The other half of my background is medical. I spent about ten years in emergency
services and EMS, and I’m a BLS instructor. That’s where I actually learned anatomy
and physiology. Not a chapter I skimmed the night before a test, but ten years of
watching how bodies work, how they break, and how they come back. It’s why I can
tell the difference between soreness you push through and a signal to stop. It’s
also why I take post surgical work seriously enough to stay inside whatever your
surgeon has cleared you for.
I’ve been on the other side of it too. I’ve had a number of surgeries myself over
the last several years, so I know exactly what it’s like to be told not to lift. To
watch months of work disappear while you sit there healing. To feel the itch to do
too much too soon, and to wonder quietly whether you’re going to get it back at all.
The physical side of coming back is the easy half. The mental side is the part
nobody warns you about, and it’s the reason I don’t rush anybody. I’ve been in that
chair. I know what the wait does to your head.
And not every setback of mine was surgery. Plenty of them were just me. I’ve fallen
off, I’ve talked myself out of sessions, and I’ve started over more times than I’d
care to put in writing. I’m not going to pretend otherwise on my own website. If
that sounds familiar, then you’re not hiring somebody who’ll act like it never
happens. You’re hiring somebody who knows how to get you back on track without
making you feel like a failure for needing it.
I’ve put in my time on a gym floor too, and I’ve been coaching in weight rooms
since 2022. That’s where you pick up the stuff no course covers. What people really
do when the plan gets hard. Which excuses are actually problems in disguise. How
many smart, committed people quietly quit in week three. I watched it happen over
and over, and it changed how I write a program.
I’ve also had the chance to train in gyms across South America. Different people,
different cultures, different traditions of moving weight. What stayed with me wasn’t
the equipment. It was how much you can learn from people who train and live nothing
like you do. That perspective shows up in how I coach here.
Due East is where all of that turns into a plan written for one person instead of
a room full of them. I’m at the start of this and I’d rather say so than pretend
otherwise. That’s why the first five spots are going out at a lower rate.
Then there’s my day job. I’m a special education teacher with a master’s in special
education. That sounds unrelated until you think about what the job really is. Take
something complicated, break it into pieces a real person can handle, meet them
where they are instead of where a textbook says they should be, and build it so it
sticks after you stop talking. That’s the whole skill. Writing the training plan is
the easy part.
I coach online because it works better, not because it’s cheaper. In person you get
one hour of my attention, on my schedule. This way you get my attention on every
set you do, all week, on yours. And I’m looking at your real numbers instead of
trying to remember how Tuesday went.