“I like how well Joel understands my issues and recommends good solutions, he is very well experienced in the sport. He also takes notice of things in my feedback such as constant low sleep and stale exercises and advises accordingly. He presents a good mix of professionalism and silliness, which is great since it allows us to joke around and sets a good tone when something needs to be changed.

My mentality about the sport and way I conduct myself with my workouts has changed for the better ever since I’ve been under Joel. He helps me understand why he recommends certain actions or changes. He also helped me through an injury that had been bugging me for months prior and helped me slowly change my mentality about how I should conduct myself during training and outside of training days too.

The main goals I had were to recovery from my injury and begin bulking to fill out my next weight class. Under his guidance, he helped me bulk and learn about which nutrients benefit my goal most, and planned my workouts to first regain my strength then regain my technique with all of my lifts. Particularly my deadlift suffered the most, and he helped me get it back to what it used to be, and improved it far past what it was before. I was able to meet if not exceed most of my goals I set for [the Truborn] Knockout, and all of it was thanks to Joel’s guidance.

One core memory with my coach was watching him compete at Anime Open, since I spotted and loaded for him I was able to have front row seats, and the way he conducted himself on the platform is something I strive to attain one day. Eating with him and his friends after was pretty fun as well.”

Tyler Te (Coached by Joel)