Jon Stewart is the founder of Great North Training Systems which offers online coaching. Previously he helped build The Strength Guys, was a competitive powerlifter, and strength coach for the Edmonton Eskimo football club.

Notes from Matt: This interview was recorded via skype and then transcribed by me. Some sections may be edited sligthly for an easier read.

Matt: The first question is one that has been submitted from our audience, to be more specific one of your co-workers at The Strength Guys. Do you even lift?

Jon: Do I even lift (laughing)? Right now I do. I’m currently in a hypertrophy phase which is a bit of change for me because I’m a powerlifter. I’m coming back from a knee injury which has yet to be properly diagnosed. I’m lifting, but not as heavy as I would like. I’ll probably get flack for that.

Matt: The second super important topic I have to ask about is your Instagram. Your account is a mouth-watering display of food porn at its finest. Please describe the best donut that you’ve consumed and tell me where I can get it.

Jon: Oh man that’s a tough one. I would have to say that Holy Donut in Portland Maine (of all places) has a sweet potato donut that blew me away. You wouldn’t think that sounds good, but it’s super soft with a great texture that I hadn’t come across before. I think it was Sweet Potato with maple sugar or something like that. The cake donuts, apple fritters, and stuff like that can be found in any city. I haven’t traveled the world and interacted with all the donuts that I want to yet. I’ll be sure to update my Instagram followers as I expand my horizons.

Matt: Now that we have the important stuff out of the way let’s move on to your story! How did you first meet Jason and become a member of the TSG team?

Jon: So Jason started TSG in 2012, I believe, and in 2013 he was kind of in a transitional phase. I messaged him and it turned out that he was just starting looking to rebuild the team. I’d been a personal trainer focused on the S&C side for 5-6 years and wanted to transition to online side of it. My goal was to built up my network a bit. We had a Skype interview, threw some ideas around to quickly rebuild TSG to where it had been, and discussed how it could grow past what it was before. We just started working from there. I was probably the most experienced person that had worked for the company in terms of in-person training experience.

Matt: Can you tell me about your previous experience with in-person training? How long have you been coaching and what was your focus? Why did you eventually decide to transition to the online world?

Jon: I’ve been a trainer since 2006. I was one of those guys who wasn’t sure when, or even if, I would got back to school so I started to go to those local dinky personal trainer certifications. I challenged the exam and opened up a commercial gym for 4 or 5 years. During that time I got my Kin degree in Sports Performance and added to my list of certifications. Some were helpful, but on the whole I didn’t learn too much through those. There was an opportunity from one of my professors, who had been the strength and conditioning coach for the Edmonton Eskimos. He was planning to pursue to start his PhD and wanted me to take over for him. Right time, right place. I was really lucky there.

I was interested in getting into online coaching didn’t really see a future in the commercial side of training. Doing five sessions a day and splitting up your day between morning and night sessions is tough for anyone. I wanted to be able to dictate my own hours and have a chance to reach a wider audience. I wasn’t interested in starting my own online coaching company. It was more interesting to me to join an established company and help grow what had been started than to try to do everything myself at one time. I realized that I’m not the best at everything and am a bit of an introvert. After looking at several different companies Jason’s was the one that I was most drawn to.

Matt: What drew you to the strength side of fitness?

Jon: I used to live in Nova Scotia, eastern Canada, and moved to Alberta in 2006. I had been a rugby player in high school and we had a “strength coach”. We were doing our smith squats and stuff like that. That was my first intro to lifting weights. I quickly realized that I would rather be pursuing the powerlifting side of things as opposed to bodybuilding. Once I moved to Alberta I started to do several meets and it quickly became my thing. I just loved it. I’m one of those people who moved on from rugby and track, so I just needed something. If I wasn’t doing a sport I don’t know what I’d be doing. So I’ve been powerlifting since before I started training people. I’m not saying that I can’t train bodybuilders or people with other focuses, but powerlifting has always been my interest. I’ve found that being an athlete doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make a good coach, but if you’re hungry to learn you’ll become a good coach faster.

