If You're a Coach, You Need a Coach

Hey strength seekers,

Tank here.

I consider myself a pretty good coach. I've been in the lifting game a long time and produced a lot of good results for myself and my clients. Since I opened the Primal Strength Gym, I've had a real good run of Strongman finishes. I spend a great deal of time reading and investing in my knowledge so I can keep improving my craft.

But if there is one thing I've learned in my lifting journey, it's that I really don't know much at all. I've learned that if I want to keep progressing, I can't be my own coach and that I need someone smarter than me.

A lot of strength athletes would say, "I am a coach, why the hell would I need to hire a coach for myself?". Or, "If I'm trying to be reputable and credible to potential clients, why would I discredit myself by hiring someone to do what I'm supposed to be so good at?"

 Well that's your ego talking.

Strength athletes, especially amongst business owners, can be very prideful.

Nowhere else in the sports world have I seen some people so resistant to coaching. Everyone wants to be a guru and everyone has the answer. For contrast, in team sports for example, every position player has multiple coaches for the most part.

Look, I know you think you're an awesome coach. For those I surround myself with and follow across the interwebs, I know they are awesome coaches actually. Coach Sean Murphy? Check out his website and all of the transformations he's done. Nate Schwartz? I PR'd my keg clean and press one day when he visited my gym and was helping me out.

I'm sure you've done a lot of great things for great people and you deserve all of the credit for those results. But I can also say with almost certainty that you can't do the same things for yourself, or at least to maximum potential. Outsiders will have an entirely different perspective on your lifting without the inherent biases we carry through our own education and lifting experience. And that outside perspective is healthy...

I recognize the power of an outsider, which is why I hired Mike Westerling to coach me. If you don't know Mike, he's one of the best in the biz. He's had a ton of success in his career, including coaching 5x America's Strongest Woman, 3x Worlds Strongest Woman Kristin Rhodes.

I hired Mike because he trains far differently than I ever have before and how I even train my own people. But his success speaks for itself and it's obvious his methods work.

As a coach it's your job to serve, and you can't truly serve your people if you're only trying to serve yourself and preserve your ego. To get better, you need to learn from those who are better.

It's not a knock on your skills as a coach, and if anything, it's a testament to your self awareness and your willingness to do whatever it takes to be better yourself, which obviously has tremendous upside to your success as a coach and ultimately your clientele...

What is Your Training Philosophy?

What's up strength seekers?

Let me open this with a quick intro of who I am and how I got linked up with the Barbell Strength Sports mastermind, Coach Sean Murphy.

My name is Charles Tankersley, but most people call me Tank. I was a Texas boy for the first 22 years of my life. After graduating from Texas A&M University, I took a government with job with the Department of Defense that took me to Washington DC, overseas to Iraq among other "friendly" places, and ultimately to Central Virginia where I now reside.

I was always an athlete and started to really pound the weights in my early twenties. After years of training myself and helping others, I studied and picked up a few certifications, and trained in a lot of gyms. It didn't take long for me to figure out that to reach my true potential and to train the way I wanted to train, I needed to branch off on my own.

I founded Primal Strength Camp LLC, my online community, and ultimately opened the Primal Strength Gym located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Primal is a performance based facility where everyone is serious about their training, and most importantly getting stronger. We have Strongman competitors, powerlifters, semi-pro athletes, desk jockies, and stay at home moms. Despite our various crafts, we are all united in strength and our burning desire to be ass-kickers.

I myself compete in Strongman, and that's how I had the privilege to meet both Coach Murphy and Nate Schwartz. We all met at the River City Strongman competition in Richmond, VA in 2015. We all competed together that day, had a hell of a time, and have stayed in touch ever since. And now, despite our separation in distance, we are united in this Barbell Strength Sports page. Through the sport of Strongman and lifting (and social media), I also had the privilege to meet Chad Clark, another contributor here that I can always strike up a conversation with, especially reminiscing about the "strength days of old".

Which is what leads me to the post that I'm ultimately going to link at the bottom of this post. You see, Nate, Coach Murphy, Chad, myself; we all have different backgrounds and we all dabble in different things ranging from the Highland Games, to Crossfit, to cross-training, to Strongman. If you follow our Facebook page (Barbell Strength Sports), you'll see that we are always posting from a plethora of different perspectives. You will also see it as each of us posts new blogs here.

While I may have a Strongman background and my training philosophy is very specific, you better believe I can learn and adapt things from what guys like Nate, Sean, and Chad do. As strength seekers, this is what we should all be doing. Too often in today's society, we are quick to write off other people and justify it because "it doesn't fit what I do".

Well, I gotta tell you, Coach Sean Murphy put this site together because we all know this can be an awesome resource and a way for everyone, despite our specialties, to gain and share knowledge, and ultimately improve our end game.

So what is my training philosophy? Do you know yours?

What is Your Training Philosophy?

All the best,

-- Tank