Coach of coaches: An interview with Ian King

What does it really take to become a great strength coach? For the most part it requires two things: a passion for sport and a unquenchable thirst for learning. Ian King has both of those qualities in spades. He began his career as an athlete. Soon, other athletes were coming to him for advice. Not long after he began coaching, other coaches started coming to him to further their education.

The term “strength coach” doesn’t completely describe what Ian does. He’s a physical preparation expert. Sure, he can take an elite athlete to the top of his game, but he can also help the average guy add an inch to his arm measurements or add 20 quick pounds to his bench press.

And although he refuses to brag about his achievements or count the medals his athletes have brought home from the Olympics, I can tell you he’s worked with athletes in over twenty different sports, in more than ten different countries. In fact, he’s prepared athletes for every winter and summer Olympic Games since 1988, and every Commonwealth Games since 1984, as well as World Championships and World Cups in numerous sports.

Now that Ian is a regular contributor to T-mag, he’s changed the way most of us approach training. If you haven’t applied some of his ideas yet or tried one of his amazing 12-week programs, you’re really missing out on a great opportunity to become bigger and stronger. In this edition of Meet the Press, you’ll get to know the man behind those ingenious workouts.

T: I want to get things started off with a bang, Ian. I’ve heard you’ve kicked athletes out of the gym before for not listening to you or behaving appropriately. Is that true?

Ian: Oh definitely! I’ve got a unique approach. Basically, I want total commitment and I want total focus. I’m never going to tell you how to train if you have a different opinion than me, but if you do anything to fuck up the training environment for other people who are doing what I ask them to do, then you’re history; you’re gone.

T: Has this ever happened with a major, well-known athlete?

Ian: Oh yes, I’ll get in anybody’s face. That’s not an issue with me. One thing you learn in police training is that you get in their faces harder at the start and then you can back off, but not vice versa. So if I’m involved with an athlete we go pretty hard, but not in a way that pisses the athlete off, like I’m not treating him as a good human being. But they must play ball within the environment I create.

T: Give us an example of what you’re talking about.

Ian: We were doing some testing in the gym in 1989 or ’90 leading up to the World Cup and the team captain was fucking around and I had a few words with him. He went up to the

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coach and started complaining about me. I just went right up in his face and said listen, if you want to get it on, let’s do it now!

I had to create some mental toughness in him. I’ve basically been in situations with the highest paid athletes in the country when I’ve had to get in their faces, threaten violence, whatever it took to get a result. I’m not saying this in a proud way, but it’s a jungle out there if you want to have a win. The athletes respect that. But I don’t have a problem asking them to leave the training room or even physically removing them if necessary.

T: You’ve had to actually get violent with a few?

Ian: It’s not as socially accepted these days, but I made the media a few years ago because I gave an athlete an uppercut. He was acting inappropriately and I just felt he needed an attitude adjustment.

T: But despite all this, you’re athletes really like you. They call you “master.” What’s your secret there?

Ian: Basically, they know I’m putting them first and they know I’m totally committed to them winning. They know the reason I’m adjusting their attitude is for their sake. Now I know some strength coaches who do this just to seem like tough guys. They shout at the athletes and try to be a big macho hero. That’s not the game plan with me; I’m happy to hide in the corner. But when the training starts, it’s my game. When the game starts it’s your game, but I run training. The athletes respect that it’s totally selfless on my part. I’m not there to feed my ego.

T: Gotcha. Where were you born and raised, Ian?

Ian: I was born in town called Rabaul on the island of New Britain in the country that in those days was called the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, now called Papua New Guinea.

T: When did you move to Australia?

Ian: I went to boarding school in Australia and then my family relocated there after Papua New Guinea went independent sometime in the mid-70’s.

T: What did your parents do for a living?

Ian: Primarily education. Medical education in particular. That was my father’s involvement in the education system in Papua New Guinea.

T: Did you play sports a lot as a kid?

