Don Saladino
Appearances
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
She was asking me the questions this time. I normally ask her the good questions. So Yeah, this is something that it's an evolution, but that's why most people are so confused, right? That's why there's not this one book in the store where you're just like, here, take this and do it and have a healthy life. Good luck, right? This is why people start things and then it starts working.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They're like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever. And then months later, they're like, oh, I'm not getting the same response. They start a new diet. They feel amazing. They're like, I feel incredible. And out of nowhere, they're not receiving the same, you know, response from that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And I think that's why, you know, what people need to understand is the body's always changing, seasons change, stress levels. You're just, you're, you're not, I mean, I'm always trying to find a way to be optimal, right? And I'm always trying to find a way to do better and feel better.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And it's been, I can't tell you, I don't know if I know anyone on the planet that's committed to more programs than I am. I'll go do blood work. I'll go, You know, I'll test things six months later. Like I just, this is like what I love to do. So for me, it's fun, but out there for most people, you know, if they're listening and they're like, well, I'm not a coach.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But like, you know, back at that time, you know, I was looking at it as something that was terrible and ended up being a blessing. It was the best thing that could have happened to me because, you know, it pushed me to become an athlete and went off to play, you know, college baseball and got really into, working out at a young age.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's like, all right, well find someone that's good. You know, find someone that's actually coach, you know, and you know, who has some experience on the floor because a good coach is going to have the education. but they're also going to know how to navigate things. And when I tell everyone, and you know this better than anyone, this is all like a big, giant puzzle.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You're being handed your puzzle, and your puzzle's going to look different than my puzzle. We could have the same goals, but it's going to be a different puzzle to get there. It's just how it works.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's the worst question ever. I don't mean to be. No, it's not. It's not a bad question because it's what people know to ask. It's like I think a lot of the people out there who are like highly educated in this and they're like, oh, well, it depends. Like, yeah, it's it's I can understand how certain people as a coach, you can't get annoyed at that question. No, it's not that I get annoyed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Yeah. Yeah, I think... I think you got to recognize between the coach and the influencer. Right. Yes. A coach is giving influence. Right. Like we are we are we are influencing people like I understand that. But I think it's very obvious when you look at someone online and they're like, this is what I eat every day to get ripped. Yeah. And you're like, OK, like, fantastic.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like, that's that's that's great. That works for you. And that's awesome. And that might be the worst thing for someone else to do. So that's also why if you go through my social media or you go through any of my content, I'm never saying like this is the best thing. I might say like, hey, you want to take a look at my morning routine? This is what I do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Or like I put up a post today on three supplements, right? And what were the three supplements? The first one I said was protein. Well, hold on. That's not a supplement. It's a macronutrient, but you may need a supplement if you're not getting enough. The next I said was creatine, which we all know the benefits of that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I think it was because of that I realized that I could be physical and I could make up for my stutter, my hearing, and it was something that allowed me to feel significant. I think it really comes down to that I found you know, what was allowing me to feel significant at a young age. And that happened to be athletics and it happened to be, you know, exercise.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then I was like, then I'm throwing a wild card in there because I'm almost like, do we all need fish oil? Maybe not. Do we all need vitamin D? Like, well, I'm sorry, we need it, but we may have enough of this in our, we may have enough of this in our body to where we don't need to supplement it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So I, you know, I threw out a urolithin A supplement that I've been playing around with and it was genuine. And I have noticed, you know, a lot of return on my skin and certain things. I'll be 48 April. So like I have been noticing certain things and I'm like, yeah, I'm big on this right now. That's, that's me being honest.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's not, it's, you know, it's not a push, but again, I always get very nervous with coaches when they're like, this is what you have to do. Because a good coach is going to know that, you know, it's not always about, you know, it's not, I never turn to anyone and I'm like, here's my A plan. Right. Like, I find out, like, where are you?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then it's like, with most people, it's minimalistic approach. When I have an actor who's got to get ready and they're like, I've got four weeks, I'm like, you're mine. Right. You've got four weeks and we have to do what? Your mind. Like, this is it. Like, this is no, there's no compromise here.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
This is you giving me feedback and me making adjustments and us getting you there because this is your livelihood and you have no choice. And guess what? I hate doing it. I hate short-term. I hate short-term like we have four weeks. I like long-term investments. I want to turn around and I want to help educate someone.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And I want every year for them to turn around and say, I keep learning from this guy. I keep improving my health, my body composition. Everything keeps improving. God, there's no way I could have done this all on day one. He had to rewire the way I approach these things. And that's what I enjoy doing more.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Who are you? Who are you speaking to over over there?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Again, it's one of those, this is the thing about supplementing and the thing about some of these newer products coming out is you're going to have a science-backed coach. Yes. Immediately turn around and say, there's no evidence. Or there is evidence, but the research is inconclusive. Or I know Timeline keeps developing and they keep bringing more and more research to the table.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then I started just like you probably did was, you know, admired certain, you know, figures on the covers of magazines that now today I'll be friends with and, You know, college, I went off to play Division I college baseball, had a great four-year career there.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I think a good coach, if there's no question mark, if this is a product that had a question mark on health, I'm not messing with it. If there was any arrow pointing in the direction that this could be risky, I am not messing with it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But a lot of these science facts, you know, coaches or whatever they want to refer to them as, scientists, biohackers, whatever it is, I don't care, teachers don't call you, whatever you feel is right, they also have to form their own hypothesis and they have to go out there and I think they have to put things to the test. And I think this is what a lot of these people are missing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They want to regurgitate what they're reading online constantly. When I have been doing this 26 years and I cannot tell you the amount of highly respected coaches that have turned around 10 years later and contradicted themselves. And I'm like, wait a second, you said this 10 years ago. And they were like,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
changed my mind where the research pointed in a different direction and I actually committed to something and I saw but it's very easy for someone to say well how do you know it was urolithin A where your skin got better dude I'm so dialed in with what I put into my body I'm so dialed in with my bedtime this is the way that I love to live that when you start taking something and you begin to notice a difference and then get off of it and take a long time off and then get back on it and see it again you start forming your own assumption that like
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
