From Band Geek to Business Owner - How I Started my Career in the Fitness Industry

I have a couple of new books and products / programs coming out for 2012 and decided to share the introduction of my new book on the business of health, fitness and personal training in this blog post. Enjoy!

From Band-Geek to Business Owner

The story of how I came to choose the fitness industry as a career path is far from exciting. I grew up in the very rural town of Austinburg, Ohio-just outside of Geneva in the northeast corner of Ashtabula County. I played a little baseball at a young age and was a pretty decent pitcher, but chose to hang up my baseball glove in favor of a BMX bike and a drum-set around age 11. At that point conventional sports took a backseat and I started launching myself off of vert ramps and dirt jumps in addition to playing drums in my school’s various bands and jamming on my drum-set to all of the heavy metal and punk bands I grew up on through my headphones.

I was always skinny and by 10th grade I was barely 135 pounds soaking wet. It was also around this time that some of my friends were starting to experiment with lifting weights and starting to put on a little muscle. Finally after being laughed at by my girlfriend and a friend of ours (thanks for the motivation Stephanie and Erica!) for owning a set of thighs that didn’t touch when I stood with my feet together, I ordered a bodybuilding training course from the back of one of my Spiderman comic books. I started doing push-ups, pull-ups, bodyweight squats and sit-ups and chugging milk. I even put on a few pounds and started to build a little muscle.

At this point I convinced my mother to let me join my local YMCA and began my journey into the world of the iron, little did I know at the time that it would one day pay my bills and offer me the freedom from having a “regular” job.

Stepping into that weight-room at the Madison, Ohio YMCA was a turning point in my life. There was something so primal and awesome about this weight room. It sat on the second floor over top the swimming pool. This made the weight room extremely hot and humid, but I didn’t care.

The old barbells and weight piles were rusty and hardcore looking. It was really nothing more than an old squat rack, some benches, barbells, dumbbells and a few machines-but this place became a temple to me.

Massively muscled guys trained in there and were kind enough to take me under their wings, at least to the point I didn’t look like a complete idiot while working out in there! I was hooked on the iron and there was no turning back for me.

After graduating high school I looked for the fastest ticket out of Ohio, for me that ended up being the US Navy. I continued my obsession with lifting weights on and off throughout my enlistment and started to pay closer attention bodybuilding.

After I got out of the Navy I came back to Ohio and attended Kent State University, and honestly I cannot remember a time in which I was without a gym membership from that point on. However, that does not mean that I always used it. Around age 21 or 22 I had really let myself go. Some people put on the “freshman 15” but I’m pretty sure I put on the “freshman 30”. I guess living off bacon double cheeseburgers and 32 oz. draft beers from Mooney’s Goose will do that to you.

It was at this point I was visiting my family for the holidays, and my aunt-who was always so complimentary of what good shape I was always in-told me I was fat. She was right; I was in my early 20’s with a huge gut and pain in my lower back and hips. It wasn’t good, and I decided that was the time for me to get serious again and get back in the gym.

This time I started studying about nutrition and supplements and could very well have been a spokesperson for MetRx or EAS, and I subscribed to Muscle Media 2000 magazine. I followed the bodybuilding programs recommended by Bill Phillips and the other writers of MM2K religiously. It was at this point I had really started stripping away body-fat and building a decent amount of muscle. People at the gym kept asking me what I was doing and I ended up coaching and assisting everyone who asked. I remember thinking “man, it would be awesome to do this for a living”.

It was then that I started learning about personal training, different certification organizations, strength & conditioning coaching and started to explore job opportunities in the health and fitness industry. This led to me getting a personal training certification and landing a job at the downtown Akron YMCA.

A year later I packed up and moved to Atlanta to work as a full-time trainer for a private fitness center in a country club while finishing my Health and Physical Education degree.

I ended up staying at the country club for a little over 12 years, the last 6 of which I served as the director of the fitness center.

As I was finishing my degree I was faced with deciding the path I wanted my career to take. I had developed a huge passion for training athletes, so naturally I thought I wanted to be a collegiate or professional strength and conditioning coach. This all changed after visiting a professional football team’s strength training center and after watching their workout, as well as with a little helpful prodding from my wife, I decided that the private sector was the way to go. This way I could operate on my terms, set my salary cap (of which I believe there is none) and set my working conditions. I could run the programming and develop plans specifically for the athletes and clients who paid me for my services and not have to follow anyone else’s model.

I started small and operated part-time in addition to my full-time training job at the country club fitness center. I started training and consulting for clients and athletes out of my basement all the while furthering my education by learning about the science of coaching and training, as well as business, marketing and networking. Skills I am still learning to this day.

In addition I continued to spend time training myself which led to a very brief stint in bodybuilding and eventually competing in the sports of powerlifting and kettlebell sport, to finally studying internal martial arts, particularly Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong, and meditation. I still lift weights, albeit not competitively, and can't imagine a time in my life where I will ever give up my barbells and kettlebells. Once the the iron bug bites you the addiction spreads and it's tough to let go!

Eventually my business grew to the point I had to move from my house and into a private commercial facility. I continued to train clients and athletes from numerous sports (football, boxing, mixed martial arts, powerlifting, kettlebell sport, and many others), wrote and published numerous training books, and am still developing programs and products.

