Interview with Joe Dowdell

Today we’ve got a fantastic interview with my good friend Joe Dowdell. Rather than drone on and on, let’s get right into it!

Joe, thanks a ton for coming on here today. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Well, I live in New York City {Best city in the world 🙂 — well in my opinion} with my girlfriend, Anna, and my female Rottweiler, Sky.  I own a 10,000 square foot one-on-one training facility called Peak Performance, which is located in the Chelsea/Flat Iron area.

I guess I’d have to classify myself as very driven and a bit of a workaholic.  I love most sports, but my favorite has to be MMA.  In fact, I train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 2-3 days a week and I also box twice a week.  I love the beach and I really enjoy surfing.   I’ve known you for quite a while now, and you actually got into training clients a bit later than most. Could you tell us about your progression and how you moved into training?

I sort of backed into the fitness industry via the modeling world.  I worked as a model, all over the North America and Europe, for about 10 years.  As a result, I was always training in order to stay in shape for work.  I was looking to get out of the modeling world and do something different with my life.

An ex-girlfriend of mine, at the time, was working with a personal trainer.  One day, after one of her training sessions, he and I got to talking about personal training.  Up until this point, I didn’t know much about the industry and I didn’t even know it was a viable career option.

After a pretty extensive conversation with him, I decided to do some investigating. I ended up enrolling in the ACE Personal Trainer certification course later within a few days just to see if I liked it.  After about a week of reading and studying the materials, I was totally hooked.  I decided to completely immerse myself in learning as much information about strength and conditioning as I could possibly cram into my brain.

That’s just a really cool story and one I love to hear!

Another story I always enjoy is how you built Peak Performance. Tell our readers a bit about how you got started, as well as where it is now?

I started out working in a commercial gym for about 11 months.  During that time period, I was very disenchanted by the training that was going on around me, or I should say, the lack of training.  Trainers were spending more time talking to their clients than actually making them train.

I decided that I wanted to do something better for my clients and myself so I moved into a live/work loft and bought my own equipment.  I carved out about 400 square feet inside my home and began training my clients there.  Over the course of three years, I had built up my client base to the point where I literally had people in my home all day and night.

It was time for me to expand my business if I wanted to keep my sanity so I opened a 2,000 square foot training studio in Gramercy Park.  Once again, I worked like crazy, from 6 Am till 9 PM every day.

For the first year or so, it was literally just me and my clients.

I started getting more client inquiries than hours in the day so I hired a couple of trainers to start to train my overflow.  I also began allowing a few independent trainers to have access to my facility for an hourly fee.  By the third year (in a 5 year lease), the business was starting to outgrow the space.  I had some decision to make.

Did I want to stay where I was at, and be very comfortable financially, or do something bigger and give myself the opportunity for bigger and better things? 

I decided I wanted more so I hired a business advisor so I could plan out my next move.  Over the course of the next 14 months, we crafted my business plan, secured my current location and orchestrated my transition from 2,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet.

I’ve now been in my current facility for almost 10 years and my business continues to grow despite the fact that we are in a shaky economic environment.  I see this fact as a result of what I’ve always believed in, and that is, people will always pay for quality.

Currently, I’m thinking about strategically opening another location (or two) in other markets that I feel PEAK could dominate in. Stay tuned.  🙂

Your success in spite of the economic conditions is a testament to you and your staff man. Congrats!

Furthermore, you still train in a 1-on-1 environment, while many in the fitness industry scoff at the notion. I know why you do this, but could you explain it to others who may be interested?

Honestly, if it’s not broke, why fix it?

I’ve always believed that personal training provides the greatest opportunity to provide client’s the best results. I think that my passion and commitment to this belief is what draws people (and trainers) to my brand.  I also know my demographic very well and that’s who I cater my brand to.

Look, I’m not saying that one-on-one training can work for everyone. In fact, if you live in an area that cannot successfully support this type of service, it would be foolish for you to try to build your brand in this manner.

But, what I am saying is that, one-on-one training is not a dead business model.  In fact, I would venture to say that when it comes to revenue per square foot, we might be one of the most successful facilities in the country.

Ok man, let’s talk training. First and foremost, who have been your biggest influences when it comes to training your clients and athletes?

Wow, there have been so many great people that have influenced or shaped my thought process over the last 17+ years. Besides taking the NSCA CSCS, NASM CPT, USAW Club Coach and another dozen or so certification courses, I’ve attended multiple internships with Paul Chek, Charles Poliquin (I was actually just awarded my PICP Level 5, which puts me in a small group of about 5-6 trainers in the world that have that accreditation), Mark Verstegen, Tom Purvis, PT and I even slept on the late Dr. Mel Siff’s basement floor for four days in order to learn from him.