All right, like there may be something there. So I think that's another thing. That's another thing a lot of these coaches need to start doing is like stop regurgitating what is being, well, this scientist or Stanford has, you know, came to this conclusion because we've seen this stuff is wrong. I think that information could be a segue for us to now to begin to experiment.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then I'm really interested in that coach who's been in the industry for a long time, who's like, yeah, I have been doing this for a while. I started taking creatine monohydrate 30 years ago. I was, what's the math? 16 to 17 years old. It was longer than 30. Yeah, the math would be longer than that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And I remember I had Dr. Wadler at the time was being like, get off creatine. It's not good for your liver. Yes. Okay, remember this? Your liver enzymes were high. You know why my liver enzymes were high? Because I was drinking with creatine. When I say I was drinking, at the time, I was binge drinking maybe one night a week or one night every two weeks, and my liver enzymes were high.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But throughout my college career, was so immersed in training and nutrition and supplementation that I was... I mean, my college coach even told me at one point, like, do what you want for your workouts. You know, it was back then, I'm looking at it now, I'm like, no, I should have been doing what the team was doing. But, you know, he just kind of told me, he's like...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You know what I did at one point? You know how I figured this out? I stopped drinking. I lied to him. I told him I got off creatine. And he came back and he goes, I told you it was the creatine. I go, why? He's like, your liver enzyme count is completely in a very healthy place now. I never got off creatine. So it had nothing to do with that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
He was so set in his ways that at a young age, I was like, I'm not stopping this supplement. Everything I'm reading on, it's amazing. And it's not even, you know how much more we found out since then? I was like, it's fine. I'll never forget reading the line. Well, it's in The amount of protein you're getting from five grams is what you would get in like five pounds of raw uncooked meat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And I'm like, well, how can that be bad? I'm 16, 17 saying that, right? But you know what? I'm at that age, probably naive because it could have been bad. We don't know. But it ended up being probably one of the, most highly recommended supplements in the world right now. Everyone now is suddenly like, your grandparents should be taking it. Oh, you're a 15, 16-year-old kid.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
There's cognitive benefits to this and all this stuff. So, you know, again... You've got to take a stop and form your own opinion by committing to a process. Never jump into anything that's dangerous, of course. That's also a reason why I've never experimented with any type of performance-enhancing substance. Never in my life. Why? My blood works have always been phenomenal.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
My energy level has always been great. I've always held a good amount of muscle. So people are like, well, why, what's wrong with it? I'm like, I just don't, I don't need, why would I mess with something that I don't need? That's not to devalue my friend who was in Afghanistan that was literally blown up, had his jaw blown off his face, his nose blown off his face, his arm blown off his body.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Jason Redman, good friend of mine. And he had to get on stuff and he's very public about it now. So I know there is, there is a time and a place for certain people, um, that need to go down this route. But I also think that's become the Wild West where this is a big cash grab for a lot of doctors. And you better be careful because, again, we have not... What are the words I'm looking for here?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
We have not spent enough time with these things to understand the long-term ramifications from it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
the guys don't want to work out with you. You're a lunatic. So kind of, you know, live in your own world. But I, again, I think that's where it started for me. And then finding when I graduated college, finding my lane and finding, you know, where my profession is going to be, you know, be becoming a coach back in 1999. I wasn't thinking about, you know, how am I going to make a career?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Yeah, I, I, I totally, I totally agree with you on that. I mean, I don't know what the percentage is. Um, uh, but I, but I do know that, you know, what is going to really trump nutrition and rest and, and, and training. And those are the hard, like, those are the things you remember the last couple of years, everyone's like, I try to do something hard every day. Right.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like everyone, everyone's like, I want to do something difficult. I'm looking at half these people and They're like, wow, they all want to do something difficult, but none of these people that I've seen, not all of them, most of them, they've got like 20% to 25% body fat. They're out of shape, and they're all like, do something difficult today. I'm like, do something difficult? That's waking up.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You know, and having to go through that morning routine that you have. And I don't mean meditation. I'm not talking about that. I don't meditate, right? I'm not going to meditate if I'm taking a cold plunge or I'll call it meditation. I'm just sitting there trying to breathe and count slow and relax. That's, you know, but I think the hard things are having that discipline to be consistent.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I think that's where this becomes a challenge for most people.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I think training is so easy and I think training is fun. And I think there's, I think that with that, it's, it's like discipline over motivation, like just show up and do something type of thing. And every time I do a new training program, it's like, I'm doing a new project, right? It's like fun. It's like I'm building something or I'm driving a new car or going on a vacation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's like, I literally look at, a new program, when I'm committing to something or a new block of training, I'm going to every session like I'm thinking about the night before. Like it sounds, you're going to be like, get a life. No, I have a great life. I have two amazing children. I have a beautiful wife who's my business partner. We got a successful business. We have a happy home.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I love what I do. Um, I, I love the fact that I'm disciplined and I like to put my time into these sorts of things. That's what makes me happy. Do I go and have pizza? Yeah. I had one last night with my, with my, with my son and my wife. We sat around the table eating it. Like, do, do I once in a blue moon? Do I ever have a beer? Sure.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I know the next time I'll probably have one is when I'm on the slopes snowboarding with my, with my family in March. Like, do I have a lot? No, I don't. Like, it just doesn't make me feel good. But there's, there's times I do let my hair down and do those things. And that's what allows me to really enjoy my life because I never abuse it. I always feel good. And that's how I like to approach it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Right. Do you remember this guy? I don't remember this guy. This guy, Brian Johnson, right now, this like biohacker, this like he's out of his. Yeah, I watched my son the other night, wanted to watch his documentary and I watched it. And I was fascinated on how many people were like, excuse my language, shitting on him.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like these women on the view jumped on and they were like, Oh my God, like live a little, get a life. And I was like, I felt actually felt terrible for him. I'm like, this actually seems happy. And he seems, you know, and he's not like, do I think he's a little kooky? Sure. Do I think his lifestyle is a little unusual for most? Yes. Can I relate to him?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Because he is just... And then you had other doctors going on being like, this isn't science. Fine. Fine. He is still trying to push the envelope in his own life. He has the money and the resources to do this sort of thing. So he's going for it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So I actually had this newfound respect for the guy when I finished the documentary because I was like, I don't care his personal life, that stuff, whatever. But like how he's approaching something he's passionate with and the amount of discipline and the monotony. And it's like when I watch a bodybuilder on stage, most people would say, oh, steroids, like bullshit. Get on steroids.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You know, how am I going to be able to support a family one day? I just, I'm really lucky. my approach was trying to become the best coach out there and getting as educated as possible. And, you know, I'm flying all over the country, taking as many courses as possible. Remember, there was no online courses. There was no webinars. There's none of this stuff existed. So there was no social media.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You ain't going to look like that person on stage. It ain't happening. When I'm at the Olympia watching these competitors, I've never had the urge to compete. But I admire them for the amount of discipline and the amount of years and hard work. Contest prep is one of the most miserable. I've gone through it and I haven't competed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's one of the most, as you know, miserable, disgusting things you can ever do. Talk about feeling terrible. Talk about boring. Imagine for, you know, 8, 10, 12, 16 weeks. eating the exact same foods at the exact same times over and over. People would go crazy. They can't do that. People can't even get one healthy meal a day, let alone do what these guys.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So when I look at them, there's almost this respect that I find for these people who have to put in this hard work, like this guy, Brian. Do I think he's going to live longer than most? Who knows? Life is weird sometimes. But am I looking at the process of what he's going through? And do I think he might open the eyes for people to think a little bit differently, maybe.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And if people are getting healthier, then, you know, they're good forever.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Think about how many people started on trajectories where others were like, oh, he's crazy or she's crazy. And then, you know, then they find something out and they're like, genius.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
