Learning From My Coaching Mistakes
2016/10/27
I want to formally apologize to every client I have ever failed. In six years of personal training and strength coaching, many people have come to me with big goals, desire to improve, and the bravery to admit they needed help. After six years of training and coaching, I stand on top of a craggy mountain made up of the detritus of your goals, efforts, and time.
Of course, the view from up here is great, standing not on the shoulders of giants but on the bodies of your dreams. I finally feel I am able to reach down and help others climb.
In my early days as a personal trainer at the Texas Tech student rec, clients were handed to me. My willingness to be up early, ability to exercise competently, and pleasant personality made my supervisors believe I was qualified to train people. In the earliest of those early days, I met Christina.
Christina was a pre-med senior. She had a vibrant social life, liked to work hard, and wanted to lose a little fat. “Hi, I’m Dunte, an uncertified, inexperienced personal trainer who knows nothing about fat loss. Of course I can help you.” We met three mornings each week for six months. We performed many circuits with treadmill jogging, ab work, and light dumbbells. Books I found in the office library said we were doing all the right things…but Christina didn’t get leaner.
A few weeks after completing my personal trainer certification exam, I met David. David was a high school junior basketball player. David played on multiple club and league teams and he wanted to gain some muscle and power. “Hi, I’m Dunte, a newly-certified, inexperienced personal trainer who was once an athlete. Of course I can help you.” We met two afternoons each week for six months. We worked a split routine, with heavy emphasis on leg press and dumbbell presses. My personal training manual’s hypertrophy section said we were doing all the right things…but David didn’t get bigger.
About six months into this job, I met Michael. Michael was a high school sophomore baseball player. I was introduced to his parents by my supervisor. He was my first client outside of the Rec. Michael needed strength, speed, and confidence to earn a varsity spot. “Hi, I’m Dunte, owner of a personal training business and former supervisor at the Rec who has never watched a full game of baseball. Of course I can help you.” We met at Michael’s home three times each week for six months. We did pushups in sets of five, rows on a homemade TRX-ripoff suspension trainer, and cute agility exercises intended to improve acceleration. The books I had read – among them, Easy Strength and the NSCA’s athletic development handbook – all suggested we were doing exactly the right amount of work…but Michael didn’t make the huge gains I promised.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I could not distinguish between training programs for elite athletes and the exercise needs of a beginner. I could not understand the impact of a food journal for losing fat. I could not articulate how and why certain training increased muscle mass. People trained with me anyway. They got just enough better to keep coming back. But, along the way, I was reading and studying in order to learn how to get better results.
In 2012, two years into personal training, with the sort of arrogance only a completely unproven young adult could maintain, I uprooted my family from Lubbock, set up shop in my garage in south Austin, and declared myself as available for new personal training business. The failures continued in comical fashion.
There was Janet, a nurse on a stressful shift preparing for her wedding, who wanted to lose fat. There was Rachel, a sales professional in her forties, who disliked barbells and wanted to build lean muscle. There was Kayla, an event planner in her community center, who wanted a little bit of everything.
In all three cases, we met for about six months, twice and three times and four times a week. Every one of them became stronger. But I didn’t know to tell Janet that she needed to practice stress management and plan her meals in advance. I didn’t have the guts to tell Rachel that heavy loads were critical to building mass and I didn’t know how to apply those loads without the barbell. I didn’t think to tell Kayla we could only focus on one goal at a time. They trained with me anyway. They got just enough better to keep coming back. Along the way, I was interviewing other trainers and attending conferences in order to learn how to get better results.
By 2016, I had figured out a few things. Athletes and clients chasing muscle mass or raw strength were given a steady diet of barbell training and educated about eating more protein. Athletes and clients chasing fat loss or feeling a bit better were prescribed vigorous interval training and supervised during tough diets. Athletes and clients who wanted some of everything were told to think long-term and walked the path one goal at a time. If you came in with a big goal, a desire to improve, and the bravery to admit you didn’t know where to start, of course I could help you.
Then, beginning March of 2016, athletes and clients who had succeeded in the year prior started asking how to get to the next level. Amanda wanted to become an influencer and a workhorse on the field. Claire wanted to stay lean and eliminate her old injuries. Susan wanted to race faster, climb harder, and become leaner still. In June, I found myself on a phone call with a coaching mentor, a role model, a man who had been in the business for forty-plus years, desperately asking, “What do we do in the second year?”
Claire was still hurt. Susan had not achieved all she wanted. Amanda got better, but didn’t dominate.
What he told me turned around their training: “Go back to the beginning, assess the goal against the standards of performance, and attack the biggest win first.”
Recently, Laura, whose story is still begging to be told in the ‘Training Around Pain’ series, told me how excited she was about her recovery from a severe ankle sprain, how my confidence in her and my guidance helped her resume playing far faster than she could have imagined, and how she knows what to do going forward. Will, whose squat and deadlift records occasionally appear on the @atxspeed Instagram, has not only gained thirty pounds of muscle mass, but is mastering dieting down, bodybuilder-style, and loves the principles of training. Vanessa was a rookie MMA fighter in Dallas who needed a plan for cutting weight for her first sanctioned fight. Two weeks after I emailed her my thoughts, she said, “the plan worked perfectly! And I think you’d like to know that I won, too.”
To every one of you whom I have failed, whether partially or completely, I apologize. For my arrogance, for my zeal, for my ignorance. Every athlete and every client who has succeeded represents the same goals you had, the same ambition you brought to our training, the same effort you invested every day. Six years of personal training and strength coaching have taught me how to work the weights, how to match training to each person’s context, and how to help people implement lifestyle changes. Six years of training and coaching, people are finally getting what they want from our time together. Though I stand on a mountain of your unmet goals and misdirected efforts and lost time, others are benefitting from your sacrifice. Thank you for that.
Five athletes have come to me recently wanting to build a quicker first step on the field. I was a football and rugby player. I know speed development. I know training for power. But I never thought my way through developing this skill.
“Hi, I’m Dunte, a certified, experienced strength & conditioning coach…”
Another of my coaching role models, Lee Taft, is one of the best agility and quickness coaches in America. He has a great DVD program about first-step quickness. I have been studying it and stealing his ideas shamelessly.
As I observe this mountain we have built together, folks, what I am delighted to realize, what I was missing in my first six years, what I wish I had been humble enough to seek out when you met me, is that there is a staircase to the top. It is well-kept, reliable, and built by experts who came before me. I can’t go back to change your training experience, but because of the time and energy you invested in me, the problems you invited me to solve, I can lead others up the path more effectively.
I failed you. Then I learned something. So that means we’re square, right?
[Most names have been changed.]