EFS Spotlight: Cornell Key
By
The Angry Coach
I met New Jersey’s Cornell Key at a seminar a few weeks ago, and was
immediately impressed by his size – he’s obviously an athlete – his training
acumen and his willingness to get out and ask questions of anyone and everyone
in order to expand his knowledge base. After talking to Cornell for a while, I
thought it would be very interesting to sit down and formally interview him as
an example of how it’s eminently possible to take your training knowledge out on
your own and build a successful business from the ground up. Key is the founder of Key2 Sports Training in Wall Township, NJ. For more information, visit
http://www.key2sportstraining.com.
Tell us something about your background, how you got into the training
business, and how you ended up opening your own facility.
Well, my background is like most of us...I grew up an athlete, and I was a
three sport athlete in high school. I did football, basketball and track. I was
very good on the football field and mediocre in the other stuff, but I kind of
did it to stay busy. I used football as a means to motivate myself to get ready
for college. I really didn’t have high aspirations when I first started out, but
just by being positive and being good at football, I knew I wanted to play at
the next level, and my coach really helped me out. He got me into Monmouth
University (New Jersey). It was a big deal for me to get into a school like that
– a growing program.
When I got to Monmouth, my career basically began. I sat out my first two
seasons. In ’97, my sophomore year, I sat the whole season out with a torn
ligament in my thumb, so I had 1998-2000 to play, and when I did get on the
field, I was first team all-conference every year, I was all-ECAC, Mid-Major
All-American, team captain two years in a row, and won various other awards, so
I did the best I could with the time that I had.
When I was in college, I studied criminal justice. I wanted to be a trooper,
man. I wanted to be a cop, and that was what I put my time and energy into in
terms of the books. In terms of the weight room, I was always a guy who was
getting into the weight room with my buddies, working out, getting better and so
forth. In 2001, after I graduated, I went right into football coaching. I
coached from 2001 to 2004. I was defensive line coach, weight room assistant,
and also helped with some compliance for the NCAA at Monmouth.
During this time frame, my job responsibility in addition to coaching was to
be the “stretch and warm-up guy.” I kind of had to learn on the fly. I remember,
on the first day of camp when the upperclassmen got there, one of my coaches
walked up to me and said, “All right, we’ve got ten minutes to warm these guys
up.” There were about 110 guys out there, so I had to learn on the fly and draw
from what I knew. Sadly enough, that’s how a lot of coaches still run their
programs these days, and I didn’t realize at the time how ignorant that was, to
just throw somebody out there who had no knowledge of warm-ups or anything.
That’s where my learning started. I began looking into it and learning it and
studying it.
In 2004, I moved on. If you’ve ever been a college football coach, you know
it doesn’t pay very well at all. As I got older, I needed to begin a career and
get my life going. That year, I decided I wanted to give playing football one
more shot. I began working out and getting in shape to try and go to a combine
or a pro day. I was 25 at the time, and I did that. I went to one of those paid
combines you go to that was such a rip-off and a scam. Again, I was very
ignorant and had no idea what the heck I was doing, but I went and had my
numbers posted on this website. I won’t bring that up, either, because if any
kid decides to do this, they’re wasting their time.
Anyway, after I did that, I began personal training in the summer of 2005,
full time. I got into training teams, semi-private training for athletes and so
on. My career took off rather quickly. I went from doing personal training
sessions and doing semi-private sessions to doing classes and groups of 30-50
kids. I became, at the company I worked for – whose name I really don’t want to
mention – sports performance director. I was in charge of writing all the
programs, recruiting the business, overseeing all the coaches, and everything.
I started training a guy named Jim Canning, the owner of GoodSports USA in
Wall Township, NJ. It’s about 80 acres, and they have three different synthetic
turf fields, a pool and locker rooms. The only thing they didn’t have was a
training facility – a weight room. So, I used to train him in-home. I had hit a
ceiling. The company I worked for was a “carpet and elevator music” place, and
I’m trying to have big 6’5”, 350 pound athletes in there going crazy, and it
just didn’t go well with the atmosphere they were trying to promote.
I named it Key2 Sports Training. I threw a couple of ideas around, and just
picked a name. My last name is Key, so it just kind of fit and I went from
there. Then, since last year, I’ve grown tremendously in business. When I first
opened, I probably saw about 10 athletes a week, and now I’m seeing close to
65-70. It’s a good thing for me, and it gives me the flexibility of field space
and having a pool and locker rooms where athletes can get in here and do the
different aspects of training that we believe in.