i'm like give the guy a break but i was i was more turned off by uh how critical people were of him and it's just you know you should be able what they should be saying was like listen if this is what makes this person happy fantastic about go live a little maybe maybe maybe he's living you know what the amount of joy it sounds like he's getting out of you know slowing down his aging process if he even is is he's happy knock yourself out buddy
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You have to. I mean, I can't believe the amount of knowledge out there now and the amount of access we have is extraordinary. You know, on the other hand, there's so much of it that, you know, confuses the living hell out of people. So I can understand why a lot of people are confused, but yeah, the access that we have now, the fact that you can turn around and if you,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Literally, you'd hear about a course. You'd be on a plane. You'd be in California. You'd be in Texas. You'd be in Florida. You'd went wherever you could go to to take a mentorship program and a coaching program on top of that every year I would always hire um some form of uh A training coach. And when I say that, it was like, all right, what do I want to get exceptional at?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
forget something or you have to look up, you know, I can't tell you the amount of times like I love watching documentaries. I'll literally sit there with my phone next to me and I'm like, oh, this person's still alive. Google. Wow. How many teams do they play on? Google. Wow. And it's like, it's just, it's just like encyclopedia that you have next to you. God, we didn't have that 30 years ago.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's like, it's, it's amazing.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Yeah. So I think most, not all, most, um, should lean to more of a high protein and, um, let's just say abundant carbohydrate fat diet. Like I do believe in metabolic flexibility. I do believe that, you know, we all need, yeah, roughly that gram of protein per pound of body weight. I'm not saying we need this to survive. Like you can go way lower than that, right? To survive.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm talking about all of us out there. Most of us listening to this, we train, we're hard on our bodies. And I also know that if you're consuming a gram of protein per pound of body weight, you know, how much it adds from animal, you know,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
is that animal protein and then how much is that from collagen or how much of that is from nuts or seeds or whatever, you know, so most people out there when they think they're getting, you know, a gram per pound of body weight, they're actually probably getting less of that animal protein.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So, um, yeah, so I, and I, and I do believe I've always been, um, I'm someone that's always been very lean for a very, you know, for a long period of time. And, um, you know, every cover I've been on probably a dozen covers. I've been on, uh, I think four since 2018, I've been on muscle and fitness three times, men's health once.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And every single cover I've gotten ready for, I've had four to five weeks to get ready. And, um, which isn't a lot of time. So, you know, how can I go around all the time being lean, being in single digit body fat, but keeping my energy level high. I'm an athlete. I play ice hockey, Uh, right now I play three days, three days a week. I play Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturday mornings early.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Um, so I like to skate. I like to play, but you're out there burning and I need fuel. So like, how is it that I'm able to stay lean by consuming higher carbohydrates? Also because one of the carbs I consume are good carbs. They're fibrous carbs. I think fiber is something that we overlook a lot and where everyone's just looking more towards macronutrients.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I always say the fourth macronutrient is fiber. And I think that's something that we should all look at. But I don't, I also know that if you're someone that is, oh, every time I have carbohydrates, I gain weight, right? Which is a very common thing for people to hear, you know? What's the science on it?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
For every gram of carbs you're pulling in, you're probably drawing in, what, two to three grams of water, roughly, right? So it's normal that if you go on a low-carbohydrate diet, you're going to dehydrate your muscle of water, and then you're going to go out and have a couple of margaritas or have a couple of tacos or whatever it is.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Your body the next day is like, oh my God, I just gained five of the eight pounds back. It Why am I doing this? And I also believe that these things need to be built in time.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Let me find the best kettlebell person. Let me find the best Olympic lifter. Who's the best bodybuilding coach? Who's the best sports performance person? And it was always nutrition-wise. I got into assessing bloods back when I was 16, 17 years old. I was going to Dr. Gary Wadler. and who was on the congressional hearing for the whole baseball steroid scandal.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So a lot of times when I'm working with someone who is consuming a low-calorie diet, they've been in a deficit too long, and we've set a path that we're going to try and get their calories up, I will take weeks, if not months, to do so. So if you're going to a macro tracking app like Phenometer, there's a new one out right now that I really like called Carbon. I have no affiliation with them.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm just giving my two cents. But a lot of these macro tracking apps, what it will do is it'll ask you your age, your height, your weight. And your activity level. Are you sedentary? Are you lightly active? Are you moderately active? And based off of that, it'll use whatever. I know chronometry uses like a Mifflin equation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And it'll use an algorithm that will get you, you know, into a good range of probably where you need to be for your maintenance calories. And I'm saying that's just, you know, without saying that we want to be in a surplus or deficit. So let's say someone comes to me and they're at 1,200 calories a day, but they go to chronometer and chronometer is telling them 2,200 calories a day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like the biggest mistake people make is that like the next day after they get this information, they're like trying to hit 2,200 calories and they end up getting to like 1,600. They feel sick and they feel bloated. They might be able to maintain this for a few days. And then they get on the scale. They're like... can't do this. I just gained five pounds. I'm done.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Where like what they should have done is maybe take an incredibly conservative approach. And I might do, this is really conservative, but if I have to raise someone a thousand calories, I might do that 10 weeks.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And I might just take a hundred calories a week and I might just bump it, which is so easy to do. Oh my God. Like you could do, you know, you know, what's the math on that? I mean, 20, you know, 25 grams of protein, that's a hundred calories right there. You're done. So, so think about that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You could slowly start bumping up your macronutrients and you could slowly start reverse dieting into a process. And what I have found, and this is my testing, this is my, this is me putting this out to tens of thousands of people online from very scalable
