Once you make the shift, you can’t undo it. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is and how hard it is to reverse.
There are six pillars of excellence that every player and staff member should live by. It’ll breed character, culture, and success.
Your kids, spouse, coworkers, and the crappy weather, are not the reasons you are 30 pounds overweight and hate your job. Go ahead and reread the title of this article.
The path to becoming a strength and conditioning coach at the collegiate level is unique to everyone. However, there are some similarities and tips that this strength and conditioning coach wants you to know.
Believe it or not, it took less than $20,000 to get my gym, THIRST, up and running. It’s a little over a year old now, and it’s still going strong. Point is, you don’t have to be a millionaire to start up your own gym. Here’s how I did it with THIRST.
The point of this article is not for me to tell my personal story about how tragic the accident was, how Kobe affected me growing up, or how big of a fan I was, etc. Instead, I would like to focus on the takeaways from Kobe’s life that can teach all of us how to pursue our own passions better.
What were your takeaways from last year as a powerlifter? By reflecting on our experiences, we can improve our future and how we react to it. Learn from my mistakes and do better this year.
We are all faced with choices every day in life. When it comes to training, we choose whether we are going to put the time in at the gym, eat the right foods, and get the sleep we need to reach our goals.
There is much to learn from being an intern. Take it from a former intern himself, there are a few things you should keep in mind during your interning process. Do this and your dreams of being a coach get closer.
Becoming a strength and conditioning coach is not the path for everyone. However, for those ready for the challenges, here is some advice from a young coach.
What can a retired Navy SEAL teach us about managing stress and fear in our lives? Robert O’Neill says carrying stress is like carrying around an unnecessary bag of bricks.
Reading enriches our lives and teaches us invaluable lessons. One of these lessons is taking control of our own lives and doing what’s necessary for our happiness and our career.
Don’t be afraid to steal from others if it benefits your training. Incorporating borrowed ideas into your training can take it to the next level.
My hope is that this article will help new coaches or aspiring coaches with their transition into strength and conditioning by highlighting some barriers and providing a personal example of how those barriers can be overcome.
You only have as much potential as you allow yourself to have. Josh Bryant takes a dive into what it means to have a growth mindset and how you can start cultivating one today.
Maybe instead of flipping off the haters, you should be thanking them instead. If anything, the haters are just bringing more people your way!
It’s easy to assume a young athlete is slacking off due to laziness. However, it’s always important to remember that there may be more than meets the eye.
Why wait until the start of a new year to start working towards your goals?
It’s not enough to simply declare a goal. In order to stay realistic and successful, make sure your goals are SMART.
Relationships aren’t always a walk in the park. It’s all too easy to avoid talking about issues because they make us uncomfortable. However, when we face the discomfort, we become stronger.
This is a question that we need to ask ourselves as many times as possible year after year because everything we do on a daily basis needs to be grounded on our answer.
How can you bulk up your gym’s profits during the holiday season? These 5 steps will help your gym get those financial gains.
It took time and a whole lot of failures for me to learn these core principles of leading others. But they are what helped me grow my business to over 160 members and a team of four others working alongside me… which brings me to these 7 lessons of leadership.
It’s a double-whammy when you’re the last person standing from the most recent rounds of strength staff layoffs. You’ll have to deal with new head coaches and new staff members. What do you do in that situation? Follow these tips, and you’ll have a good grip on the handle if this happens to you.
A couple of years ago, I was fixated on all the wrong things. The big picture was out of scope. I urge you to take the time to slow down on accomplishing tasks and enjoy the process. Build relationships and make memories — you’ll regret it if you don’t.
You write programs for your athletes, but have you programmed anything for your business? Think about GPP for your clients and then create a GPP program for your gym.
When you think of “investment,” you usually think of money. For this article, think about other types of investments: time, effort, and energy. Now, answer this question: What are you investing in?
I recently wrote down things I’ve learned that helped me change my life, and I hope this list of those lessons helps you break through whatever you feel is holding you back and achieve optimal health, wellness, strength, success, freedom, and happiness.
Not every job is going to be the right fit for you, no matter how hard you try to make it work. Know who you are, what you believe in, what you are willing to sacrifice, and what you will and will not do.
I first met Bedros Keuilian when our mutual friend Jay Ferruggia introduced us. From there, I worked with him on his online coaching program, which eventually led me to working with him in his elite coaching program for the last three years… and now, he’s a guest on my podcast.
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about internships, all in one place.
I thought the problem was just economics: that coaches could only make an hourly wage, but owners make profits. But that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that I could have made more, but I didn’t know how. And my boss didn’t know how, either.
You’ve heard a lot of business advice from everyone. But what about the things you haven’t heard?