Ian: On an island like that, you don’t have a choice, which is a great thing! One of the best things a parent could do to develop an athletic child is to take him or her to an island. It depends on the standard of living, but when I was a kid there were no TVs in Papua New Guinea. I didn’t know what a McDonalds was until I was probably 16 years old! It was the ultimate athletic environment.

T: So when were you first bitten by the weightlifting bug?

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Ian: I had a very unusual experience there. There was a islander fellow who was employed by my father. He had an interest in bodybuilding, which was very unusual in the late 60’s. He was known as the town strongman. He couldn’t speak and he couldn’t hear. He communicated mainly with sign language. But he was very interested in his body and weight training. I was very impressed with how big and muscular he was so I started training with him when I was seven years old.

T: You were actually lifting weights at seven years old?
Ian: That’s correct. When the YMCA we trained at realized my age they kicked me out!

T: What’s your general advice today about kids and weight training? Is it dangerous? Does it “stunt their growth”?

Ian: I don’t think there’s a lot to it obviously. There may be some loading issues that could create that problem, but it would have to be some pretty significant loading. The main concern is balance in their physical preparation. If you develop strength ahead of skill, you tend to not to learn the skill as well. You instead rely on your strength and muscle in the activity. That’s okay in for short term, but not for the long term.

That challenge is faced by kids who mature early. They don’t learn the skill as well and their abilities to learn a new skill are not great because they rely on their strength. When the other kids mature past them, they’re usually left behind. I’ve worked with quite a few athletes who’ve had that trait. For us in Papua New Guinea, it wasn’t an issue because we just played all day long. It’s more of a concern these days because kids don’t play as much.

T: So what should parents do for their kids if they want them to be prepared for sport?

Ian: They have two options. They could specialize or they could generalize. If you want to raise a Tiger Woods and take that risk, you have to specialize from an incredibly early age. My general recommendation is not to do that unless you have a family environment that’s very suited for it. I work with quite a few world champions in different sports and most of them had parents who owned a specific sporting facility, or they lived in an environment where one particular activity was so reinforced that it was appropriate for them to specialize in that.

Generally speaking, I’d like to see a broader physical exposure. The thing is to play, play, play! The play starts at day one. To give you an idea, my daughter, Summer, is just under two years old now and her playroom is our gymnasium. There are balls and implements from most sports spread throughout the gym, most of them sized for her age. She’s got small soccer balls, a small basketball, a small tennis racket, a small cricket bat and ball, etc. She plays with medicine balls and just walks around lifting dumbbells for the hell of it.

This is the critical thing — the environment that they’re seeing around them. My daughter generally goes to my athletes’ training sessions. We might be doing some speed work and she just starts imitating them on the side. So the key to athletic success in a young person is to play, play, play, in an environment where play is reinforced.

Ideally this is done with older kids around. If a child is forced to compete with older kids, he or she tends to become more competitive. This not only develops the motor skills, it also

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develops mental toughness, or psychological skills. Like the physical skills, if these aren’t developed in the first ten or twelve years, there’s a question to what extent they can be developed at all. So back to your original question, you’ve just got to get the kid to play, 30 minutes of TV a day tops, and no Play Stations!

T: What do you think of the largely US movement in children’s sports where they’re not allowed to keep score so no one gets their feelings hurt?

Ian: The reality of sport is that it’s about adversity. Like I said, it’s a jungle out there; there’s just no other way to describe it. You don’t get on the court in an NBA game and say, “Listen, I feel a little bit sorry for you; you’re two feet shorter than the rest of us so I’m going to give you the ball.” The game’s not played like that!

T: Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t be talking so much about training for children in a magazine called Testosterone!

Ian: Well, ultimately, most of us are going to have kids someday. One of the natural by- products of Testosterone is all the little spermies, after all!

T: True! So where did you attend college?

Ian: I went to the University of Brisbane, one of the few universities here at the time in Queensland. My main studies were in what you would call sports science or human movements studies.

T: Did you specialize in this course of study because you envisioned becoming a strength coach, or did you just want to go to school and play a lot of sports?

