2020 was a year we would all like to forget. While the pro athletes were telling us on TV why I needed to understand their hardships of playing sports at the time, I needed to figure out where the money was going to come from. My teaching position got cut and it didn’t look like I would be training anyone in the near future, or ever again. It was just so sudden to think that after all these years of training and traveling that it was all just going to end.
Right before the pandemic, I ordered an elitefts power rack so I could do the big three lifts (squat, bench press and deadlift) at home. The powerlifting craze was underway and every kid with their gummy bears and candy needed the rack or platform for more than hour. Then, when the pandemic started, we didn’t know when gyms would open up, so me and my brother, James, started designing a full gym where we could lift together with all of the necessary equipment. It kept us sane during that unusual year. Here’s what I wrote about the gym back in 2020.
The gym was designed for me and my brother, there was never any intention of training anyone else down there. For us, it gave us a chance to lift to together while watching sports. We would never miss another game because we were at the gym. But, around February of 2020, Mr. Palumbo kept putting the idea of training his daughter, Olivia, in my basement. She had a couple of paid sessions left over from the gym, so, after a couple of months, she started coming over that summer. She would train in my basement for the entirety of her college career and a lot of core gym memories happened during that time. She’s the second longest tenured athlete I’ve trained and the first athlete to train with me from middle school throughout college. I always believed in developing a system of taking athletes from the youth level and building them up gradually to prepare them for high school and college and she gave me the opportunity to see it through. The training was fun because it was really the first time we had access to everything without having to worry about other people using the equipment we needed. She worked so hard and always brought a positive attitude to every session. It was great watching her develop into a multiple time all-conference selection and a member of the 100-hit club. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she got the ball rolling on this next chapter of my training career.
Shortly after, Juliana Carrara reached out and she’s the one that gave me the idea to do speed and agility work at nearby Owl Hollow Park. Just like with Olivia, she had a few paid sessions left over from the gym, so I wanted to give her the opportunity to use them. At that time, I figured we would just do a few sessions and then she would be back at college. I didn’t realize she would come back during breaks and the summer and would become the first college athlete I’d train until they graduated. She brought that same never give up attitude that she showed in the gym and also I got to see the pointing when we trained outside. Then you had our indoor sessions, which were actually a break for her since she got to work out in the air conditioning and were sandwiched between individual work in the morning and evening team practices. Getting the chance to train Juliana again also meant I’d still get my occasional texts from Mare Bear.
It meant a lot that both girls reached out to train with me again. I’ve always wanted to show my athletes that I do truly care about them and the advice and support extends outside of the sessions. I was a little taken aback when I found out someone tried to take them from me, even after it was established that they were both working with me, but I appreciated that they told me right away who it was and never gave the offer a thought.
Positive momentum was building and it continued over the summer when parents of kids I trained started reaching out and asking if I was going to do any training. James Johnson’s mom, Melanie, was the first parent of my youth group to reach out. Olivia was the only one I was training indoors at the time and I wasn’t too sure about having kids train in the basement because the equipment wasn’t all there. The stuff I had could really only be used with my older athletes. Based on the idea that came from Juliana, I offered up outdoor training and she said that was no problem. My solo sessions with James turned into group sessions because she was helping spread the word and would bring James’ friends from hockey to join. One of his friends Jordan, would join James when we eventually moved indoors and would do solo sessions, as well.
It was the first time I was getting cash for sessions and it really opened my eyes. I was just taking things day-by-day during this time because I didn’t know when it was going to end. But, ideas started floating in my head and this made the idea of training on my own more real because I saw that I could run the business the way I wanted to. Since I was getting 100% of the profits from my sessions, I could keep it where I trained a small group of athletes over the course of a week and give them the full attention needed to truly learn them and help them develop.
While I was training James, Gabe Pimenta reached out and I started working with his son, Gabe, again, as well as his younger daughter, Juliette. This was around the time little Gabe was becoming big Gabe, but, unfortunately, they moved two years later. Like I said in the last post, Gabe was just an awesome person to have in my corner because he always supported what I did. Right before he left, he played a role in helping my client base extend outside of people I trained at the gym. I’ll always be thankful for him.
