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Jake Foster | Performance Coach & Mentor

@jakerfoster

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Helping athletes and coaches pursue performance while always keeping first things first.
Lamentations 3:21-24
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"We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work."

— Oswald Chambers by @jakerfoster

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16 days ago

I did some quick math recently. One of these notebooks has 44 recorded mentorship calls in it, which puts me somewhere over 400 calls in total, and that does not include a notebook I am still missing or the calls where my notes ended up in TrueCoach instead of on paper.

There is no barrier to entry in fitness coaching, and anybody can call themselves a coach. When you work with a variety of athletes and try to coach the whole person, so much of what you need to know cannot be learned in a textbook. You can only gain it from other people’s experience.

When I first started coaching, almost all the money I made went right back into mentorship, and for several years I paid over $1,000 a month for it (I still pay well over that today). I was not trying to figure out how to make more money; I wanted to do right by the clients I was working with. I knew there were people out there who already had answers for them, and even though I might have figured it out on my own eventually, that did not feel like doing right by them.

Narrowing 400 calls down to one lesson per notebook was a tough task, so these are simply the ones that stood out to me most. The amount of information in these books is insane, and maybe someday I will sift through it more.

I am where I am because of the mentors who poured into me over the last 9 years. Even if I had gotten here without them, I would be a phony, or at the very least, I would have no systems in place to serve people well.

If you want to get into coaching, my number one piece of advice has not changed: get a mentor. by @jakerfoster

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6 hours ago

The other day I was on a prayer walk, and it hit me, like it has many times before, how grateful I am for the walks I get to take every day:

I get to walk downstairs into my own garage and coach athletes.

Then I get to walk back upstairs to design training programs for remote athletes and spend time mentoring other coaches.

I really do have the best of all worlds. God has been good to me. by @jakerfoster

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2 days ago

How do we begin by making exercise holy?

"Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving." 1 Timothy 4:4

We start, as we should with all prayers, with thanksgiving.

Here is one Pastor David Mathis recommends:

"Father, loosen my grip on my own performance, results, and personal goals. May my exercise not ultimately be about me, but about my richer enjoyment of Jesus and my readiness to love and serve others." by @jakerfoster

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5 days ago

A client of mine, busy with three young kids, was telling me recently how difficult it has become to get training time in his garage.

I encouraged him to invite his kids out there.

I also reminded him that you have to embrace the chaos. For Madeline and me, there have been a lot of interrupted reps and sets, kids almost getting knocked out with a barbell, ruined “for time” workouts where our scores get messed up, and workouts left 75 percent completed.

We would not trade any of it. I would not give back any of that time for what we get to spend together as a family.

Parents get to embody the values they want to pass on to their kids: taking care of their bodies, working hard, and being disciplined. In the process, your kids begin to associate physical fitness with fun and enjoyment because they see their mommy or daddy doing it. by @jakerfoster

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7 days ago

🔥 Kayla hit 90% of her max snatch for a double after months of barely being able to squat.

“Instead of quitting, she stayed in workouting.” – Brett

His advice for anyone with a sore knee: take a tiny break so you do not end up in the hospital and never work out again. As usual, Brett gives sound advice.

P.S. Brett's consulting fee is one rare Pokémon card. by @jakerfoster

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11 days ago

A look at a few things I have been working on with my youth athletes lately, and why I chose each one:

👉Silas: 5RM Hang Power Clean

I have been using Mike Boyle’s 5RM ratios (hang power clean:bench press:chin-up:rear-foot-elevated split squat) for some of my more advanced high school athletes. This is Silas testing his. I am also using VBT tracking to start stockpiling data on him.

👉Sadie: Slideboard Reverse Lunge

The slideboard is one of my favorite single-leg progressions. It is the perfect bridge between a split squat and more open-chain single-leg exercises like a step-up, since both feet stay connected to the ground.

👉Samuel: 20RM Goblet Squat Progression

I stole this one from Dan John. Every one of my high school athletes has to hit a 100 lb goblet squat for 20 reps if it is a guy, 70 lbs for the ladies, before I will ever put a barbell on their back.

👉Trey: Deficit T-Bell Deadlift

The T-bell has become one of my favorite ways to pull heavy loads off the ground once a kettlebell gets too easy. I love all the variations: deficit, banded, banded deficit. The load sits in the center of the athlete’s mass, which increases their mechanical advantage and arguably makes the movement safer.

👉Logan: Hill Sprints

This one is for Logan at the start of his session. He plays defensive tackle, so we are working on max acceleration, and more specifically trying to get him more forward inclination when he sprints since he tends to run tall. We have messed around with hill sprints, sled sprints, and partner-resisted sprints. Shout out to Trey for jumping in at the end of his session too, just to add a little friendly competition.

👉Brett and Brady

My boys jumping in to join the fun. I try to get them involved whenever my athletes are doing speed or agility work outside, let them run around and play, then hurry them inside when we move into the garage so I can keep my focus on the athletes. by @jakerfoster

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13 days ago

Teaching my boys they can keep moving, even if it means pulling them along for a little while, knowing that one day they will have to run their own race. by @jakerfoster

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14 days ago

Monday morning garage gym ASMR?

Who else listens to @garagegymreviews to get through their session?

P.S. Shout out to Brady for keeping daddy company. by @jakerfoster

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18 days ago

A lot of people hear nutrition coaching and automatically think counting macros.

Graduate school taught me how many levers there really are, and how much performance gets left on the table when macros are the only one anybody pulls. by @jakerfoster

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20 days ago

Titans game today, but the heat had us feeling like we were back in Tampa.

The boys can root for the Titans all they want. I just remind them we keep first things first: Bucs -> Canes -> Titans (I guess). by @jakerfoster

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21 days ago

One piece of advice I keep coming back to when coaches ask me what I would tell someone starting out is this: coach a wide variety of people when you are starting out.

Over time, I think it becomes important for a coach to develop a niche, a group of people you are genuinely passionate about helping, who you have proven success with, and who truly value what you do. But when you are first starting out, I think so many young coaches get so caught up in finding a specific target market that they miss the value of coaching a wide variety of people first. Whether or not it is good for business does not really matter to me. I am not even sure this is great business advice, but I know it helps you become a better coach.

One of the things I am most proud of in my background is that I have worked with general fitness clients and athletes of all ages and backgrounds. That experience taught me two things:

First, you start to see that the principles themselves do not change, but the application does. @coachmichaelmcelroy always reminds me that the principles are few, but the methods are many. Working with a wide variety of people actually helps you discover those principles, because you start to realize how much it truly comes down to just a few core ideas, applied in different ways depending on the person in front of you. What you walk away with is twofold: clarity on what those principles are and a bigger toolbox of methods to use across different people.

Second, working with a wide variety of people reminds you that the niche you eventually lock in on can shift over time. Sometimes that shift comes from working with people you never expected to coach, only to find you end up loving it.

That happened to me. When I first started coaching, I knew I liked working with kids because I was a teacher, but I didn’t want to spend more of my time outside the classroom coaching them. The more I did it, though, the more I realized I loved it every bit as much as teaching, and over time, that group has become one of my primary focuses. by @jakerfoster

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22 days ago