Matt: Can you talk about your transition from in-person coaching to online coaching? You still do both, but what was new to you when moving to interacting with clients solely online?

Jon: I think that the major thing is that when you train someone in-person you learn to read their personality. You saw someone two days ago and they couldn’t stop smiling. Today they could be just moping around. You can almost guess what’s going on with them and build expectations for the session based off of that. How strong they will be, how much energy they will have, how focused they will be, and so on. Online training is much harder because your interaction is only through email and messages. You have to be more perceptive of the tones of your client, their responsiveness. If they aren’t emailing you weekly then something is probably going on and you should check in with them. It’s really quite difficult and that’s why I think that going from in-person to online helps. It’s not a necessity, but you can easily transition your in-person experience to online coaching. If you were only an online coach than it would be really difficult to know what you’re missing. Other things like periodization became a lot more important. When you’re training in a commercial gym you’re not doing a periodized plan. Mostly likely you’re just basing the workout off of what was done the session before. Upper last time, lower this time. Not a true auto-regulation program. I was programming for in-person sessions before, but I put a lot more effort into programming as an online coach. If the client isn’t giving me updates I still want them to have a really solid plan in front of them.

Matt: What’s your schedule look like right now? Before the interview started you told me that you do in-person strength training with the Edmonton CFL team (currently in their offseason) in addition to working with The Strength Guys. How do you balance the two?

Jon: Right now it’s just a five day workweek kind of thing. We’ve established hours where I’m opening up the facility. It’s a skeleton staff during the offseason. I’ll be there from 10-1230. I might stay a little extra if a guy needs help with his rehab. The team is currently 12 weeks from starting training camp so we’ve started to add a bit more running to their programs. Two run days, three lift days. So I split this with a co-worker right now. When the season starts there is a training camp for two weeks with long eight hour days. Once the season starts we have Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4 being a walkthrough day. We’re there for game days as well. There’s a day off to rest after gameday and then back it. We’ll bias the lifts towards earlier in the week. Heavier lifts will be on Day 1, Day 2 is a lighter lift, Day 3 will be off or a bro day. A lot of these guys are very much a product of their NCAA days. They want to hit their arms and stuff like that. Overall, it’s very dynamic and different in the sense that I’m being paid by an organization to work with a group of guys. They have to listen to me, but they don’t have to act like they want to. It’s very different than an individual paying you to coach them. The individual will sit their and absorb everything. Coaching these groups has taught me a lot of things compared to working 1-on-1.

Matt: There’s a flood of online coaches coming into the market who don’t always have this in-person experience. What do you think they are missing with this lack of experience?

Jon: This is backstepping a bit, but we recently did a survey on the The Strength Guys FB page that relates to this. We found out that clients weren’t necessarily looking for the smartest coach out there or our ability to design programs. Instead they were looking for someone who could communicate and empathize with them. There’s a lot of coaches who think that being the smartest person in the room makes them the best coach. It can make them a really good contractor or fitness writer, but things like empathy, experience with in-person coaching, being able to read people and connect with them are all far more important. The football locker room taught me a lot along in those areas of coaching. Even when I was working in a commercial gym with 50 year old bankers I was learning what makes people tick. I think that training people in-person while you are doing online coaching can be a really good complement. It keeps you human and reminds you what it’s like to be that person who’s 300 miles away being coached by you online. Not to say that other things like periodization aren’t important but all that can be learned just through repetition. You can sit at your computer and write programs. But when you sit at your computer writing program after program and then test it out in-person, or on yourself, it’s going to add to your knowledge bank. Like I said, to me the major things are being able to communicate and empathize with your client.

Matt: In my recent interview with Jeff he mentioned that you guys have a large number of athletes that will be competing at Canadian Nationals this year. Can you tell me a little bit about what your clients are doing to prepare and what their expectations are for the event?