The training would extend over the Outerbridge and into New Jersey with Derek and Ava. Again, this whole training business was done on the fly and I didn’t have anything to offer them on Staten Island because I wasn’t working with kids indoors yet and I wasn’t going to back them drive down here to use the park. The Fernandez family couldn’t have been more accommodating. The reached out right before the school year was starting and they had the perfect backyard to train in and actually had more equipment than I had. Both kids were making progress and I can’t say enough about how good that family was to me. They made the trip to New Jersey well worth it.
Now, I tried to do this post in the order that everyone returned. So, the only reason it took this long to get to Mike Deats is because he came back right around the winter time. I can’t tell the story of my training career without mentioning the Deats family. In addition to being the longest tenured athlete I’ve trained, his family with Samantha and Alex have been ultra supportive of me and his dad, Dennis, helped me build my gym out. During my time at Intoxx Fitness, Dennis always told me that if I ventured out on my own he would help me build anything I needed. I wound up reaching out during the spring of 2020, not realizing the gym he was helping me build would be the new home of Guthrie Training.
I hadn’t seen Mike for a few months after Dennis helped me out and when I finally did, I thought he had an older brother that he never told me about. One thing Mike did during 2020 was grow. Mike transformed from a kid I trained to a man I had to get ready for high school. He had that focus and buy-in that you see from the best and he was, and still is, determined to be the best hockey player he can be. Watching him grow from a youth player at the youngest level into a city champion and two-time varsity starter at Monsignor Farrell High School has been a pleasure. I’ve had those moments watching him play where I say to myself in my head, “this is why you got into training.” If I ever say anything that sounds smart in regards to hockey, it’s because Mike taught me about it during a session. He loves learning about the history of hockey and he’s known to drop these hockey gems of information about teams, players and equipment from almost 50 years ago in-between sets of pull-ups and deadlifts.
It was great having all of my athletes from my time at Intoxx Fitness reach out to me to continue their training with me. I try my best to give everybody my all and show them that I care about their successes inside and outside the weight room and for them to think of me when it came to their training, meant a hell of a lot. Intoxx wasn’t done giving me clients because Mike Giliotti, once again, came through and delivered me a stud in Alex Diaz. Mike does not play around when it comes to training, so for him to reach out and give me a potential client that inquired with him because he thought I was the best choice for them is something I still think about to this day.
All I knew was Alex was a baseball player interested in training. I had no idea I was getting a family that lived and breathed baseball and a kid that was willing to do whatever it took to get better. Out of everyone I trained, Alex made the quickest transformation I’ve ever seen. His dad, Carlos, in addition to being a great person was a former body builder, but there’s something in that Diaz blood that makes them different. I just remember Alex laying on the floor after the first workout, joking that the session was tough. I was shocked because I never plan to make any session grueling, especially the first one. What took place over the next five months was something I couldn’t even predict. I will preface this by saying Alex came to me three times per week because he was home since his school was still doing remote learning. After that first session, he absolutely took off by bringing this intense focus that very few have and making great strength and speed gains along the way. He never missed a session.
Our sessions were long and he would still ask if there was more when we were done. My favorite story we got hit with a big snow storm my block was a private neighborhood so we were really snowed in. I had to cancel training because I had to help my neighbors shovel and I thought it was a pretty easy choice to make. I had to spend an hour through text convincing Alex not to come. He told he would walk through the snow to make it, but I really couldn’t do the session because I had shovel out a bunch of my neighbors. I knew he was determined, but that conversation is one I’ll never forget. Right there I was getting a lesson about what separates the great from the average.
So much happened from March to December and I appreciate everyone that came back to me from the gym for what they did for me. They turned a hectic year where we saw things we never saw before, into a turning point in my life. I went from thinking training was done to we’ll see how long this can last to I think we got a business here. The next post, which will be the final one, will show how the reach of my training expanded to outside of the circle people I knew from Intoxx.