Who is the Fitness Professional that inspired you the most?
When I was 16 I joined a swim team that was 15 miles from my home. My parents didn’t have the time or the resources to get me there everyday, so I rode my bike. The coach was very good at motivating us, but he was not very skilled at teaching us how to swim competitively. After that first season, he pulled me aside and told me that he wished he could teach me the things that would elevate me to the next level. He was pretty much a volunteer coach and I thought he was great. He suggested that I try to find a way to get into a group called Pepsi Marlins because they had serious coaching programs and could possibly help me get a college scholarship. That program was too far away for me to participate. The one thing he said that really got me thinking was something like “I wish I had known how much coaching could do for others. I would have started sooner and learned more about it”.
Those words came back to me when I was finishing grad school. And I decided to take all the knowledge I had gotten from all of those anatomy and physiology, physics classes and more and learn how to apply them to athletics and become a coach. Later I saw that I could apply what I know to help anyone overcome life’s challenges. He was a better teacher than he knew. His example changed my view of life and that has lead me to change the lives of hundreds of people. Everyone of us has that ability, don’t waste it.
A brilliant trainer and manager named Pauline Crawford, who took the time to talk to a 13 year old boy who wanted to join the gym, a few years later she employed me at one of the gyms she was managing and got the company to pay for my PT qualification.
Her fairness and how she treated her staff has been a major influence on my own management style.
Thirty-two years ago, professor Doreen St Claire taught an undergraduate class at Franklin College of Indiana, called, “The Physical Experience of Man”. Her class content and instruction as well as her inspiration as a fitness role model got me really excited about fitness and health and helped me choose my profession as a fitness instructor and trainer.
I know the last time anyone answered this question was well over 100 days ago but really liked the question.
SGT Ken Weichert. I took his tactical fitness instructor workshop in Denver 2012, I had only been in the industry for a year at the time. I was also in the process of determining if the National Guard was the right option for me. SGT Ken was leading a PT program for the Colorado National Guard and let me ride with him and assist. Not only did his passion for what he does inspire me as a trainer but gave me the courage to enlist – a decision that took me 9 years to do so.