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Is that if they commit to the process and they are resting and hydrating and they focus, you know, I've had people, I've had women on this group, in this group go from 1400 calories to 3200 calories and lose 30 pounds. You know, because now their energy levels increase, their sleep quality is increasing and all these good things happen. It's taken them two years to do that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like, let's be very clear. So I think that's part of the problem with most people is that they jump into these things thinking it's going to be this automatic body composition change. And when I say body composition change, that doesn't always mean weight loss. You could change body composition. You could burn body fat without losing weight. We've seen it. Of course. No problem.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You could put on weight and not increase body fat. Of course you can. These are hard things to do, but they are possible. I just think it's this level of patience and it's this lack of education. Um, and it's people always listening to you. Well, you have to be in a deficit to lose weight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like, well, what, what happens to the person that's consuming a thousand calories a day and starving themselves? And then every once in a while binge eating, like I'm going to try and bump their calories. I'm going to try and keep them more satiated, right? I'm going to develop their muscle building block. I'm going to increase their fiber and, um,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm going to, over time, watch a body composition change. And we'll do this over a long period of time to wear through the coaching process. How are you feeling? Energy levels increasing. Great. How's your sleep? Sleeping better than I ever have. Wow. I weighed myself. I haven't lost weight. Keep going. Like, let's just keep going. And you understand what happens at that point.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And he was the one looking at my bloods at a very young age. He was at my wedding when I got married, right? This was so many years ago, but I was definitely ahead of my time in that sense. And nutritionally, I can list dozens of incredible nutrition coaches, cultural medicine doctors that I've worked with throughout the years. But no, I think that was kind of my school. And now, proud to say I've
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But it's difficult for most people to trust the process.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So that's, those are, and I, and I'm first of all, I'm so happy for you. And it's like to be able to make that type of drastic change and to reap the benefits and feel that way is really a special thing. I was just fortunate enough to, When I got into nutrition, every time I learned something, I'd be like, oh, this is what I have to do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It was funny because I think back to when I really started lifting weights at 15, 16. I remember my buddy of mine looking, being like, after a workout one night, he said, we got to get some protein now. I'm like, what's that? And he's like, you know, it's in like chicken and meat and like, well, we're okay. Where do you want to go? He's like, let's go to Dramos.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Dramos is a pizza marina in my town. He's like, we're going to get meatballs and pasta. I said, great. So we go eat meatballs and pasta. And then like out of nowhere, you know, you're hearing that to get super shredded. Like is white pasta the best thing? Maybe not. Okay. Um, well, Oh, now we're going to start eating egg whites or eating egg whites.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Well, now we're going to start eating whole eggs. And you start eating whole eggs as you understand the importance of the fat and the, and the amino acid, um, et cetera, et cetera. But every time I would hear something that I needed to do, I was like, Oh, I'll do it. The one thing I never like, have I ever done a ketogenic diet? I did it for, um, I think I got a ketosis for like three months. Um,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
purposely, not because I was like, this is what I want to do. I'm like, I have to do this. Too many people are asking me questions. Have I ever done intermittent fasting? Yes, I have. I've done it probably for the same amount of time because I had to answer questions. Have I done Did I ever experiment with going raw vegan? I did it for about a week. And then I was like, the hell with this.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
This is something that there's no way. I mean, even that was absolutely miserable. Raw vegan, like, you know how hard that is? I read this book by this guy, Matt Grace. And I was just like, all right, I'm going to try. And I was like, and I can't believe I made it a week. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I hated it. But yeah, have I tried being a vegetarian? Sure.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Have I tried pesky? Yeah, but it wasn't because I was like, oh, this is the healthy thing to do. It was always because I was like, I need to understand what this is like and I have to do this by trial and error. The entire time knowing and understanding that the way that I eat now is the way that I always should be eating.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
been a coach for roughly 26 years. Um, I probably trained over 40,000 one hour sessions in my life. I no longer take on one-on-one clients. I mean, I've got a great online community. Uh, I it's more much more of a scalable business now. So I sell programs in 80 countries. I host challenges. The last three, four years, I've rented an island off the coast of Mexico and I host my retreat.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I kind of always knew that, but I think where my diet has evolved throughout the years is understanding about rotating different foods in seasonally and getting different shades in. And if I am on the road eating and there's access to different types of foods that I don't have access to, jump into that. There's just understanding the importance of fiber.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
When you're younger, you're just eating brown rice and chicken and broccoli. Is that food really nutrient dense and really powerful? No. But all in all, even looking back on the last 20, 25 years, it's pretty damn good. It's not like I went from being a vegetarian and doing that for a couple of years because I watched some documentary and then
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
you know, what they don't tell you is a few years and how many of those people converted back to eating. Like you said, now, now you read meat. Why? Because your body feels good from it. It's not bad for you, but if you're eating McDonald's, sure. Like it's a crappy quality of meat with all this other crap in it that your body doesn't need.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So, you know, I think sometimes they generalize it too much. What was that terrible documentary out? Um, um, Game Changers, remember that? Yeah. So this is my thing on that, right? And I don't even know why I'm bringing this up, but a lot of what they, like they went to a fire department to, they said, see what happened.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
These firemen like went from eating a terrible diet to a vegetarian diet and they lost a combined, remember when they gave all the data at the end, 50 pounds and X, Y, and Z. And it was like, I was like, oh my God, like what would have, they should have went back in and been like, we're going to,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Give them a diet of organic, you know, grass-fed, you know, whatever, like proteins and slow-burning carbohydrates and veggies and fruits and, like, would they have seen even more progress? Like, that's what they didn't do. They removed the Doritos and the beer and they threw in bean patties and they said, well, this is why it happened. Okay, you removed the Doritos and beer.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
What would have happened? If you ate the way that you and I eat, my assumption would have been that they probably would have seen even better results. Yet, I can't tell you how many people that I work with are vegetarian. My daughters are pescatarian, that are carnivore. I never really talk people out of these things. I say, well, why are you doing it? I want to understand.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They give me their reason. I'm like, you sure you want to do it? They're like, well, what's your viewpoint on nutrition? I said, well, this is what I typically recommend. But if this is something you really feel like committing to, let me help you do this in the best way possible. So I don't even like try talking them out of it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