Jon: Jeff will have the most athletes there. Nationals are in Newfoundland which is one of those provinces that you Americans probably won’t know too much about (laughing). It’s right off the east coast, near Prince Edward Island. The Nationals tend to rotate from east to central to west and this year they are as far east as you can go. As a byproduct of our referral networks we have a far amount of clients in our areas. I have a lot in Alberta and Jeff has a lot in Newfoundland because that’s where he’s from. Jason has a mix. So, I don’t have a ton of clients going because it’s a $1500 flight and a 12 hour day of flying.

The event is a 5-6 day meet so usually we suggest our athletes get there a few days before. If they are coming from all the way over here because there will be a ton of jet lag to account for. Most of our athletes who are going are not world-level athletes yet. This will be their first or second Nationals. So it’s generally a week or week and a half taper into the event. If their meet is on Saturday they would lift the previous Monday, for example, and do 65-70% 3×3 on all the lifts. Maybe no deadlifts on the last day and just rest till the meet. It’s a big meet for a lot of them but it’s going to be a great experience. The athletes should be lifting in front of a few hundred people overall. It’s also our first big National meet as The Strength Guys. We’ve been around for the the previous few National meets but this is our biggest meet by far as a team. It’s very exciting.

I’m also be traveling to the American USPL Nationals in October this year where I should have six lifters, five who are female. It’s really great to see the sport growing, especially for the girls.

Matt: That’s fantastic! So the sport of powerlifting has continued to grow in popularity over the past few years. It’s very much still a niche sport, but what do you think is helping to grow the powerlifting community?

Jon: I’ll probably get flack for this, but I think a huge catalyst for the growth of our sport is Crossfit. I really do. Olympic weightlifting is growing as well and it has Crossfit to thank. There’s not necessarily people who are saying that they want to completely switch from Crossfit to powerlifting, but powerlifting, and all strength sports, are getting better exposure due to the Crossfit community. You see strength sports on TSN and other sports networks. It’s just opened up everyone’s mind even more than before and led to innovation in the industry. Five years ago I don’t think I could have made a living as an online Strength and Conditioning coach. It just wasn’t a thing which is why I didn’t start earlier. There were guys like Cressey, but they made most of their money through in-person training with fitness articles and ebooks on the side. An example I like to use to show the growth of our space is Olympic Weightlifting shoes. Everyone who lifts weights has a pair now. It’s ridiculous. When I bought my first pair I ordered them from this obscure little website that required you to send a check to New Jersey or something. The Adidas weightlifting shoes were only made for the Olympics and you could only purchase the leftovers that the athletes didn’t use. Now, if want to get Nike Romaleos you can walk three blocks and find a store that has them. I live in NorthWestern Canada so that’s saying something. It’s just crazy how much this has opened up the industry. There are powerlifting clubs at every University and every city has a small hole in the wall gym where you can find like-minded people. I think as the industry grows more people will become interested in these sports. I have a lot of clients who were track & field NCAA athletes and couldn’t find a place in their sport professionally. After college they look for something that’s challenging and allows them to still be competitive. Powerlifting is a great option because you’re going to be peaking in your 30’s compared to your 20’s or teens. I don’t think Crossfit deserves all the credit, but it really is the catalyst that has opened up the industry. I wish I had a better answer, but it’s all growing at an exponential rate and powerlifting is lucky enough to be on the receiving end.

Matt: It seems to be that the sports of powerlifting and bodybuilding have been blending further to the point where it’s common to see athletes who are participating in both. Fellow TSG Coach Jeff Nippard is a great example of someone who competes at both in the same year. Could you tell me why this might be beneficial for your athletes?

