Matt Fontaine

BACKGROUND & CREDENTIALS

Matt is an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and CPR certified, currently completing his Precision Nutrition Level 1. He studied kinesiology at Temple University for four years, has ten years of strength training behind him personally, and is in his third year of coaching — the first two online, and SST his first in-person role.

THE ORIGIN STORY

He got cut from his high school basketball team in ninth grade and went looking for something to do. A friend took him to the YMCA, and he fell for lifting almost immediately — casually at first, then seriously by his junior year.

Coaching came later, and from the other side of it. At 217 pounds he hired a coach himself and lost 45 pounds over three months. What stuck with him was not the workouts but the method: weight loss is a mindset, and it starts with identifying the person you want to be. His first client was his own mother, and eighteen weeks of strength training was enough to convince him this was what he wanted to do.

HIS COACHING STYLE

Deliberately empathetic and conservative, especially with people who have never trained before. “My goal is not to beat them up. My goal is for them to make it to the next workout.”

Beyond that he adapts to whoever is in front of him — weight loss, muscle and strength, speed and explosiveness, or clients who want to actually understand what they are doing. He is a stickler for technique, and brings a calisthenics background for anyone who wants a harder challenge.

CLIENT SUCCESS STORIES

One client arrived a complete novice — she had never picked up a dumbbell. They started with two-and-a-half and five pound weights. Nine months on she was doing 50-pound dumbbell RDLs and pressing 25s, and coming to the gym had become her favorite part of the day.

His proudest moment came after a client had already finished with him. She had trained eight weeks, still new to all of it, and they had worked on pull-ups without getting one. Months later she sent him a video of her first.

BEYOND THE GYM

A family man, and seriously into esports — he follows the Call of Duty and Halo leagues closely. In high school he was good enough to go semi-pro in Call of Duty; his parents pointed him at university instead.