In my industry there a lot of HUGE egos and most “fitness professionals”, “strength coaches”, “trainers”, “performance coaches”, “sport specific coaches”, and “speed experts” DO NOT get along… this goes for both the local market and the online global market… Locally, not only do they not get along many of them are outright nasty to one another (I’ve got stories you wouldn’t believe) …

Why do I bring this up?

Because this brings some insight on to why we do things the way we do here at BT, my philosophy, and what we offer, and why we are unique…

It seems like every week I hear the following from somebody..

“Hey Matt, did you hear about that new place that opened up?”

Honestly I usually haven’t because I like to stay in my cave and not concern myself with other people… (I work with people all day but I am more of an introvert)… and if I get all worked up about every competitor I’d be a mess.

My response usually goes something like this: “I hope they have decent equipment I can buy on the cheap when when they go out of business”… (most have expensive equipment but useless to us)

You see, I don’t give a crap about fancy equipment. Equipment that looks nice has no bearing on what we are trying to accomplish. In fact, just about every piece in BT I bought off of people going out of business… Craig’s List or at an auction.

Personally, I don’t want people to come in shopping for the training facility with the newest equipment.

9 out of 10 gyms don’t even know what good equipment is or what equipment is actually needed to build an athlete… IMO they waste their money on garbage.

I don’t feel threatened by competition because 9 out of 10 people that open up training facilities don’t have a clue as to what it takes to BUILD AN ATHLETE… and thats what we are paid to do… not to coach baseball, football, wrestling, soccer, or any other sport. And if a good one opens up thats fine there is more than enough business to go around!

Most trainers don’t even know the different types of strength or how to bring up weaknesses. It’s 100% evident by their equipment and their programming.

Most places get a lot of turf space and run classes of “speed training” and sport specific training where they have the athlete basically do the same drills that they do at practice.. It’s safe and its easy the coach will say…

To train speed mechanics need to be improved and/or force production raised and/or ground contact time shortened. I rarely see stuff that is working on any of these.

Like they need more drills? Johnny just played 4 months of football but needs more bag drills and ladder drills…LOL

Not bragging, but I became a DIII All American running back in college and didn’t touch a football between New Years and July. I understand that football is unique in that you can be very successful with out actually practicing football skills but, the point is that most athletes do not need to do the same drills year round… it boring, useless and maybe counterproductive.

Sports are dominated by the strongest, most explosive, most powerful, and most aggressive athletes….

Very few trainers actually study and even fewer can even train themselves… How can you be a performance coach and look like you just lifted a bag of potato chips and a six pack of Heineken? How you look is not everything but come on!

So how are we unique?

– My goal is to make below average athletes really good (maybe even college prospects), average athletes great, and naturally great athletes the BEST. At most training facilities the average kids get overlooked or the training is dumbed down so that the best kids aren’t challenged… We train together but assess weaknesses on every athlete individually.

-Coaching- We lead from the front.. talk the talk but also walk the walk… I will not tolerate coaches that aren’t training themselves. Im constantly educating myself and experimenting on myself… On another note, we will not be babysitters. We only work with people coming here to get better. This is not a place to come to kill time or for “something to do”… those people never last.

-Commitment- We are only looking to train committed athletes… Our HS memberships are unlimited for a reason.

-Consistency- We know that the most consistent athletes in the long run, over the course of years, will be successful in the end when it matters most (Late HS and college)

-Culture- “HARD ASS WORK”. If you aren’t putting in the effort you will be called out by a coach but probably also by another athlete. Success breeds success. Competitive athletes want to be around others on the same mission because they are always going to be looking to see if they measure up. Culture is very difficult to build but once you have it, it’s a beautiful thing! I can say that I truly enjoy helping every athlete and member at BT… One of the hardest things every year is saying goodbye to all the senior as they head off into the world!

In the end, many training facilities will open up and they all will make claims, but I am confident that when an athlete that truly wants “it” walks into BT they will know what training facility they want to be at. If they don’t thats ok with me too… thats why we have always offered a trial. They can try us out but we can also try them out and trust me I have had people who ran away as fast as possible… but I’ve also turned people away because I respect our members and culture too much to let them in.