Jon: I think people realize now that if you’re a competitive bodybuilder you’re only going to be doing maybe two shows a year. A lot of times a show might not have gone great and you realize that you have to add ten pounds of muscle. If you’re a natural bodybuilder, which most of these new bodybuilders are, that means taking a year off from competition because you’re not going to add muscle on a calorie restricted diet. You have to evaluate, add muscle, and change things up a bit. With powerlifting you can do 3-5 meets a year and you don’t have to peak for each one of them. These athletes can compete in these meets in their extended offseasons to keep things exciting. If your next show isn’t til mid 2016 what’s your motivation? I know that you should self-motivated being able to look in the mirror and know you’re getting better, but if you’re 15% bodyfat and on stage in 2016 you need something else to drive you. I know in Jeff’s case that’s very true. He like the strength goals as much as the bodybuilding goals. I think that from a periodization perspective most of our bodybuilding athletes will do 1-2 strength mesocycles a year regardless if they are competing at meets or not. On the other side, our powerlifting guys will also be doing 12-16 weeks of hypertrophy work a year. You see a lot of these powerlifters who don’t look like they lift weights at all. You have to have some sort of basal mass to reach your full strength potential, you know? So, if you’re going to be doing 12-16 weeks of hypertrophy work maybe a bodybuilding show is something you can do down the road. If you’re a bodybuilder and you just bench 405 that’s competitive why not do a meet? So, I think that is what’s allowing these athletes to crossover between the two sports and help each of them grow. An good example of this is when you look back to 2008 in Alberta when I was the VP of the Alberta Powerlifting club. There would be 2-3 meets a year and we would struggle to get people to sign up. Now there are six shows a year and they fill up within two weeks. There’s even waiting lists. It’s just grown tremendously at the grassroots level. I think there’s more people crossing over between the two sports than ever.

Matt: Going back to TSG, you guys are doing some fantastic work and growing like crazy this year. I touched on short-term goals during the interviews with Jason and Jeff, but where do you see this company going in the long-term?

Jon: I think that we’re never going to get away from the grassroots. Some of my favorite clients are the ones who we take from a 135 to 500 lb squat. There’s nothing more appealing than that. It’s great working with world-level athletes, but 135 to 500 is a little more appealing than 500 to 600. I think a lot of coaches don’t really think about this when they brag about how strong they made someone. The guy may have hit a new PR in two months while working with you, but he was already strong, you know? So, we’re never going to get away from the grassroots, but we would really like to have like five clients at the IPF Worlds each year. Having those high caliber clients and even getting into professional sports more would be very appealing. We’ve had NASCAR and professional football players before, but Jason is a big fan of the NBA and other sports. Also, diversifying our offerings would be great. None of us want to get beyond the 50-60 range while working with clients. After that it just becomes chaotic and the communication becomes robotic. That’s the opposite of what we want to do. With The Strength Guys we want to shoot for releasing at least one product a year. Something that will help the industry as a whole. One of our science guys, Andrew, who works with Bret Contreras brought this piece of advice from Bret over with him to our team. Release one product a year, doesn’t matter if it’s paid or free, but something to help the industry as a whole. I think that pays off more for you down the road to get your name out there. Being an online coach isn’t just coaching, it’s writing articles and doing seminars as well. The more I get away from the in-person strength and conditioning the more I see myself diving into this sort of stuff.

Matt: What about you as an athlete? What are you working towards?

Jon: As an athlete I’m just trying to get healthy but I know I’ll probably be unhappy with that in a few months (laughing). I’m very hungry as an athlete. I think that the stubbornness pays off as long as I’m listening to my body. My goal is to do the North American here in July. I probably won’t be ready for that, but oh well. The CommonWealth games are also here in December so I’d like to do that. Next year it would be great to do the Arnold, Canadian Nationals a few weeks later, and IPF worlds which I think are in Austin Texas. That would be my first Worlds so it would be great to go there and see where I’m at.

Matt: Big thank you to Jon for giving us the time to do this interview. It was a real pleasure to get to know him and learn his story. If you’d like to follow more from Jon check out the links below:

– New coaching company-> Great North Training Systems
– Twitter @Jsstrength
– Instagram @stewartstrength