Ian: The latter is exactly right! I had no plans and no idea! Basically, my interest in training was such that I thought, well, if I’m going to go to a university I might as well study something that I have an interest in. In those days, I was the only one in the whole department that took interest in the research of strength. It was a very unusual topic in the early 80’s in Australia. But, yes, I competed it a lot of different sports. I played rugby, studied martial arts, and competed in powerlifting.

T: Didn’t you also serve in the state police?

Ian: Yes, I spent a number of years in the state police. Probably the greatest joy was the participation I had in what’s equivalent to your SWAT team. I spent my last year training in that squad.

T: So how did being a university jock and a SWAT team member evolve into you working with athletes for a living?

Ian: When I graduated from the university, there weren’t a lot of opportunities in our hometown so I thought I’d take advantage of my youth and join the state police. I certainly don’t regret it; it was a great learning experience, no different than going to war for four years. The only difference is you’re more likely to come home.

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I actually started my physical preparation business while I was in the police force. I was approached by two national league teams in the space of a week so I thought I’d turn it into a business. Then it just got so big I felt I needed to focus on it exclusively. I set up my business within a few weeks of being approached. I’ve never approached an athlete and I’ve never approached a sporting team. For the last 15 years, getting work was never an issue. In fact, in the last five years or so I’ve had to knock back more work than I accept.

T: Your wife is an athlete herself. Did you meet her by training her?

Ian: That’s correct. Her mother brought her to me for training. I’m sure she regrets that now! She competed in inline speed skating and actually competed in the Worlds in the early 90’s in Colorado. Later she came to work for me and we got married. We have one child now and one on the way.

T: Congratulations! Who influenced you in the beginning? Who did you learn from in this field?

Ian: My involvement in training growing up was total, but I also had an interest in the how and why. I went through primary school and high school asking a lot of questions about training and no one was able to give me the answers. We’d be training away in high school there in the gymnasium using jam tins filled with concrete with a bar in between them. Our concept of conditioning was running around with bricks in our hands! I asked a lot of questions and there were no answers.

I had an inquiring mind about the training process and I read extensively. It was just an innate desire to learn about training. The thing is, I was asking those questions before I had the material available and I think that was the critical difference in the learning process. If people are given information, then they don’t seek the answers for themselves. They say, well, Joe Blow’s philosophy is this so why don’t I just adopt it? They become limited doing this. First, they don’t learn how to learn. Second, they just accept something outright because they read it somewhere.

I’d made a lot of conclusions about the training process before I’d been exposed to the literature. We were pretty literature starved in the 70’s and the 80’s in Australia. I’m very happy that I had to do it the hard way. My approach to getting a conclusion in training is not based upon “because so-in-so said.” I just shake my head at that approach. I understand where people are coming from when they say it, but that’s not my approach.

T: I read on your KSI site that you don’t count the medals your athletes win. Also, you refuse to drop names. Most strength coaches in your position would be dropping names like crazy if their athletes took home medals and world championship trophies. What’s up with that?

Ian: It’s actually an insecurity on their part to drop names. Let’s look at it closely. The athlete goes out, competes and succeeds. Where should the credit go? Let’s start from the beginning — mommy and daddy. They created the baby and they had a great influence on the first twelve years. Next comes the coaches in his youth and the culture of his youth. Then comes his coaches in his later age. By the time you get down to the strength and conditioning coach, you’re about the sixth or seventh variable.

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It’s gets really boring when an athlete succeeds and everybody says, “Yeah, he succeeded because of me.” How many medals are allocated? The only person that won the medal was the athlete. If a strength and conditioning coach hasn’t had much involvement in sport as an athlete himself, then I think some of them live out their fantasies through this. I don’t need to. I’m more than happy with my exposure to sport. The athlete’s accomplishments are the athlete’s accomplishments and I don’t need to take credit for that.

T: What about those who brag about the number of medals their athletes have won?