The times I start talking them out of it is when they turn to me and they're like, I feel terrible. My energy level has dropped. Look at my skin. There's things that are going wrong with it. Why? And then we try and do a deep dive in to figure out why. And even most of the time, I'm not even the one that can give them those answers because we're going for blood.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So I'm turning into like a Dr. Gabrielle Lyon or a Dr. Dwayne Jackson. And we're doing a really... You know, a much deeper internal dive into their life to understand about just to say, well, it's because you're not eating meat. There might be a there might be a problem that's way worse than that. Right. So, you know, I try not to jump to the conclusion there.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But I think it's understanding, you know, why people are doing things is very important.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Thank you. Tell Don, Don said he loves it. Say Don said he loves you. That's what he said.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I agree with you. And I'm laughing right now because I'm looking, my phone just buzzed and it says Dr. Dwayne Jackson on it. Is that crazy? But yeah, I totally agree with you on that. Sustainability is a huge part. It's even what program design too. It's like not understanding the client, not understanding how are they going to respond to this program.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So like we've we've really built up a great business. We've got a great team working for us here at the bar. This is my facility that I built in 2021. And I just let my friends come in here and it's a place where we shoot content and do and do work.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Why are you giving them a program that's 90 minutes when you know their attention doesn't go past 20 minutes? Again, that's coaching. Design for the greatest 19-minute program on the planet. Let them do that. Let them feel good about that. Build progress. Build consistency. It's very easy. People are going to say, what are you talking about?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's so easy to keep motivation high when someone's seeing progress. That's what most people aren't realizing. If you're unmotivated or you feel like you're not disciplined to do this stuff, you probably would be a lot more motivated and a lot more disciplined if you saw a good return on your investment. And that's the problem.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It's like, well, when someone is actually turning around going, oh my God, my body fat's improving. Oh my God, I'm getting stronger. Oh my God, my sleep is improving. They're not going to turn around and want to go out and bury their head in a pizza and a keg of beer. They're going to want to build on that. That's what a good coach helps them do.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
who you know i've learned from paul for the last you know probably 25 plus years he's the one who kind of introduced i've never met him in person but he's the one who introduced to me like
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
biodynamic and organic farming and i remember you know he was teaching courses on how the tractor opposed to the to the horse's hook right and how it's not going to denature the soil and i was learning about soil quality from him you know back in 2000 i mean the guy was so far ahead of his time but he was talking the other day about how you know trackings you know not good in the trackings you know well you know you should be able to yeah i get it like you're you're paul or
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Or Dylan, you can do that. Or maybe I could do that. But I do believe that tracking removes a lot of the guesswork. And with protein, I stole this line from my buddy, Dr. Pat Davidson. It's just math. It's just math. It's like, if you know you got to get 200 grams of protein in a day, and I'm making this number up for math purposes.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You're a 200-pound person and you have to get 200 grams of protein a day? It's just math. Well, how many meals are you doing? Four meals? Well, that's 50 grams a meal, right? Four times 50 is 200. Five meals? Well, it's 40 grams a meal. It's just math. Three meals? Well, you're going to have to bump up that protein consumption.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Intermittent fasting and you're someone that gets two to three meals in a day? Well, your window of opportunity to consume nutrition, those bookends have really come in. and you don't have that much time, but you better make sure that you get the nutrition that you're getting.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Because if you do IF, right, and you don't start eating until 12, 1 o'clock, and you're going to bed at 9 o'clock at night, how many opportunities do you have to turn around and get the nutrition and the fiber and the protein, the carbs that you need in there? And that's where I really believe that tracking can be beneficial.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
When I'm working with someone, I won't even bring up tracking if they're like, oh, well,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
never committed to this and let me dive into it and i'm like great let's this is what let's start here right and i'll just incorporate maybe one meal in or oh i haven't had breakfast in years and i'm like well i'm not hungry we'll have one egg and a piece of fruit well that's not enough you i know it's not enough but let's start working there right this is you know part of a process of kind of building someone back you know up to that point so um
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I do believe sometimes when you're sitting here and you're scratching your head and you feel like you've been eating really well, I eat great though. And I eat beautifully, but my body won't change. It's like, all right, can it be a training problem? Sure. It could be like, maybe your training's complete garbage. And I never liked saying that, but you know, maybe you're not walking enough.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Maybe you're not moving enough. Maybe your sleep's terrible. You know, maybe you're going to the gym, checking your phone every two seconds and, and, and not actually approaching a set with some intention. Maybe one day your protein consumption is at 200 grams. Maybe another day it's at 120. Maybe one day your fiber is at 15 grams. Maybe one day it's at the 38 grams minimum that I need to be at.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
When you have that much volatility and it's inconsistent, yeah, I think sometimes people have a very challenging time changing. But for someone who needs to get to 200 grams of protein a day, If you're getting in 80 grams of protein in a day, jumping up 120 overnight for someone like you would be easy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But for someone else on the street that's not used to that, maybe we have to slowly start tapering them into that. Maybe I would recommend, you know what, hit 100 for a few days or a week and hit 120 for a week and hit 140 for a week. And then out of nowhere, activity level, recovery, you're getting up out of bed, you're feeling better, you're feeling stronger, you're moving more weight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And all these things happen that really improve your motivation.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But you're nailing it. That's the thing. It's also something that's become so habitual to you. It's just like, this is you waking up every day and going through your routine and getting your nutrition in. You look forward to this because you also know the return you're receiving from it, right? It's like, all right, well, did I enjoy that pizza last night? Yeah, 100%. And it's delicious.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
The place I get it from in town, too, they make it with, like, sourdough bread. Like, it's delicious. It's freaking delicious. They don't, like, fry any of their stuff. They use, like, avocado oil and beef tallow. But it's, like, delicious and light. You can go have, like, a bit of a cheat meal. And the next day, I wake up, and I'm, like, beady. And I'm, like, I feel great.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And, like, I'm not, like, no digestive issues. It's awesome. It's awesome. These are things that like people, who the hell is going to know this? Right. Who the hell is going to know this? Like you just, you're on overdrive right now, man. Like you're in incredible shape. You love this. You're a big dork about this stuff. Like I am like, we just love it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Fascinating. And that's why, like, even when I occasionally give some business talks to coaches and, you know, this stuff didn't exist back then, right? It's like, there was no, like, we're doing Riverside right now, right? This is, you know, this is an online, like, this didn't, like, if you explain this to someone back then, it didn't exist.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
We can turn around and listen to people who know what they're talking about. We're like, we get, you and I are so in common with that. Like we get so geeked up, but most people out there aren't like that. So I think sometimes, you know, breaking it down in a simple way and like, When I say it's just math, like it's just math, but I'm full. Well, what did you get in today? I got in a hundred.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You're telling me I need 200. Do me a favor. Spend one week at a hundred. But you said I had to be at 200. Spend one week at a hundred. Get really good at a hundred. Because guess what? The hundred that you got today was probably last week, a hundred one day, 60 another day. And then after the seven days, I'm like, how is this? I'm used to it now. Great. Let's bump it up. Let's get around 120.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They're like, all right, now I know what you're doing. And now it took us five weeks for us to get up to that point. I really think that slow, steady approach is the right way to do things.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
you know, it's also one of those things where that was like my carb cycling solution, not for a bodybuilder, but for most people. Because lumen is, it's a form of carb cycling because it's going to adjust your carbs or your fats according to how much carbon dioxide you're breathing into this little chamber.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So, yeah, again, but like most, some people would go buy it and I'd be like, you don't want to trap. Right. And they'd be like, oh, I have to track if I'm doing this. I'm like, well, yeah. But they said you don't have to. I'm like, yeah, that's when you get really good at it. Then you don't have to.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Once you start understanding what your meal portion sizes should look like and like, oh, I'm having a piece of salmon. This is around the size. Or, oh, it's telling me that I have a boost day or I got to have more fats. I can go in this direction. Yeah, that's when you get – You're like you or me where you could start making those decisions.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