After a couple of years of running my own personal business while simultaneously working as the director of the country club fitness center, and after some planning and encouragement from my wife / business partner, I finally “burned my ships” and resigned from the country club choosing to operate 100% as a self employed business owner and haven’t looked back. It was one of the scariest, most exciting and most liberating decisions I’ve ever made and I couldn’t be happier!

Every year my business becomes more successful and I have had numerous other ventures and business opportunities present themselves as a result of the work I’ve done in the health and fitness industry.

Along the way of building my business from the basement of my house to a private training center, I had been contacted by numerous other trainers and professionals in the industry. Most of them saw what I was doing and were inquiring as to how to apply what I had learned through my experiences to their businesses and careers.

At this point not only was I working as a trainer to my athletes and clients, but I had become a Trainer for Personal Trainers. I really enjoyed this type of networking and was pretty honored that people viewed me as someone they wanted to seek advice from.

My passion for helping people achieve their goals is what fueled my career in the fitness industry; and now my passion for helping other fitness professionals and prospective fitness professionals achieve their career goals has fueled the idea for this book.

If you are ready to begin, or further, your career in the health and fitness industry you’ve come to the right place. It is my sincerest hope that the experiences I have encountered and learned from in my career will help you accelerate your career and avoid some of the inevitable pit-falls and adversity you will encounter along the way.

Now let’s get to work!

-Scott

Health Can Never Be Divorced From Strength

"Health can never be divorced from strength."

-George "The Russian Lion" Hackenschmidt

I chose this quote from turn of the century strongman and physical culturist, George Hackenschmidt as the start of this blog because I think the fitness industry is heading in the wrong direction. Personally I think we need to jump back a hundred years or so and learn from the founding fathers of the physical culture movement, like Hackenschmidt.

Physical culture was a way of life, it encompassed the development of the total human being, not just one area.

The world of fitness has become very fractured. Now we have differentiations between physique specialists, strongmen, weightlifters, elite general physical preparation (GPP), etc.

We need to understand that it is important to develop the entire being and not just one area. I guess the argument can be made that sport competitors need only the level of development to perform optimally at their sport, and I guess I can agree with that. However, training for competition and training for health are two different things.

First, are you really a competitor? Or do you use competition as a means to test your abilities? Nothing wrong with the latter, but if you will never make a living as a competitive athlete, is ANY sport worth sacrificing your health?

That is for you to decide, we are blessed with the freedom to choose whatever it is we wish to pursue.

I was at that crossroad myself a few years ago. I was addicted to powerlifting, I loved the sport. I wasn't outstanding and had managed a mediocre class 3 total for my weightclass. I loved the competition though, there was nothing quite like walking out to the platform and attempting a weight you've never lifted before. However, in the pursuit of a higher total I started letting my health go. I put on a lot of unnecessary bodyweight (a politically correct way of saying I got fat), I got very out of shape, sure my squat, bench and deadlift were going up, but my cardiovascular fitness, mobility and flexibility were going down the shitter fast. I used powerlifting as an excuse to neglect flexibility, cardiovascular exercise, and eating well-I also had to justify this to my clients. I own a personal training business, and on a daily basis I tell people they need to stretch, eat well, do their cardio and not just lift weights. I felt like it was a bit of a contradiction.

Now - I am not saying that competition is bad, it isn't. What I am suggesting is that you do not sacrifice your health for a trophy.

I think we can learn something from the founding fathers of the iron-game in that regard. Look at the pictures of the turn of the century strongmen-Hackenschmidt, Sandow, Saxon, Liederman, Jowett-and you'll see men with outstanding muscular development, impressive levels of strength and overall good health. Read their works and you'll see they were all educated and obviously very literate.

I guess the more I see of the wrong-turn I believe the fitness industry has taken, the more I find myself reading the old manuscripts of the turn of the century physical culturists. Honestly, not a lot has changed in the past hundred years either-the exercises in favor then are still the exercises that work well today-barbells, dumbbells, free-weights, bodyweight exercise, running, stretching, etc.

How can we get back to the roots of what physical development should be about? Easy, lift weights and get stronger, but not to the point you rupture something or negatively effect your flexibility; maintain a healthy, pain-free range of motion through stretching and joint mobility exercise; eat well-eat a variety of food in it's natural, unprocessed state and drink a lot of water, the closer food is to nature, in my opinion the better; strengthen your cardiovascular system through walking, running, sprinting, cycling or any other form of exercise that challenges you aerobically; and most importantly RELAX. Spend some time in meditation, practice Tai Chi and Qigong, get back to breathing-learn to breath deep into your belly and not short into your chest. Spend some time in nature. Practice real yoga. Do something that will allow you to destress and calm yourself. Stay loose and flexible. Dead bodies are stiff and rigid. Focus on what you need more of and bring balance to your physical development.

Fitness shouldn't hurt. Health is NOT something we should go through on the way to fitness. Make fitness energy producing, not energy draining. Pursue other hobbies and passions, read, learn new things, travel-don't become a slave to the gym. Get outside, experience nature and be healthy, strong and fit. Be happy and enjoy your life. Understand the difference between training for sport and training for health and if you are a competitive athlete be ready to make the transition when your career is over.

Stay strong AND healthy!

-Scott