Over the years I’ve declined taking on new clients because their goals don’t align with the purpose of my work as a professional fitness trainer. These people were typically young folks in their 20s or early 30s seeking to participate in extreme sports or physique competitions. This requires extreme training and even more extreme dieting.
Although I’ve competed in powerlifting, bodybuilding and olympic-style weightlifting throughout my life and often won my weight classes (and an overall title in bodybuilding), the type of exercises I did during those times were incompatible with two things that now motivate my career path: long-term health and physical function.



There are plenty of trainers who focus on big biceps and ripped abs. Of course, that requires from their clients nearly full-time commitment to voluminous training and extreme nutrition, achievement possible during a time of life when responsibility is less and youth is bountiful.
If you want to extend your health and physical independence—as well as preserve your cognitive function—well into old age, then exercise takes a different, less-extreme form. It can be practiced by nearly everyone. It does not require the commitment of elite and professional athletes.
Yet, for exercise to deliver a meaningful outcome, a certain level of effort is required–there’s no easy way around this. A logical training program, proper exercise technique, and a decent amount of motivation are critical. A trainer must have these (and many other) tools to feed the purpose.
As a professional trainer, the primary purpose of my work is to help clients achieve long-term health, physical function and, with reasonable nutrition, a healthy body composition. There are complexities that we manage along the way, of course, but the outcome is the same: enjoy a longer health-span and physical independence, and do things without being limited by age.
Not live longer, but live life longer. This purpose outshines and outlasts bulging biceps and ripped abs by decades.