Ian: It’s an absolute joke counting medals. The coach and everyone else wants to take credit for it, but they only give out one medal! Whoever spent the most time with that athlete throughout his or her life should get credit, but I can’t come in twelve to eighteen months before an event and say that I created that medal. I might know a few more things about my specific contribution, but the strength and conditioning coach does not win a single medal! I can’t say that strongly enough. It’s gets really tiring hearing this trash about medals.

When it comes down to why I don’t talk about it, I have my reasons, but one of them is that there’s so much bullshit going on out there! I wouldn’t want to go out there and have that trash talk. Unless you go out there and lie to the same extent they do you can’t compete in trash talk.

T: You’ve also stated before that it’s not who you train, buy why those athletes chose to train with you. What do you mean by that?

Ian: What happens when you get involved with elite athletes is that you can start feeling a lot better about yourself, which is nice. But you are who you are. You’re not who you are because you rub shoulders with Michael Jordan. If you rely on the people you spend time with to give you your self-esteem and feelings of self-importance, then you’re in trouble. That’s a trait, or a mistake, I see often in professional sports. We call them “jersey fuckers” here in Australia. You know, “jersey” as in the shirt the athletes compete in.

People want to be part of them, so basically they’ll fuck them. They do this because they feel so inadequate about their own lives. Athletes get so many fucks because of this. You get these people that just want to say, “I sucked so-in-so’s dick.” Get a life!

A strength and conditioning coach can be no different. If they get exposure to an elite athlete and they don’t feel adequate about themselves, then they just want to live for that moment. They perceive the image of themselves as being one involved with an elite athlete. But whether I’m training my grandmother down the road or training Michael Jordan, it shouldn’t make any difference; I’m me.

T: Many T-mag readers are surprised when they read your newsletter and web site and find that it’s not all about weight training. You talk about many issues, even things like self- esteem and other psychological topics. Why do you cover those topics?

Ian: When an athlete comes to me and says he thinks he’s weak and that’s why he’s not succeeding in sport, there’s sometimes an incorrect assumption there. Sport is not about getting stronger. Sport is about balancing the physical with the psychological. Amongst the physical, there’s speed, strength, and flexibility. Americans in particular have some sort of

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fixation with strength. For me, if the athlete isn’t succeeding because he lacks confidence or he cracks under pressure, that has nothing to do with strength training.

I like to identify what the missing link is and fix it. So for me to succeed as a consultant, it’s not simply about making the athlete physically better. You won’t succeed as often if you just focus on the physical component. We look at the bigger picture. When I work with athletes, I work with them as people, not just as bodies. The mind and how they perceive themselves, how they get the most out of their bodies, etc., starts with their minds.

T: You’ve said your methods aren’t necessarily based on scientific information, but practical, real-world results. What do you mean by that?

Ian: Research is nice and I’m definitely not critical at all of the contribution of academics. But my decision to train a certain way is not based on the latest research. It’s based on the conclusions I’ve reached on cause and effect relationships in the real world. People can become too infatuated with the concept of science.

For me, success in sport is about winning. Athletes aren’t going to get offended if I don’t comply with the latest research. They just want to win. So the research is nice, but it’s always going to be limited. We’re not dealing with a college age volunteer in a six week program; we’re dealing with a human being that’s been working for fifteen to twenty years to take his body beyond where its gone before.

I have several colleagues that take the opportunity to criticize me because I don’t spend a lot of time quoting references. I’m happy to read the research, but I’ll tell you up front that I’m not going quote the research. I’m not going to validate my methods my quoting research studies; it’s just not my style.

T: There seems to be this ongoing animosity between some strength coaches. What’s going on there? Is this about jealousy or is everyone just battling it out to be the top dog in the industry?

Ian: The way I see it is that the industry is a very immature one. Because this industry is at such a young age, people are still worried about food and shelter, you know, the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They still think that if someone else gets more results than them, then they won’t have a job. That may be true in some instances, but it really doesn’t apply in most cases. People have this insecurity about their position in life and position in the food chain. And that’s all it is, an insecurity. They fear that their ego or their income will be affected.

