Revolution of the Fitness Industry

For over a decade you have heard myself and Jessica speak about the power of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. As our DVRT family continues to grow I thought highlighting how other fitness professionals have found DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training to be a game changer will help you see the amazing ways you can apply the concepts of this great system. 

Today I wanted to share some insights by Dave Schulze. Watching Dave dramatically change his movement during the weekend of our DVRT certification was one of the most gratifying aspects of teaching our course. I want you to hear his words and want DVRT can do for YOU!

Q: Dave, can you tell us a little about your background and what you do currently?

As a teenager, I got into weight lifting and bodybuilding reading all the popular magazines.  In college, I took electives the equivalent of a minor in Kinesiology.  I continued to lift as I left college and worked for nearly a decade in the corporate world and computers.  I stopped working out and gained almost 30 lbs.  At the same time, I was back in community college, studying Kinesiology in order to get my ACSM Personal Trainer.  

I transitioned into a career in Personal Training and worked for almost 10 years training one on one.  During this time, my continuing education was limited.  I hardly attended workshops, but I discovered Cosgrove’s New Rules of Lifting.  That led me down the path into functional fitness, Results Fitness, FMS, Perform Better, and all the functional movement leaders, like Eric Cressey, Mike Boyle, Mike Reinold, Dos Remedios, Mike Robertson, and Josh Henkin.  Eventually, I opened my own the studio doing semi-private functional personal training.  

Q: You aren’t a novice to fitness education right? What do you think about when you think of what makes for real fitness education?

I think real fitness education comes from solid fundamentals — applied, then challenged.  You have to know the basics to effectively teach exercises, write programs, and get results.  That said, experience is a HUGE teacher.  Only from spending lots of hours in the trenches will one start to learn the art of coaching, see patterns in people’s bodies, and devise programs that yield real results.  Sometimes it’s okay to break the rules.  After 10 years and 100s of clients, I’ve gone from caring how to help people melt body fat at to learning how to help people move better and feel better.  As I’ve aged, my clientele has aged, but I also think people are different now because they sit so much more.  A real fitness education should empower trainers with the knowledge and tools to function as hybrid physical therapist-hybrid strength and conditioning coach.

Let’s not forget the psychology of coaching and behavioral change.  This past weekend at DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training I & II, I began thinking of fitness as Functional Living.  We know about Functional Movement and Functional Medicine.  Isn’t there a combination?  A place where we look at movement, hormones and food, and mindset and behaviors?  I believe that neuroscience and experience in the fields will continue to lead us to understand how they all work and how they all work better together.  Real fitness education never really ends does it?!

I guess I think real education comes from application and refinement and from the synthesis of many paths of knowledge.  There are too many trainers than have book smarts and not street smarts or people skills and too many who are magnetic personalities and get tons of clients, but are poor trainers.  

Q: How did things change as you went through the program?

As I said, my body started to move differently minute by minute, hour by hour.  From the beginning, I began to grip the floor more, pack my lats more, and feel full body tension during every movement.  I felt movements more completely than ever before.  It reminded me of yoga, pilates, and rock climbing.  You have to completely engage while moving.  Total body tension with movement.  It was beautiful!  Strength, control, and fluidity.  In some ways it was the most physically demanding and yet the easiest.  When things fire correctly, it’s almost effortless, like the first time I did a perfect barbell snatch!  By the end I felt like a new person.  Aches I had were gone.  This week since, I’ve been more sore than ever, but so grateful to feel muscles “on” for the first time in a long while.  Meanwhile, others have “calmed” down.  It’s quite magical and didn’t require advanced anatomy or specialized training, just good movement principles. 

Q: What were some big takeaways for you and how do you think it will impact your business?

Well, the biggest takeaways for me are a deeper passion for coaching and hammering in the basics and the cues.  It’s easy to get lazy when you are running a semi-private personal training studio.  So many people, so many plates in the air.  But driving home the cues like “crush the bag” and “pull the handles apart” has immediately yielded results.  Clients are feeling the workouts more.  The intensity and intention is up.  Therefore, the quality is up which will lead to efficiency and capacity.  Likewise, the concepts of grounding, core, and slings, have all my clients increasing range of motion and move better with less pain.  

DVRT also gives me a wide range of clientele to serve.  As it’s nearly infinitely progressive and regressive, I can work with a 75 yo male with two rotator tears doing core active glute bridges and a 30 yo male doing complexes, matrixes, and flows.  

Q: How would you describe your overall DVRT experience?

Josh Henkin has synthesized the work of many and honed it by his experience into a movement system like nothing I’ve experienced. DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Fitness not only reminded me the power of coaching, it unlocked my own body, and will forever change the way the I train my clients.

Functional movement is more than training movement patterns versus body parts. To quote Josh, “Functional movement is about building capacity and efficiency.” I’ve done metabolic conditioning & densities. I’ve done Olympic weightlifting & heavy lifting with barbells and dumbbells. Using Ultimate Sandbags this weekend was some of the most physically and mentally taxing training I’ve ever done. But it’s was also the most fun. I’m more sore than I’ve ever been, but I feel like I’m walking in a new body.

If you’re not in fitness you might not care, but I bet we can all appreciate a speaker and educator who can easily and concisely explain complex principles. Josh Henkin is a charismatic speaker and one of the best educators I know. He’s also the most approachable and laid back guy.

Jessica Bento and all the DVRT Master Instructors rock highly! The ratio of coaches to students was exceptional and these coaches are well adept at seeing and correcting even the slightest inefficiencies.

Finally, it’s so humbling to be in a room of peers with so much collective education. From Krav Maga to powerlifting to kettlebells, from personal trainers to group trainers to business owners, everyone is dedicated to their trade and mastering it, being better every day. And no egos. All about learning and sharing. It’s wonderful to have such a good network!

Q: If people want to learn more about your services and how they can learn DVRT from you how can they reach you?

I’m in North Austin at www.focusfitnessaustin.com.  We provide semi-private, functional personal training for men and women looking to move better, feel great, and live their best life!  And we are proud to be the only DVRT Certified facility in Austin!

Don’t miss the chance to change your business and your personal fitness with DVRT educational programs. Check out upcoming events HERE or save 25% on our Online DVRT certification with coupon code “MEMORIAL” HERE