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I grew up playing everything: taekwondo, wrestling, T-ball, baseball and football. Around 16, I walked away from team sports. I never walked away from lifting.
That shapes how I coach. It's a big part of why I care so much about one thing with young athletes: that they actually enjoy training. A kid who quits a sport hasn't failed. A kid who quits moving altogether is the outcome I want to prevent.
Think of sports like rooms in the house you grew up in. You might move out of some. The foundation stays. For me, the weight room was the foundation.
Your First Step: If you played sports growing up and stopped, write down one thing you still carry from it, like discipline, toughness or a habit. Then ask yourself whether you're still using it.
The Breakdown
Lesson 1: Taekwondo, Second Degree, Then Done
I started taekwondo when I was 6 or 7 and stuck with it until I earned my second-degree black belt. I was going for my third, and I just didn't care the same way anymore. It had started to feel like a participation trophy. The atmosphere and some of the mentors changed, and each new level felt like the last one with a new color. I said, "Alright, I'm done," and that was it. I flipped the switch.
That switch shows up a lot in my story. When something stopped being worth it to me, I walked away clean. Lifting is the one thing that never hit that switch.
The lesson I kept: set a ceiling high enough that reaching it means something, and know there's another level past it.
Lesson 2: Wrestling and the Weekly Weigh-In
My dad was my coach for baseball and wrestling. Because of my size, he or the other coach was usually my wrestling partner, which also meant I got to be the dummy for demonstrations. Pros and cons. He was the only person I could really go at, because nobody in my age group was my size. I was towering over the other kids.
Weight was never a problem in wrestling. I was always a heavyweight, so I just needed to maintain my size. I had my category and I stayed there. What wrestling did give me was a weigh-in every week, and that held me accountable. Once I stopped, that check was gone. I realized I could eat a lot more food and lift without dealing with any of it. I got to do a lot more strength work, but my weight started to swing a lot more.
I wrestled from youth wrestling through middle school, and I was done by ninth or 10th grade.
Lesson 3: Football, Baseball and Different Kinds of Teammates
In baseball, I played outfield. In football, I was a defensive tackle, and I played nose guard for a little bit. That was fun. You go off the snap and just plow.
Football also sent me mixed messages. One coach told me I always had to do cardio because I was so big. When I finally got into games, I was told I was too aggressive. So I tried to be more sportsmanlike. I knocked a guy over, went to help him up at the end of the play, and got my hand slapped away. It's a game. I was sorry I laid him out. I also had players go after my knees, because the plan was, "Big guy, hit him low."
It taught me there are different types of teammates. A lot of it turned into cliques, and I didn't want to deal with that. My teammates were acquaintances, not friends. They were people I passed in the hallway and spent an hour or more a day with at practice. We didn't see each other outside of that. It wasn't a Friday Night Lights kind of bond.
I was never an amazing athlete. I was decent. I had some natural ability, good hand-eye coordination and control of my body. And when a big guy like me started moving, if you were in my way, I felt like the Juggernaut.
Lesson 4: Walking Away Isn't the Same as Quitting
Around 16, the camaraderie just wasn't there. Wrestling was hit or miss. Football was hit or miss. I didn't want to do taekwondo anymore, and I stopped playing baseball. I just didn't care. Lifting was the one thing that stuck. When the teams fell away, the weights didn't. I didn't need a roster, a coach or a season to show up. It was something I could do on my own, and the only person I had to beat was the guy I was last week. That's when lifting stopped being part of a sport and became mine.
When I walked away, I meant it. I didn't have that kind of relationship with my coaches, or that kind of rapport with my teammates.
Part of me wanted to go into the military or law enforcement. I wanted my life to be meaningful. I wanted to be able to defend the little guy. But I hated group projects, I'd had a rough time with teammates, and I honestly didn't know if that would change. Then I fell in love with lifting.
I don't see it as quitting. I see it as finding the thing that fit. I cared about being the best version of me, and I had my own goals and expectations. A team sport wasn't one of them. What matters is that kids keep moving. Leaving a sport is normal. Leaving all physical activity behind is the part that costs people years later.
Lesson 5: What Lifting Gave Me That Team Sports Didn't
Lifting gave me a way to hold myself to a higher standard and hold myself accountable. Nobody was relying on me. I was showing up for myself.
It took me a while to grasp that, because nobody taught me how to work out and nobody taught me how to eat. I was written off as, "You're on your own."
At 16 I was skipping class to lift and lifting in the high school weight room every chance I got. Once I could drive, I trained at Planet Fitness, LA Fitness and Summit Fitness, bouncing between the three.
Those early workouts were bro splits and pump work: how much activation I could get, what I could learn and how much control I had. Summit was the meathead gym. I got kicked out of LA Fitness a couple of times for making noise and for deadlifts, even when I used a platform or pads to cut the noise. It was worse than Planet Fitness. At Planet Fitness I did light cardio, which I hated, plus mostly cable work, dumbbells and isolation movements.
Coaching flipped the switch again later. Training clients and working with gym members gave me the sense of purpose and camaraderie I never got from a team. Team sports end for almost everyone. Lifting doesn't have to. That's a big part of why I believe everyone should lift.
Lesson 6: It Wasn't a Straight Line
It wasn't happily ever after. After high school, I peaked near 420 pounds (about 190 kilograms). I crash-dieted on my own, rebuilt through school and later regained during COVID until a friend who's also a client called me out.
Walking away from team sports didn't end anything. The highs and the lows that came after, the weight I gained, lost and gained back, all taught me something I use with clients now. That's real pain pays later: what you go through only pays you back if you keep moving.
How This Shapes the Way I Coach Young Athletes
I've coached about 25 athletes, and three earned full scholarships in wrestling, football and volleyball. But the outcome I care about most isn't a scholarship. It's whether they still like training when their sport is over.
What I try to do with every young athlete:
- Make training something they look forward to. If they dread it, they'll quit.
- Teach the basics well. S.S.I. (Setup, Stabilize, Initiate) on every rep, so they can train safely without me.
- Be a mentor, not just a coach. I stay a mentor after the coaching ends. I'll put in tenfold if they put in the work.
When a young athlete wants to step away from a sport, I ask what keeps them in it: a family member, friends or the team. You have to learn where to draw the line, whether that's "I'm hurt and need to back off" or "I want to get back into this." When the joy is gone and the sport turns into a chore, it's time to reassess. Fitness is the same way.
I lived it. I trained to get better at my sports, then stopped caring about the sport and started caring about the lifting. The goals became mine.
I've seen it in clients too. Two wrestlers kept training. A gymnast moved to CrossFit. A soccer player still plays for fun. Those four were about 17 to 20. A former college volleyball player, my older client in her early 40s, started lifting and found the confidence to play again.
Bro Science Check: "Teenagers shouldn't lift weights. It'll stunt their growth."
What the Research Says: An international consensus of sports medicine and exercise science experts found that fears of growth plate injury are not supported, and that there's no scientific evidence resistance training harms growth in height. Injuries have generally happened when kids were unsupervised or used loads beyond their skill (Lloyd et al., 2014).
Verdict: Cut. Lifting is safe for teenagers when it's well coached and the technique comes before the weight.
A Note for Parents
If your kid wants to walk away from a sport, talk before you push back. One question helps more than any argument: "Do you still want to train, even if it's not for this sport?" If the answer is yes, that's a win. Help them find the version of training that sticks.
Next: Strength Training 101: Why Everyone Should Lift.
Done with team sports but not done training? Get a plan built around the life you have now. Apply for coaching at pastrength.com/apply.