Some of the weekend seminars that I had the honor of attending were given by people like Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky, Dr. Tudor Bompa, Dr. Steven Fleck, Dr. William Kramer, Dr. Fred Hatfield, Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, Dr. Eric Seranno, Dr. John Berardi, Dr. Perry Nickelston, Dr. Craig Liebenson, Donald Chu, Vern Gambetta, Louis Simmons, Dave Tate, Ian King, Greg Roskoff, Gray Cook, Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, Robert Dos Remedios, Josh Henkin, Mike Mahler, etc.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I made it a priority to learn from everyone regardless of their ideological philosophies or their controversial differences with other educators.

That’s excellent, and something that I recommend to everyone who reads this blog. Learn from everyone, not just people you agree with!

If you had to outline some of your key concepts, or “Big Rocks” when it comes to training, and running a highly successful business, what would those be?

  • Never stop learning.
  • Always keep an open mind.
  • Get really great at the basics and teaching the basics.
  • The assessment starts the very first time the client walks through your door.
  • Every training session is an assessment.
  • Don’t marry yourself to one educator’s perspective or to one training tool &/or methodology.
  • Some of my greatest light bulb moments in my educational process came from lunchtime and dinner time conversations with other attendees at a seminar or internship.  In other words, even when you are not in the classroom, keep your ears open and your mouth shut when people are talking.
  • Never prescribe a training program, like German Volume Training or Cluster Training, to a client unless you’ve actually performed it on yourself.   Remember, when you are training a client or athlete, you are imposing forces on another person’s body.  As a result, you better have an understanding of what those forces can potentially feel like or you may lose &/or injure that client.
  • The client’s goal(s) is the most important thing.  Your training programs should always be moving your client toward their goal.
  • Make sure that when you are manipulating the acute training variables of any training program that you are doing so in a strategic manner.
  • Make sure that you have a thought process for everything that you do when training your clients.
  • Make sure you have an excellent network of other health and fitness professionals that you can refer your clients to if you encounter something that is beyond your scope of practice.
  • Always dress and act like a fitness professional.  You are your business card.

Wow that’s quite the list!

Now you meet and come in contact with trainers of all shapes and sizes – give me some ideas as to what big mistakes newbie trainers make?

I think some of the biggest mistakes that newbies make are the following:

  • They don’t spend enough time getting good at teaching the basics to their clients.
  • They marry themselves to one educator’s perspective and they end up limiting their potential for growth.
  • They find one tool that they like and they forget about all of the other tools that may actually be better for getting the job done.
  • They don’t spend enough time reading and learning about business and marketing.
  • They don’t walk the walk.  In other words, if you are a fitness professional, you should look like one.  Make sure you get yourself in shape and you stay that way.  Honestly, this point goes out to all trainers and strength coaches.

Joe, your client base and people you’ve worked with is like a “Who’s Who” of celebrities and star athletes. However, many of us reading this would never even come in contact with those people, let alone get a chance to train them.

What are some of the logistics of training high profile clients and athletes? What do you have to take into account that most trainers would never think of?

If you are interested in training celebrities, than you pretty much need to either live in NYC or LA.  As far as professional athletes go, depending on the sport, there are going to be some areas of the country that are going to be more geographically conducive to tapping into a particular market.

For instance, in the off-season, many professional baseball players and even football players seem to live in southern Florida, Arizona or Southern California.  I have also found that most professional athletes never really live in the city that they play for in the off-season.

If you want to train professional athletes, one of the best ways to potentially get some athletes is to build a rapport with the team’s in-season strength coach, the athlete’s agent &/or possibly their financial advisor.  But, the bottom line is that for the vast majority of fitness professional, athletes and celebrities are not the best way to build your business.  I’ve always looked at these two demographics as a luxury and they are just one facet of my overall business.

That’s great advice.  Along those same lines, you’ve been doing a lot of work with Roy Hibbert for the past 6 months. What unique challenges are there in working with a 7’2” human being?

LOL, well the first challenge was to modify some things on the training floor due to the logistics of working with an athlete that tall!

Obviously, you don’t regularly encounter guys that are 7’2” tall, unless of course you train a lot of professional basketball players, and even then Roy is still tall.  Luckily, I have trained a few other Pro Basketball players over the years so I already have a special set of adjustable Squat Stands.  Since Roy is too tall to overhead press on my Olympic Lifting Platforms, these stands have come in very handy.

In addition, for some exercises like the Trap Bar Deadlift, I had to place the Plates on small wooden platforms in order to get him in the proper position for the pull.  We also stretch him out on a folded up Jiu Jitsu mat because he’s too long for out treatment tables! 🙂

Other than that, we don’t have any other issues.

Joe, thanks a ton for being on here today. I really appreciate it!

No problem, thank you for the opportunity and I really hope your readers can take some things away from my responses.

Could you please take a minute and tell our readers where they can find out more about you, as well as about your Peak Diet & Training Design Summit package?

The best place for them to connect with me is the following:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoeDowdellFitness

Twitter: www.twitter.com/joedowdellnyc

Website: www.joedowdell.com

As for the product, they can find it at www.peakfitnesssummit.com.

Awesome – thanks again Joe!

P.S. – You can pick up a copy of the PEAK Diet & Training Design Summit by Friday and save $100 (plus you get 2.0 NSCA CEU’s!


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