What services do you provide? What kinds of athletes do you work with?
We train athletes from all different sports. The biggest sport in this area
is soccer. There’s more soccer players in this area than anything. We train
athletes from soccer, lacrosse, football, tennis, hockey...Just this week, I
signed up my first cheerleader. She’s a flyer. She’s every bit of, maybe, 120
pounds. She does backflips and you name it, and she’s coming in to improve her
athletic performance. I probably train close to 20 different sports. If I sat
down and wrote them all out, it would be close to that. The thing I like about
the business we have is that I train athletes of all ages. My youngest athlete
in the program right now is nine years old. We have athletes all the way up to
the professional level.
I told you about John Nalbone from Monmouth, who just got drafted two months
ago. He was one of the athletes in our program as well.
I offer speed and agility training, which I know to a lot of people is BS,
but we do offer that service. We offer the strength and conditioning aspect, and
also personal, semi-private and group training. We consider anything 2-5 people
to be semi-private or small group. There are also times where I open up the gym
as a strength and conditioning gym and run it like a high school or college
weight room where we have programs that the kids will come in and follow. I
oversee the program, me and the other coaches, and the kids can get the stuff we
all know they’re not getting at most of the traditional high schools around the
area.
What I’ve noticed is that a lot of people talk about what they are or what
they offer, and I had to really humble myself, because I wasn’t sure what I
really wanted to hone in on. I had to really ask myself, “What is my business?
What do I do?” I thought about just doing personal training and just doing some
other stuff, but then I thought I’d find out what people want. To be honest, one
of the bigger portions of my business is this speed training. The athletes that
we train the most are football players, but we have track people, too. I have a
kid who runs the 100 in around 11.2 or 11.3, and he’s coming here for speed. The
area that a person’s in really dictates who they work with. That’s just the way
it is. People look at me and they don’t see soccer, or they don’t see other
things, so they’ll shy away from coming here. But once the ice is broken, man...
I’ve had female lacrosse players, I’ve had female soccer players, field
hockey players, swimmers...there really is no end. You’re filling in the gaps
where the need is, and that’s where we step in. And one of the biggest parts of
the business right now is training people for speed – and when I say speed, I
mean sports enhancement speed. We know there are different ways to make people
fast, depending on who they are and what stage they’re at in their life. I get
moms all the time coming in and telling me, “We need to get Jimmy faster.” So we
take them through the necessary training, but speed is the thing, man.
Everybody’s looking for it.
What is your training philosophy in a general sense, and how did you come
about developing it?
My philosophy is quite simple. I think there are a lot of different people
who are considered athletes. You’ve got strength athletes, field athletes and so
forth. The majority of our athletes we train are on the field, mat, court or
ice. So we’ll break it down like that. We find out what areas are going to
improve their performance and do that. You can read different people. One guy
believes the core is the foundation of everything. One guy believes your heart
rate zones are the foundation of everything. One guy believes it’s strength. I
believe it’s a little bit of everything. Find out where the athletes are not
excelling, and help them improve that.
I have a female basketball player from Johns Hopkins University right now
who’s very strong already in her major muscles, but her core is mush. She can’t
do basic things. Now, I’m not a personal trainer, but I’m doing planks with her,
I’m doing mini-band stuff with her, I’m doing cable rotations and things like
that, because that’s the stuff that’s gonna help her get better. I don’t believe
throwing a barbell on her back and making her box squat will necessarily do
that.
There are different ways that athletes should be attacked, and my basic
philosophy is to find out where the athlete’s need is, and work that. In terms
of my influences, I came into this industry influenced by some of the functional
guys, to be quite honest. When I was in college, there was no functional this
and that. We did squat, bench, power cleans and push press. When I saw all these
guys for the first time, I was intrigued. The stuff was different. Then, when I
started to test it out, I started to find out for myself what worked for myself
and worked for the athletes, I realized that some of that stuff is crap. I came
in on kind of a functional side, and then I completely went Darkside. I
completely got away from all that stuff and started reading a lot of the
EliteFTS stuff hardcore.
