Last week during the CrossFit Games, Jeffrey Adler was named the Fittest Man on Earth, followed by Patrick Vellner as the second Fittest. What do these guys have in common, aside from being Canadian? 

Both are coached by women. 

Caroline Lambray and Michele Letendre are paving a way for more women to feel empowered to coach men at the highest level of fitness. 

And if the fact that these elite men have a female coach surprises you, it shows that we still have a LONG way to go in the fitness industry. 

Time for my own personal experience with this hard lesson (sidetone I am NOT as cool as Caroline or Michele): One of my first weeks as a personal trainer about 6 years ago, a man walked into the gym and said he was looking for a trainer. When I said I was a trainer- he said “oh honey, I want to talk to a guy. I’m looking to get strong”. He didn’t want me to be his trainer because he had gender stereotyped me and didn’t think I was capable of helping him build muscle, without ever even having a conversation with me. He didn’t know that I could squat double his numbers, or that I had been helping men in the gym FAR bigger than him increase their strength numbers. He just saw my gender and assumed. 

I’d love to say that was the only time I dealt with sexism as a trainer/coach, but alas it was only the beginning. I’ve had guys walk into the CrossFit gym I coach at, and say with disdain, “So, is this a chick gym?”. Because the two main coaches were female. Little did he know we had a class of all men an hour earlier and we were maxing out our bench press with some of our guys hitting 300+.  

Being a woman in the fitness industry, you sometimes feel you have to have a chip on your shoulder that you SHOULDN’T have to have. It was frustrating six years ago when I saw jacked male trainers who had jam packed schedules and made double my paycheck, but didn’t have a clue what they were doing. 

This is why I’m thankful that there are women like Caroline and Michele paving the way for the next generation of women to not be asked if they are knowledgeable enough of a coach based on their gender or how they look. 

A good coach is a good coach. It doesn’t matter what they look like, their race, their gender, none of that matters. If they genuinely care, are knowledgeable at their craft, and are willing to do anything to help their athletes succeed, then that is all that matters.