They can get away with it in this industry because it’s so immature and there’s no real protocol for behavior. You can lie and cheat and no one cares; you’re going to get away with it. I don’t think that’ll be the case forever and there’s certainly no need for it. In America alone there’s over 300 million people; you’re going to get a job! I’ve seen some very ordinary strength coaches get employed in some major universities. There’s no shortage of work so there’s no need for that food and shelter mentality. Does it really matter if half the population likes someone else?

T: True, because the coach will still have millions who like him.

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Ian: Exactly, so get a life! I don’t play those games.

T: Here’s a criticism I’ve always had of strength coaches and I’d like to get your reaction. Strength coaches work with genetically elite athletes, many of whom are using performance- enhancing drugs. Then, these coaches take those training programs and publish them for use by genetically average, drug-free guys. What can a program written for a drug-using, genetic freak do for the average guy? Do you take this into account when you write your articles?

Ian: Yes, I have to think of the market I’m writing to before I write a program. You’re very correct in what you say. The programs being used at the elite level already lead to overtraining, and we’re talking about young people with high recovery rates where drugs are often involved. They’re taking these incredibly unique circumstances and they’re passing these programs down.

You only have to do the program to find that you’ll fry in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s not appropriate. That’s been a trend and it’s not going to go away. It started way back there with people copying so-called Russian or East German programs. I’m not saying that these countries have exclusive rights to anabolics, but they were definitely institutionalized. And by no way in the world is America or even Australia a clean country, so I’m not pointing fingers. But the volume has just gone out of control.

You know, swimming in Australia was relatively clean. Swimming in East Germany was not, so why would you want to do their programs! That happened at the elite level and now it’s continued down. This is something I think I bring to the weight-training community. This myth about high-volume workouts that has been perpetuated since day one and it’s inappropriate for the average, non-drug-using person.

It’s great to write about drugs. There’s a segment there that just wants to read about them and there are others that want to learn how to use them. That’s fine, but to be honest, what percentage of the readers of any magazine are using anabolics? But they all try to use the same training program! If you’re using drugs, take that into account, but if you’re not using drugs, take that into account as well. You’re not on the same playing field, so don’t use the same program.

The bottom line is this: most people write a program in the way that they train themselves. All you have to do is look at the shape of the person and the shape of the people they work with. You look at a number of people and you’ll see a pattern emerge. So unless a person can write a program that’s different than them, unless they can divorce themselves and write a program for people other than themselves, then don’t do their program! The ability to do that is a very rare trait.

T: Is it hard to get across to people that more is not always better? For example, you write that an average guy with a job, other responsibilities and life stresses should probably only do 12 sets per workout. Some people have a hard time accepting that. Is that hard to get across to them?

Ian: It’s not hard at all for me to get across, but it’s hard for them to accept it! It’s a very clear message, but there’s a definite resistance to it. The resistance comes from two directions. The first is tradition. We all know about the power of tradition. The second is anxiety and fear. A

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person gets anxious he’s not doing enough. He fears he’s not getting the results, so what does he do?

T: More work!

Ian: Exactly, and it’s their lack of control of their emotions that result in these things. People aren’t saying, “Now what is the best decision I can make from an objective and rational point of view?” It’s an emotional decision usually and I’ll tell you how it works.

Week one you feel really good and do a lot. Week two you’re a bit stronger but you’re concerned so you do more. Week three you don’t really feel like training but you force yourself to anyway. You don’t get that pump so you think if you do another twenty sets you might get that pump back. Week four you have a lack of interest, you don’t want to take your supplements or have your meals on a regular basis, you’re shitty with the world and you don’t go to the gym. It’s emotion controlling the whole thing!

So until people can control their emotions and understand the relationship between their emotions and their training decisions, then they haven’t got a hope in hell. They’re not training their bodies; they’re training their emotions.

T: So it’s like those of us who used to read Schwarzenegger’s workouts and train to failure and beyond every set, every single day, and use this crazy volume and then wonder, “Why don’t I look like Arnold yet?”

Ian: Exactly. I’m going to give you a really important key to training. When you’re in a workout, don’t make the decision on what is enough based on how you feel during the workout. Make the decision about what you should do in that workout based upon what impact it’s going to have on you the next time you come back to do that same workout.