At one point in my career, I had no interest in athletic performance. I was
simply making kids stronger, and I did that with the hopes that by getting them
stronger, they’d get better. About two years ago, I kind of went full circle and
decided to listen to everybody. I’ve sat and listened to Mike Boyle, Mark
Verstegen, Alwyn Cosgrove and Jim Wendler. Jim taught me personally how to box
squat when I went to a seminar. That was the one thing I wanted to get from him
– exactly how he teaches and coaches so I could learn a little bit about him. I
sat and talked to Dave Tate for about 5 minutes the same way and asked him a
couple of questions. The same thing with Mark Verstegen. The same thing when I
met you a couple of weeks ago. I like to find out what people know, how they
talk, how they train, and what drives them. I take a little bit from each
person.
I think I’ve created a hybrid of building strength when needed, athletic
performance when needed – improving athletic performance whether it be through
cardiovascular improvements or building a strong core foundation or simply
getting kids stronger. I liken it to home cooking. Any idiot can buy a cookbook
and follow a recipe and make a meal, but the real good meals – the reason we
call home cooking home cooking is because somebody actually put their own
personality into it. They put themselves into it. I didn’t get real results with
real athletes until I decided to add in what I thought was best for my athletes.
That’s when I got real results. That’s when people started saying, “I want to
train with you.” Because the personality was there. The element of “this is what
I believe in.” I didn’t have my own system for years. I followed other systems
hoping to find myself. Once I found what I believed in, I could teach this to
the kids and the guys that work for me. I can teach the programs I’ve used and
that I get results with, based on what I’ve learned, but also because I’ve done
it, I’ve seen it and it’s worked.
What does EliteFTS mean to you as a coach who’s started and is running a
successful independent business?
I have to honestly tell you that Elite Fitness Systems has been one of the
biggest reasons why I am where I am today. When you go to the website and you’re
around the people who spend their time there, you really get a whole, well
rounded approach. The wealth of information and knowledge is so vast, it’s like
everything is respected. Not everything is accepted, but everything is
respected. They don’t turn you away if you like this or you like that. Take
Olympic lifting. A lot of guys on the website don’t adopt it as their own
particular choice of making athletes better. But, there are some people on the
website who use it, and they’ll tell you how to use it and about their
experiences with it.
It changed my training approach altogether. I was coming from a place where
my boss told me to "we never back squat an athlete, we only front squat them". So I
believed that until I read some of the stuff EliteFTS was posting about how to
not get away from the roots of training. I believe EliteFTS encompasses the best
of the stuff that’s always worked throughout the ages along with the new stuff.
Take Mark McLaughlin’s training system. It hasn’t been done before in this
country, really, but he’s the guy who’s starting his own wave of this. That’s
why there’s no literature on what he’s doing, because he’s the only American who
knows it, along with Landon Evans.
When you go to the website and you read the books and buy the products, you
really get the best of everything. I cannot tell you how much my training
systems and programs have been influenced by that website. It’s saved on my
laptop. I read the posts, the questions and the rehab material – guys like Mike
Hope, Alwyn, I mean, you read some of the stuff they’re posting and it just
turns on a light. I sound intelligent to my clients and parents based on the
stuff I’m reading from them. It makes me sound like I know what I’m talking
about, because for a long time, I didn’t.
What about the business side of things? How has EliteFTS helped your
business?
Dave Tate and Alwyn Cosgrove have been the biggest help for business, because
Alwyn is pretty much the guy I read who said you can be any kind of trainer you
want to be, but you’ll never have an effect until you add your own personal
element to it, and you’ll never do anything positive until you start meeting
needs. There’s a difference between what people are willing to pay and what they
can afford. There’s a difference between what I want to do and what people need,
and he helped me in that regard. Dave Tate is running a multi-million dollar
company, and he has every base covered. Some of the information I’ve learned at
seminars from Dave has been very precise business advice – how to treat your
employees, how to run an effective business, how to not go crazy and try to do
everything. I remember he said in the first few years he was in business, he had
no money. He didn’t make money until about 4-5 years in, and he spent every dime
putting it back into the business and educating himself.
That changed everything for me, because as a business owner, you want to say,
“Hey, I had a good month. Let’s do something.” But that’s wrong, because it’s
not time yet. Dave helped me realize that, and because of him and Jim Wendler
and some of the insight they’ve provided, my company is benefiting a lot of
people in the surrounding area, and that’s it, man. You can’t be worldwide if
you’re not statewide, and you can’t be statewide if you’re not countywide. You
gotta kind of start where you are and grow.