The web back then was an Ethernet cable that you plugged into the wall. You used to hear that loud dial tone. Yeah. The web was this black hole of secrets. No one really knew what it was. It was, you know, this is a long time ago. There was no, you know, online webinars, retreats. There was no paid spend. There was no social media.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But for the newbie out there, if you tell them we'll have more fat today, they're going to be like, what the hell does that mean? Right. What does 180 grams of fat mean today? How much fat is that? Do you know how much fat that is? So, yeah, I'm 100% with you. But again, the data for you, which comes so easy, I'm finding a lot of people get overwhelmed.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Yeah, so my first club that I opened, so I went off, became a trainer in 99, worked at Equinox for a year, left there, opened my own training business, my own one-on-one training business. Did really well. Young adult, made some good money. Did my first fundraiser. 2003, raised like $5 million to open my first club. Yeah, I had that for 15 years. My 15-year lease expired May 31st of 2020. Wow.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
We were told that we had to close March 16th. Monday, March 16th at 8 p.m., we were forced to close. I was already in the digital business, so we kind of rolled off into a company that I own now called Dino Brands. By the time we were allowed to reopen, which was September, I was resigning the lease. I went to the landlord. I'm like, this doesn't make sense.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like I'm, you know, doing, you know, in my profession, what I do now, I, I would have to open many clubs to do what I do now, but there was so much risk in the brick and mortar space. Because when you're allowed to reopen, it's like you could reopen at 33%. I'm like, my business doesn't work at 33%. It would cost me, in my one gym, if I had two gyms, Drive 495 and Drive 443.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Drive 495 cost me $2 million a year just to break even, just to cover my overhead. My monthly nut, it was probably even a little more than that, my monthly nut was like 200K a month. I had to do that before. Anything above that was profit. The amount of business that I did in that place, the place was incredible. To this day, I was able to pivot to something that I believe is so meaningful to me.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Do I ever miss it? There's aspects of it that maybe I missed, but honestly, I was able to exit the way I wanted to exit. But to get to the end of your question, that gym that I opened, that first one was a golf fitness gym. Facility. We worked with golfers. We did kinematic sequencing. We had a phlebotomist coming in doing blood work. We had nutritionists. We were doing this stuff in 2005.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And that's why I always explain to people, like, I'm a believer in going after what you're really passionate about. And if you are lucky and you go after what you're passionate about, you can turn this into a very lucrative career, something that you are excited to do every day. And I'm as passionate about what I do now as I've ever been in my life. And I try to continually educate myself.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
We had indoor golf simulators. I had a bar upstairs. I was hosting Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, all these companies. So we started this business off. So imagine being the first place to open like that in New York City that had indoor golf simulators. Wow. Every corporate entity was booking their events with us. So we had the gym during the day downstairs.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Appreciate it, brother. It's great to be on here. Love your background. I'm like a sneaker fanatic, so that's very cool, man.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And upstairs, we had a bar. And we had three simulators upstairs, two simulators downstairs. It was 15,000 feet. So it was like, I had companies coming in. It was like, boom. We were killing it. And then I think 07, 08, when we had that financial crisis, I remember looking at my brother, my business partner, being like, holy shit, we're going to have a problem here.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And we just had to do a complete restructuring of our business. I had to raise a million dollars to keep the place open, but I didn't do it in a loan. I did it in prepaid. So I went to some pretty successful members and I said, I need a hundred here, 50 here. They're like, how are you going to pay it back? I'm like, I'm going to trade it off.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So like, if you're coming in with a hundred grand, I'll trade it off. So I worked off a million dollars in roughly 18 months of training. That's how much I had to train. So I was getting up at 3 a.m., opening at the club at 3.45, taking my client Rick at 3.45. That's when I would start. And I did this.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Once the 18 months were up, I mean, I probably ended up, I've trained over 40,000 power sessions in my life. I mean, I'm a machine. But in that time where we had to restructure, I had an actor walk into my club named Hugh Jackman. And he came in with his trainer at the time, Rico Wesley. Rico, who I saw recently, is doing great. But Rico's the reason why I got Hugh.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So Rico ended up having triplets and had to move. And Hugh saw me working out one day and kind of came to me and was like, you know, I want to work out with you. And I was looking at him like,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
treatment Rico get away from me like you're like it's almost like he was cheating on Rico but no I didn't realize that Rico and him were already knew that they were leaving it wasn't that he was leaving Rico Rico was leaving him And he was like coming to me to be like, I'd like to work out with you. Finally, Rico came to me. He's like, you idiot. Like he's, he's one. So I'm leaving.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I was like, Rico, I thought he was like, no, he goes, I love you. I appreciate you for that. And I worked with Hugh for almost a year to get him ready for a movie called Wolverine and Australia when he left. And at that time, that was, I can tell you right now, my daughter's going to be 18 in April.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
He asked me to go to Australia with him that summer, and I couldn't because my daughter Amelia was being born. Born, wow. August 11th. So that's, looking at now, that was like 18 years ago from right now. I was working with him, right? At this exact time. And that's how I got my feet into that space. I have a performance background through all the strength and conditioning. I'm a strength coach.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But I also, my best friend who passed away in 2010 was a bodybuilding coach. Right. He passed away. I was I claimed his body because he didn't have family. So when I when I sent him in for an autopsy, I had his body was in the morgue for two weeks. I had to go down to City Hall to claim his body. Otherwise, they're going to bury him in Plotter's Field. So Tommy's testosterone was north of 3000.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So I saw him struggling to get off certain drugs that he was on. I'm not talking about testosterone. I'm talking about other things. And this guy was like an Adonis. He was 10 years older than me. So I lived in the bodybuilding world, but I lived in the performance world. And I kind of created this term in my head called performance physique.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
as much as possible. Like I'm talking to an energy systems coach today at like five 30, right. And, and it's just to be able to dial things in. So I've just been this student throughout the years when it comes to nutrition, recovery and training.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So when I worked with Hugh, yeah, we did all the mobility, we did all the performance stuff, but at the end of the day, he had to be resilient. He had to turn to take his shirt off and look a certain way. So I really, that kind of became my niche.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then out of nowhere, there was, I mean, there was no social media back then, but I remember Hugh turned to me and he wanted to do some press for me and I turned to him and I said, no. And he looked at me, he's like, why? I'm like, this is your, this is, we got a job. And I was so against exposing any of those clients. I was like, I would go too far from it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like, I probably should have done some press, to be honest. Like, I should have been like you, it's going to benefit us both. But I was like, no, no, no, I'm not doing it. And we didn't do it. And I think word got around that I had that approach. The next thing you know, like... you'd walk in there at any given deck. I've never seen a place in my life.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
This is like walking in like Sandra Bullock's on the treadmill. Uh, Owen Wilson's over here, the rock Dwayne, the rock Dwayne Johnson walking through the, uh, the club. Um, you know, and then he introduced me to, um, you know, I started working with Scarlett Johansson. I met Ryan Reynolds and then it kind of all, you know, it all just steamrolled from there. And, uh, yeah, I, I, um,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