So if you think, “Should I do that extra set?” forget about how it feels now. Ask yourself, if I do that extra set what will happen in three days time? You have to divorce yourself from that feeling at the time and project into the future. I can’t give a more powerful key to volume and intensity than that.

T: I’m going to go through a list of categories and you tell us what you see as the major pitfall or mistake the average person is making. Here we go: Diet.

Ian: Inconsistency! Nutrition is very simple. How many years have you been reading that you should eat every two to three hours? It’s been said for a couple of decades! But how often do people do it? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist in nutrition. If you just do this one thing, eat every two to three hours, you’re going to be a hit.

T: Okay, how about program design?

Ian: Self-help. Do you go down to the corner and drill your own teeth? Do you go to the Supreme Court and represent yourself? I really believe in educating the public, but there’s a point in time when you might wish to accept that you won’t master all the information and you may need to turn to somebody. And I’m not selling my services here. It’s just that if you’re going to invest two hours a day, counting your warm-up, your training, reading about training, taking supplements, etc., and your going to do this four days a week, you end up

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putting thousands of hours into this. And then you’re going to base it on your friend’s knowledge of how to write a program? That’s a pretty poor investment.

T: So the message is to turn to the professional coaches?

Ian: If you’re going to write your own program, then educate yourself. Just don’t assume that since you’ve lifted weights for three years that you know how to write the best program. I can’t tell you how to spend your time, but if you want to spend 5000 hours over ten years getting no where, then that’s your choice. If you’re not getting results from your training program, get some education. The information that’s available at the T-mag site is incredible. Five years ago, information like that just wasn’t available. It’s a whole new era. Learn!

T: Next category: Injury prevention.

Ian: This is the way the game is played. Most people go the gym and create problems. They don’t know it, but they’re creating problems. Most programs — including those being promoted as “guru” programs — are creating problems. It’s a simply tradeoff between instant gratification and delayed long-term results. Sure, you might get a pump today, but in three years’ time you’re having surgery, or you can’t train for 12 months. How does it feel to put in those 5000 hours and find out you’ve only created an injury?

T: Is this caused mostly from a lack of stretching?

Ian: Stretching is involved; it’s one of the components. But it’s also the balance between the muscles. When you fuck with the body’s length, tension and stability, you’re going to create a problem. The joints were designed to move relative to each other in a certain way, and when you apply a powerful stimulus such as weight training, you could, for example, change the way the shoulder rotates in the joint because of your program. You’re just fucking that joint. There’s no other way to describe it.

T: What about the area of supplementation?

Ian: If I were to nominate two things in weight training in America that drive the industry, it’s equipment and supplementation. Now, both are really important, but let’s put them in perspective. Take a look at training, drugs, equipment, supplementation and nutrition. If you were to use drugs, but not train and eat, what would happen? Or let’s say you get really good nutrition and supplements but you don’t train, what would happen? Now, if I tell you not to focus on nutrition or take drugs, just train, what would happen? You’re going to get a result of some sort.

Training is the most powerful of the variables. Don’t focus on nutrition and supplements ahead of your training program. I’m not saying supplements are inappropriate, but put them in perspective. But if you’re going to take supplements, let’s do our research, let’s get the best stuff and let’s take it in the best way possible. But first, get more quality in your training program.

T: You’re known as one of the leaders in the movement away from aerobics. Is it fair to label you as “anti-aerobic”?

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Ian: Well, I try to avoid being stereotyped, but I guess I’ve probably lead the anti-aerobic movement. You go back ten years ago and everything was aerobic. I was one of the first to say, listen, I’ve tried it and I’ve tried other ways and I think I can give you a better way. Now what we’re seeing is an overreaction. We’re seeing people saying to not do any aerobics. It’s just gone too far.

We all know that aerobic training is catabolic to some extent and we all now it acts in contradiction to strength and power, but I don’t support this overreaction. I want a rationalization and justification of what the person doing and why he’s do it.

