Dr. John A. King and a competitor talk with trainer Ned about why having a coach matters in bodybuilding. Ned provides objective feedback and mental support during contest prep, things a competitor can't give themselves when they're deep in the work.
I'll tell you how I met Ned.
Okay, there we go. How did you guys hook up?
You know, I think I met Ned over at Powerhouse. He was a trainer over there.
He told me you hadn't picked up a weight before '48. Is that correct?
Yeah.
Really?
Well, I'd probably picked up a weight, but I hadn't focused on bodybuilding. I mentioned to Ned that I thought I'd like to do a show, and he kind of said that I'd like to help you. So I thought that was a good time for me to hire Ned. So I hired Ned back in 2010. For a show, and we did about a 7-month run getting ready for it. So that's kind of how we met.
So tell us about your experience. You went and did a show. How'd you go there?
Very first show I did, 2007, I went up there and I did the master's class and I got second, but there were only 2 of us in that class.
That's good. If you got third, you got some iron.
I got some iron, but then I went on to the— I competed in the open class in the middleweight. And there was like 9 or something like that in that, and I got second in that class. And then they had another one they called Mr. Dakota, Dakota Athlete or whatever, and anybody from North and South Dakota could compete in it. And there was about 14 or 16 in that class, and I won that class.
Talk about that. Why do you think a coach is important?
Oh man.
What do you get from a coach that you don't get from yourself?
Stability.
Okay.
You get an honest eye and stability. You get a little calmness. You know, it's real hard for a guy to— a competitor to eat the food every day and do the workouts every day and then see the changes and then think that you're not getting the progress that you have. And then a coach comes in and maybe hasn't looked at you for 4 or 5 days and takes a look and goes, yeah, we're right on track. And it gives you that mental stability to go back out there and do it all over again for another 5 or 6 days.
It's that feedback, isn't it?
Yeah, it's the positive or the negative feedback. We gotta do this, or we gotta change your diet up and stuff. So, you know, it's that lots of people understand they gotta eat. Lots of people start getting a little bit freakish when they start losing some size though.
Yes.
Especially in the bodybuilders. Not so much in the figure models and bikini and stuff, but yeah, it gets to be a head game. You know, you start losing some size and you think, you know, you're screwing up. So that's where a good coach comes in.
Now, when we were talking, Ned, you talked about how as a coach, as a competitor, you would get the enjoyment of one show, but as a coach, you got enjoyment out of multiple shows. Is that correct?
Yeah, it's because, you know, if you have, you know, 8, 10 people in a show, and so each time you get the same excitement. You know, when you do it yourself, you're out there and you You're out there by yourself, you do your thing, you're out, it's done.
Yeah.
When you have, you know, 8 or 10 people in the show, or 5, it doesn't matter how many you have, each time the person is out there, you get the same feeling. So it just multiplies more than one time.
Yeah.
So it's almost more rewarding being a coach and having people out there and competing and doing things because you just keep, you know, living your excitement more than once.
