I wanted to do for other people what somebody did for me.

I've worked at the gym running front desk for three years. It's the best seat in the building if you want to understand what really happens to people's training. You watch the January crowd arrive and you watch the exact week it thins out. You learn names, schedules, and which forty-minute window someone is squeezing this into.

I also used to get trained at that same gym. That's the part that pointed me here. Somebody else made the decisions, somebody watched my technique, and somebody expected me at a time — which turns out to be most of the battle. It helped me out tremendously, and once you've been on the receiving end of that, it's hard to watch someone wander the floor doing what you used to do.

Outside the barbell, I've trained kickboxing for a long time and gained a lot of knowledge along the way, and I can hold pads. That's the thing I can offer right now that not everyone around here can. It solves cardio for people who hate cardio, and it teaches you something you can actually use.

Why I coach in seasons

I follow sports the way a lot of people around here do, and I've never found a clearer way to explain training than a season. Nobody expects a team to peak in July. There's off-season work, there's camp, there's the stretch where you're just holding the line through a brutal schedule. Your training runs the same way. Game day is coming either way — a physical, a vacation, a birthday with a number you're not thrilled about. The camp is the part you control, and my job is to make sure the camp is honest.

I'm early in coaching and I'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. What that means practically is more attention per client, more thought per session, and a coach who is very personally invested in this working.