T: A lot of people don’t know this, but you pretty much invented tempo prescriptions, right? (Note: In case you don’t know, tempo prescriptions are those numbers like 211 you see beside most of the exercises listed in T-mag training articles.)

Ian: Definitely. That is my baby. Someone published this idea without my permission before I chose to release it and then continued to promote it, which was disappointing and obviously had an impact on our relationship. Now the world is using it, but most don’t know where it came from.

T: How did you come up with this idea?

Ian: It was just one of those conclusions I’d reached from my involvement in sport. I knew there was a difference between when someone holds the bar on their chest or bounces it off. So what I did is control the variable in the pause between the eccentric and the concentric. I created a method for communicating what speed I wanted them to use in each part of the lift. It was, of course, in the form of three digits with each digit representing a certain number of seconds.

I do need to give credit to Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden. They were probably the only people making references to the eccentric and concentric speeds. Some say Arthur only wanted to control tempo to protect his equipment, but I don’t know about that. I just put it into a user-friendly, easy to communicate form for the athlete and I respected the pause. Since then, science has validated that pause, but I created the method from intuition before science validated it. This is what I meant by not waiting on the research.

T: Do people make judgements about a strength coach by the way he looks? Do you catch people sizing you up?

Ian: They do, but that’s a real error. Hypertrophy is not correlated with success in any sport, short of bodybuilding. If you’re a strength coach then of course you need to show some physical traits, but to pump yourself up as a pseudo-bodybuilder and think that it’s going to give you credibility, that’s a mistake. It will with those who are naïve, but if some athletes think you’re inappropriately buffed, then they won’t work with you. If a strength coach goes the bodybuilding route, he will alienate just as many as he’ll impress.

T: What do you do outside of the industry? What are your hobbies?

Ian: I used to do a lot more of what I call escapism, like surfing and other recreational activities. But now I’m more focused on building for the future. My family comes first. We

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have a lifestyle that allows family first. For example, my family travels with me. The rule is if the family can’t go, I don’t go.

I also put a lot of time into reading. I have a young child I have to give the optimal athletic environment to and I have two German Shepherds I have to keep happy. We live on a few acres outside of Brisbane so we have a nice living environment.

T: Before we go let’s talk about upcoming Florida seminar.

Ian: Florida is going to be a great opportunity and the first of its kind from T-mag. I think it’s a great opportunity for everyone to come together and get some personal contact with the presenters. The speaking panel being put together includes Thomas Incledon, John Berardi, Brian Batcheldor, Bill Roberts and of course, myself. You just can’t replace the physical opportunity to learn. Everyone will have the opportunity for me to look at their technique and allow me to take them through a workout. The price is great, too. Normally, you wouldn’t get me for an hour for $300, and now you can get me for two days straight!

T: Cool. You’ve achieved so much in this industry. You’ve literally changed the way we all train. So what’s next?

Ian: In the industry, my goals are to complete my writings and my professional education material. I’ll be doing Get Buffed! Part II and although I hate to talk about things that haven’t happened yet, I’m planning on doing videos for the entire Get Buffed! program — upper body, lower body and abdominals. We’ll demonstrate every exercise. This’ll be eight to ten hours of video so this isn’t going to be $39.95, but it’ll be very helpful to those interested in the program.

I don’t have any goals left in athletic training, as in the hands-on aspect. I don’t need to watch another athlete win a medal. I’m more than satisfied with my contribution to sport. As far as athletic preparation, I’m more concerned about giving my children the opportunity now. They’re my number one clients.

T: Thanks for talking with us, Ian
Ian: You’re welcome. It’s been a pleasure.

Ian invites T-mag readers to subscribe to his free newsletter Between Sets. The newsletter contains general training information, personal development articles, nutrition columns, as well as a variety of interviews. Just go here and sign up.

Also, if you’re tired of working for a living, Ian also has a new e-book out (also available in hardcopy) called Paycheck to Passive. This is Ian’s guide to working less and making more dough in the process. Hey, sounds good to us!