that's really so then what ended up happening was you I'd have these actors literally on a weekly come in and just say I gotta get ready for this and we would go into my office and I'd say well what does that mean what do you have to look like and we would google like Liev Schreiber came in once and he was like I gotta look like I'm training for this role Chuck Chuck Wettner and I gotta train to look like this it was like Rocky but before it was Rocky that was what Chuck
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Yeah. Boxer. But like, um, we have was two reps, so we had to soften them up. But how do, how do you do that without, so out of nowhere, this became this like factory, this like experiment lab for me to be able to go in and get people ready to wear like prosthetic suits, like hell boy, like, um, Dave Harbour, we got him in this prosthetic suit. We do all of his measurements beforehand.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
He weighed 250 pounds. Production company calls me in five weeks. We're going to pull the budget. Why? He's losing too much weight. I'm like, he was 249 pounds this morning. He lost one pound. They're like, he's not fitting properly in his prosthetic suit. He's just getting in too good a shape I'm like, all right, just bear with me. And I'm calling Dave up like, hey, man, go for ice cream tonight.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And, um, you know, it's great to be able to pass that knowledge, you know, along to people now who, you know, they can get access to so much, so much, you know, so much now that, um, it's such a quicker fashion. So, you know, back then you had to get on a plane. Now you can, you know, download a program or download an ebook or whatever it is. And you can learn a lot from some good people.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
He's like, what are you talking about? I'm serious. You're craving ice cream? I want you to eat it tonight. I want you to eat it tomorrow. But stick with everything else. And literally, those are the conversations that I'm having with people. So that's how my career really kicked off. Now, I'm fortunate to where I'll get calls from people. And like, I've been working with Matt Bolber for a while.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I haven't met Matt in person. I probably been working with Matt at this point now for two, two and a half years. We haven't like met in person yet. We still laugh about it. He was on the, he was on the phone with my daughter recently helping her out with like college decisions because she's going to go get a degree, bachelor of fine arts.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
One of the greatest, one of the nicest human beings, Matt, I've ever met. I love that. Yeah. But I think I haven't met Matt yet. Like Matt's going to walk in here and I'm going to literally attack him and You know, throwing down the staircase because I'm like, I feel like this connection with this guy, we talk. But, you know, it's just that's where our world's gone.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So, you know, so many blessings. But again, when you talk about being able to predict where your career goes and what you're doing, this stuff didn't exist back then. But I'm loving it, man. Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'll tell you what helps a lot. The fact that it's almost, it's always a referral. Yeah.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like, like it really is like when I had a brick and mortar facility, it was always a referral. So when they would come in, you know, they would get stories about me. I'd get stories about him. And I remember, I remember meeting Jake Gyllenhaal. I trained him for a while and we just looked at each other. We just started laughing. We just came over, we just gave each other a hug.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And then the next thing you know, we're training. So I think sometimes it starts as easy as that. But yeah, again, you got to remember that. what they do for a living is not fitness. It's not training. It's not, it's, it's, it's being great at their craft. And I give them more credit than most people give that because imagine every time you go into a job, you have to completely recreate yourself.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Like you're working in computers and then suddenly they're turning around to you and saying, Nope, you got to be a trainer this month. Next month. Nope. You got to be a garbage man this month. Nope. Next month. You've got to be a chef. That's literally what these people are doing. They have the ability to ask, But they're turning around and you're training them to look a certain way.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And they're they're doing like Blake Lively was, you know, coming by Michael. She had to do all this gunfighting in her in one of her movies. And I'm like, what's like? And she brought her coach by her stunt coordinator and they're working on stuff. And I'm sitting there watching and you're just like, this is not what she signed up for.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But this is part of, you know, her being believable and moving into the role.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm not going to ask you anything about any of these people but one thing is Ryan Reynolds because I love his humor like the way is he really that funny in person the way that he comes across like that dry sarcastic yeah Ryan's one of the funniest like sometimes he never comes after me verbally because one time I joked around and he started to and I ran into the corner and I just ducked like he was hitting me with something he just started hysterically laughing but listen
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
These people in their normal lives, his life's not a comedy, right? Like, he's not turning around telling jokes every second. He's got a family, a wife, he's got successful businesses. And he'll be there, he's serious, and he's going through stuff, and then out of nowhere, he says something, and I'm just, I mean, I'm like, did you just start laughing?
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
He's been probably my longest standing person that I've worked with. And I'm so grateful for what him and his wife have done in my career. And they're the most. wonderful, beautiful, thoughtful people that I've ever met. I can't even begin to tell you the things they do behind closed doors for people that they're not expecting social posts for. They have a beautiful family.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They take care of their team, their staff. They have a tight nucleus. I cannot begin to tell you how incredible they are and how grateful I am to be working with them and just incredible human beings.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I mean, I know we don't have a lot of time. They are incredible human beings. Blake has been one of the biggest support systems in my life, besides my mom, my sisters, and my wife. Really? When she knew there was uncertainty in my gym, she was on FaceTime calls with me, going through marketing ideas for posts just to keep it interesting. They built half my following for me. They have done intros.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
They have supported me and my family. She's baked for me. She's cooked for my kids. Beautiful people, incredible human beings. I just, I can't even begin to tell you how much I absolutely love them. And, um, You know, unfortunately out there when there's negative press and there's other actors involved, you have to understand and realize that those people, they're actors.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Oh my God. Yeah. I started working on my master's degree at one point and I actually discontinued it because I had an opportunity. I got funded to open my first gym back in 2005. So yeah, you know, these are, you know, sometimes you just kind of jump on it, right? It's just, there's never a perfect time. It's just like, well, now's the right time. And I may not get this opportunity to get it.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And when you know someone's character and you trust in someone's character, you know the real story. But when someone else is turning around and they're saying things... They are actors. They're acting. It's very difficult to turn around and see people that you love be put in a false and negative light, especially when none of it's true.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
