Coaching
Build muscle. Get stronger. Understand your training.
Thirteen years of lifting, and a process I can explain rather than assert.
How I got here
A hundred pounds, thirteen years ago
I started lifting in eighth grade at the Pavilion with my friends Enzo and Brendan. I weighed about 100 pounds.
Back then, it was something we did together. Watch David Laid and Dylan McKenna on YouTube, get inspired, then go lift hard with our own friends. I was following their videos as they came out, while the beginning of my own story was happening between school and trips to the gym.
Thirteen years later, I’m approaching 200 pounds, only a few inches taller, and still have abs. A lot has happened between those two versions of me.
My training hasn’t been uninterrupted. There have been stretches of serious lifting and stretches when the gym took a back seat. But I’ve always kept something going — even if that meant doing calisthenics at home. Learning to keep training through different seasons of life has been as valuable as learning what to do under a barbell.
And throughout all of it, I’ve wanted to understand the process.
- Why does this work?
- What’s actually driving progress?
- What’s worth the effort, and what am I doing just because someone online said I should?
That’s how I approach most things: break them down, understand how the pieces fit, and build a system I can actually use. Training gave me somewhere to put that thinking into practice, year after year.
It’s also the approach I bring to coaching. Your starting point, your goals, your schedule, and what you can realistically repeat all matter. A plan should give you a clear next step and a way to know whether it’s working.
The work
What we’d work on
Built around your week as it actually is, not the week a program assumes you have.
Training
A progression written down before you get under the bar, with the rules stated so you can see why the next session asks what it asks.
Nutrition
Targets turned into meals you will actually eat, and a way to adjust them when the scale disagrees with the plan.
The rest of it
Sleep, scheduling, and how training survives a bad week — the parts that decide whether any of the above happens twice.
Understanding it
You should finish knowing why it worked. If you need me forever, I have done the job badly.
Coaching runs one to one. The written programs, dating coaching and single advice sessions are separate — they each have their own page.
If you want to build muscle, get stronger, and understand your training, let’s talk about where you are and where you want to go.
Start the conversation.
Tell me what you’re working toward and what’s been getting in the way. We’ll start there and see whether coaching together makes sense.
Send the word TRAINING so it does not get lost, or email MailAndrewValentine@gmail.com.
No price on this page on purpose — that comes after we work out what you actually need.
Not ready to message yet?
Training notes and new programs go out through the Dispatch first.
The Valentine Dispatch
Follow the whole project.
New writing, training notes, and first word when the book and the programs open. One list, sent when there is something worth sending.