learn that it’s garbage unless you’re in the business long enough and around the right people.

People see all of this online and think it’s easy. I’ve even been asked by people, who had good intentions, why don’t I try to be like so-and-so. I have to explain that the person isn’t a real coach and most of their followers are bought.

If you’re patient, in it for the right reasons and have plans on growing as a coach, you’ll make it for whatever your long-term goal is. For me, my goal was to always make this a successful job after school where I worked with athletes of all ages. I wanted to be able to help people and have the stories to back it up. I don’t like having to sell to people, so a referral-based business works much better for me.

What worked in my favor in the beginning was that I am patient. I’m also an optimist. I always believed that you need at least one goal that people think is crazy. I’m not optimistic all the time, but I always believe that if you’re in the game you have a chance. It’s not something that’s going to happen right away, but if you stay in it and keep working towards your goal, you’ll be rewarded eventually. Patience and optimism was necessary because the clients weren’t rolling in for me in the beginning.

My first client wasn’t a paying client. It was my brother, James. He’s always been my biggest supporter and would do whatever was needed to help me out. He did enjoy training and willingly volunteered to do whatever I asked during my sessions to get better. If I saw something online that a pro athlete was doing, you better believe I had him trying it out for me. He was willing to do whatever was needed to succeed and I don’t know where I would be without him.

A moment I look back on was a few years ago, before I started training, when he first walked into a gym with me. I didn’t know any better, so I was going to have him just join in with a program I was doing. Some things were hard for him and I didn’t know how to coach him besides saying just do it like I was. Fast forward to 2014, to be able to actually show him the right way to do certain exercises was a big deal to me. (As a sidebar, I also think about that moment whenever somebody tells me they just need a couple of exercises to show their kid because they will train them themselves. I think to myself, you don’t workout or know anything about training, but you’re going to train your kid now?)

Eventually, I was able to land my first paying client, Theresa Folino, on my first sales pitch, but she was the only person that I could convert for a while. I hated the selling process, mostly because I was terrible at it. I closed like Aroldis Chapman in an elimination game. For the first month I didn’t think much about it. But, then, after a couple of months of not landing anybody, I did start to question if I could actually do this.

On top of not being able to sell, the other issue is I really didn’t know what I was doing outside of what I learned in the textbook. Theresa was perfect for me because she was coming off an injury and wanted to slowly get back into training. I’m glad that was the case because I couldn’t offer her much more outside of the basics anyway. She was a trooper and made my life easy as I tried to figure things out.

The only other client I picked up during this time was a lady named Leigh DeFazio, who was given to me by Kim Kehoe. Leigh’s schedule changed and Kim was unable to train her because she worked at a school. Leigh was willing to do whatever I programmed for her and she gave me the opportunity to go outside the box as I was learning more. This helped me gain a little confidence as I was trying to get clients and would be one of many nice things Kim has done for me. Kim is another one who has always been good to me and my family and somebody I trusted to train my mom. You know Kim is good when my mom followed everything she said.

Fortunately, when I was able to finally connect and land some people, they were gems in Jennifer Imperatrice, Jene Romeo, Jess Livan and Camille Faccio. Picking up these ladies was huge for me because there was really a point in time when I didn’t know if I would ever get another client. Things were looking bleak for me. What made it even better is that they were awesome people. There’s nothing worse than getting a client that makes the time drag. All of these ladies were a pleasure to train.

Jennifer, like Theresa, wanted to get back into the gym and she loved the weights. She didn’t care if it was a machine, a free weight or the trap bar, she wanted to try it all. Jen would ask me questions about the different pieces of equipment and wanted to try everything, in a good way. She loved wrestling, too, so we would keep each other up to speed on what was happening because she knew I loved going to events with my brother. She would come around 7 or 7:30 p.m. after work and was always in a good mood and a bright spot.

Jene was in her 70s and used to be an archeologist. Her goal was to build the strength to be able to go on one more dig. We started off slow, but as she gradually got better, she wanted to increase things and started trap bar deadlifting and even flipped some tires. She came into the gym wanting to keep things basic, but, as she got stronger, she would stare at that tire and tell me that she wanted to be able to flip it. In addition to being a hard worker, she was the social butterfly at the gym who made friends with everybody and lit up any room she was in with her personality. Within two months, she had more friends at the gym then I did.

Jess came in and challenged me a different way. She had either a dancing or gymnast background (I always get the two mixed up) and I had to up my game. She was an athlete and she can move, so I had to go into the bag to come up with different ways to challenge her. It was a fun process for me because she challenged me as a coach. People don’t realize this now because things have changed, but there wasn’t many women at our gym at this time. She made me feel pretty cool because here I had this woman pushing sleds, working with a barbell and doing things you weren’t accustomed to seeing a woman do frequently. In between, we would share school stories and those were always entertaining.

Camille will always be special to me because she wrote the first testimonial for me. She came in focused and worked out like a savage. She went to a nutritionist, trained with me three times per week and then worked out on her own. She is somebody that I would say made every single minute of a session count. She wound up losing 49 pounds in six months and she gave me a huge spark. Before I started working with her, I kept wondering if I would ever be good enough to actually help anybody. My clients were making progress, but I didn’t have that before-and-after picture to show that I was really making a difference. Everything was just based off of what clients told me. I’d see these before-and-after pictures online with these drastic changes and didn’t think I’d ever actually be able to get one of my own. Camille showed me that I had some hope. It certainly didn’t hurt having a woman like Camille who was not letting anything get in the way of her goal.

Those ladies helped me get through the year. As much as I am an optimist, I’m also hard on myself. On top of not being the best salesperson, I’d have to deal with hearing things from other members of the gym. I was a new trainer, so I guess that gave them the right-away to question what I was doing in front of clients and while I was working out on my own. There was even a time where someone asked me while I was working out if anybody I train actually makes any progress or do they just give me their money. It was like every time I started to feel good there was somebody ready to chop me down.

Now, through experience, I wonder why I gave those encounters any thought. I was still new and wasn’t really that confident in what I was doing. I couldn’t explain my reasoning behind every exercise like I could now. When your confidence isn’t there, those encounters will make you question yourself. The only thing that kept me going was training those ladies and keeping their best interests in mind. I didn’t know if I’d be able to sell another client, but knew I’d at least be around as long as they needed me.