In 2009, Dave took on the treadmill, the mortal enemy of powerlifters, as he answered questions about business and branding. This feat is not for the weak of heart or constitution, so abandon hope, all ye who enter here…
The things that gym owners and coaches love to do are destroying them. Find what you love to do without it taking too much of a toll on your health, both mental and physical. #BeThe1ToAsk others if they need help.
A lot of people think online training is easy to do, easy money, and something anyone can do and be successful at doing. They’re all wrong. It takes a lot more work than that. If you’re thinking about dropping your 9-5 gig for an online training job, take these points into consideration first.
I wrote an article about planning to achieve athletic success, and the classroom path is no difference. By following the same (or similar) principles, students can achieve academic success as well. If you want to avoid a terrible GPA, please read onward.
Your key asset, the one thing that you can leverage to build a successful company and the real measuring stick isn’t money; it’s time. You open a business to earn a higher return on your time, not to buy yourself a job.
You’ll learn a lot from your strength and conditioning internship — but there are some things you might glean over. Keep these points in mind, and you’ll get even more out of your internship than you thought possible.
It’s great you can point out each origin and insertion of every muscle, but your client doesn’t care. Your end goal is to get your client results and to make them feel better about themselves — not getting them to the point where they’re limping out of your gym.
Ever heard the saying, “If you can’t explain something simply, you probably don’t understand it?” If you’re going to bring in clients, you need to make your pitch short, sweet, and simple.
When you sit and yammer at people, like most of us do in our leadership developments, we aren’t developing leaders… We’re gaining followers. Be quiet and listen to others’ ideas and examples and learn from them, just as they’ll learn from you.
A few pro tips from Coach Matt Rhodes: Not everything you learn in a book can be applied to strength and conditioning. Open your mind to new ideas and influences, and learn how your mentor wants things down.
Your employees are like your clients in the gym. They want to build their skills and strengths and hopefully, are able to do it on their own. If you’re unable to manage your management, you are doing your employees and yourself a major disservice.
Although this article is directed at those supervising GAs and interns, if you’re a student reading this article, you can use these strategies to help to plan your own professional development as well.
I quit my personal trainer job to become a strength and conditioning coach. I lived in my car, slept on a couch, and I even had a raccoon living in my apartment wall at one point. But all of these struggles and sacrifices were worth it.
I’m here to remind everyone that we all have a part to play in making our field better and safer for our athletes. It’s on us to ensure our athletes, schools, and overall profession are all the best they can be. Start by implementing these 5 simple steps in your program.
Alwyn Cosgrove made quite the splash at the SSTSS 2019 event, so it’s only natural we’d have him sit down with Dave… plus, we have a couple of other guests joining Dave and Alwyn. Any guesses? Their last name starts with ant and ends in O…
From a revenue standpoint, you should consider packages to be your gold standard. Combining nutrition coaching with exercise coaching (either personal or group training) will get a client to their goals faster but should bring you more value for your time.
Quitting social media will help you realize how you’re spending your time and where you’re spending your time. Most of us, myself included, are wasting entirely too much time on stupid stuff. Stop wasting your time there and start putting it where it’s most important.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, and I believe it’s part of a coach’s job to pass on the knowledge and experiences I have gained from my own athletic career, such as never being average, striving for perfection, and detailing everything.
In the first three parts of this series, I discussed the current failings of the strength and conditioning fields. In this fourth and final installment, I’ll try my best to solve some of these problems — something that could very well take decades but needs to be done.
We tend to go into things with fitness coach or trainer eyes. We need to start seeing through the clients’ eyes and thinking like they do. We need to relate to them. Once you do that, you can take them on a journey.
Matt Rhodes’ takeaway lessons for strength coaches in this clip: Put your best foot forward. Stop screaming and start communicating. Hold yourself accountable. Do better and be better.
In Part 1, I covered problems strength and conditioning coaches deal with when it comes to sports coaches, whom we work with on a regular basis. Now, I’ll go over a group we don’t deal with every day but impact everything we do: the administrators.
As I start up my new job, I wanted to give younger strength and conditioning coaches some advice: Don’t be afraid to spread your wings and fly out of your comfort zone. Be bold and be brave. It will pay off at some point.
In this four-part series of articles, I’ll explain why strength and conditioning is a failing field and how we can improve our line of work. This first article covers the problems that we often face with sports coaches.
Don’t compete for fish in chum-filled waters. Instead, go where no one else has ever gone before. Be the next Takeru Kobayashi. Be the next CrossFit. Be the next elitefts. Become whatever it is you want and change the game.
Two people see the same situation; one person sees the opportunity, and one person sees the obstacle. In order to overcome the obstacle, it takes a different perspective — a positive one.