But I could tell you right now, I've been training people for 26 years. I'm still with these people for 16 years. I would get on a plane right now and fly to China for both of them if they said they needed something. That is how incredible they are. That is how amazing they are. I hope everyone listening to this right now understands that I'm saying this about as genuine as I can say.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Let's do it again sometime. This is fun, man. I was just going to bring that up if you can. Let's do a part. If you're down for it, when you're ready down the road, man, you and I got to train and we got to hang. So why don't we, we'll set up a part two sometime at your convenience when you're, I'm grateful that you're featuring me on your platform and you're amazing, by the way.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Congratulations on everything. And just let me know. We'll jump on a part two. It's easy.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm in Long Island, so I'm an hour outside the city. If you come into the city, it's a train ride out here. I'll pick you up. I'll feed you. We'll train. We can sauna, do all that stuff. It'll be a blast. Let me know.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I'm greatly appreciated. Thank you. Um, uh, Don Saladino is my Instagram. Uh, you can check out my, um, uh, my website. Um, DonSaladino.com. And that's it. I offer free programs on there. So if anyone wants to come in and try stuff out, please. I never like to push anything on anyone. But again, grateful for you. Thank you. Best of luck.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And let me know when you want to come on out and let me host you.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I don't even want to get into like some of the prayer stuff. Like when you said that, I'm like, here we go. There's more and more stuff that I typically keep very to myself because I don't like to, you know, that's more privately. Yeah, we can get into it privately. That's that's very important. I'm the head usher at my church.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So, you know, it's just there's certain things that I think I think faith and I hold it really close to me and being around good people. So, you know, I'll be friends for a while. I'm not worried about this.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It was, it was, it was a good move for me.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Well, I went to a school called Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. And I majored in business. Me too. Well, back then there was no degree in exercise science or exercise phys or the stuff didn't exist. And I didn't even think twice about it. I was, you know, I came from a catering background. My family, you know, we did weddings, sweet 16s and barbecues. So I started working at
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
the first day they ever put me, you know, to work was seven. But I think consistently, I started working at about 12, which is when I was regularly working and sweeping, you know, sweeping maintenance, doing all this stuff. And then by the time I was 14, 15, I was working overnight with my father and we were going in at 10 a.m. on a weekend and not leaving until 3 a.m. the next day.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You know, you know, First kosher and non-kosher caterers on Long Island. Wow. My grandfather opened this business in 1973. So I really, I understood people. I understood diffusing situations and I understood that, you know, you can go to work one night and there might be five parties going on and there's going to be problems and I saw guns pulled on my dad. I saw knives pulled on my dad.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I've walked into some pretty crazy stuff with banquet staffs, orgies going on, people leaving. No, seriously, people leaving their party during the day with another woman and then coming back at night sitting at the exact or what they thought was the exact same table in the exact same room.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
It could have been, I'm going to make this name up, it could have been the O'Reilly wedding during the day and that night it was like the you know, wedding and eat someone. They would sit down and eat someone else's meal. And I'd be like, Oh my God, we recognize you from today. What are you doing? Like there was some craziest stories in this place that I've ever seen.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Um, it was, it was bananas, but it was fun. And looking back on it now, I'd say that was for me, that was a form of school. Um, yeah, just, you know, I was the minority at work. Um,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
uh one of the very few white people at work you know just being around that type of grit and that type of uh you know the people i was around really were working they were this was like paycheck to paycheck so i think being around that allowed me to really respect the dollar and respect people and understand service and understand when you're working a party sometimes and
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Someone's not paying the bill, you know, you're going to be treated a certain way and they're going to have too much to drink and how are you going to handle that? So I really think at a young age, if you look, if you ask me now, what was some of the best education I ever had in my life? I'm putting that in the top three category for me.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
And that was something even now, my son at a young age, I've got him working at the exact same place I worked at. My daughter's working at the, because I understood how, you know, the service business, I, it's my opinion. Someone might bark at me for saying this. I feel like every human, every human being should work in service at some point.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I think everyone should be working in the service business. They should understand what it's like to deal with people. And, um, No, see that it's not always roses.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Well, when I graduated college, I think the first certification I might have gotten was East Coast Fitness Training Institute, which- doesn't exist anymore. Ironically, it was incredible because it was actually a six-month training course that I had to go to class for. And it was the only one I've ever seen that was like that, that was non-accredited. It wasn't being offered in school. So
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
to have to go take this course. And even looking back on what I learned now, and I remember some stuff, it was, it was good information, right? It was, it was solid. And then after that, you know, yeah, I took it. I took ACE. I took NASM. Like I took all that stuff. I actually, I think still think I maintain my NASM. And then I took a couple of, um, uh,
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
kind of mentorship programs and then i went obviously went through all my kettlebell training my rkc my sfg uh my sfg2 uh my tpi was the first one to go through all three levels of titles performance institute uh did all my fms's did you know all my kid stretch courses uh my my functional range conditioning courses i mean i've taken i go on and on pre and post natal courses
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
When I get asked this question, I probably start, I go all the way back to the second grade because I had a bad hearing problem. I had a stuttering problem at that age and was trying to find my, was trying to find my lane.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
I've had to take it, dozens and dozens and dozens of courses. And I don't know what I maintain now, probably three to five of them I maintain, if you even have to maintain them. But I don't think the certification is not, that's not really where the magic is. I think any coach turning around should hold a national certification. You should have insurance. You should have a CPR.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
These are things that you need to have. But I think the continuing ed piece for me, when I was hiring, when I owned my first club, that I had, 495 Broadway, I had for 15 years from 2005 to 2020. It was one of my two. I was less concerned about the certifications and more concerned with the continuing ads.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So if someone told me they went and they worked for like Eric Cressy or Mike Boyle and they did an internship there. And then they started mentioning certs that they had that weren't really nationally accredited, but it showed me their mindset was in a good place. Out of nowhere, I'm like, oh, wow, this tells me a lot. When someone would come to me with a cert, I'm at ASM. I never really...
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
not to knock it, but it didn't really tell me anything. But if someone's like, yeah, I took my SFG and my RKC and my FMS, I'm like, oh, wow. So this person understands the importance of a functional movement screening. That's a good place to be. I'm not saying they're a great coach. This person understands, you know, hard style training and the kettlebell and tension techniques. Great place to be.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
This person went off and took Mike Boyle certification. Phenomenal place to be. Like it shows me that their mindset is often a good place and they're not these big name certifications where most people are like Googling and going to, you're almost like, oh, wow, this person knows what they're doing if they want to go take that.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
You know, at that time, it's like, God, schools back then, they would take, you know, kids who had issues and throw them into a class and, you know, hope that they figured it out and think that that wasn't a, you know, a bad thing where they were, you know, getting their finger pointed at them and made fun of at that age.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
So that's really kind of more of the things that I looked at when I had my clubs in the city.
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #5 with Don Saladino! The evolution of the fitness industry, the role of coaches vs. influencers, understanding individual needs in fitness and diet, the importance of data and fitness tracking, becoming a celebrity trainer and MORE!!
Every day, every day. Like I said, it might not even be today. Maybe it's not a book, but today maybe it's a, maybe it's a call where I'm going to spend an hour on a call with someone picking their brain. This morning I was on the phone with one of my best friends, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. And we're always, you know, I was actually talking to her about some training stuff.