General Manager Javi PUSH The House SUF Tampa Seminar May 30-31

Push the house gym (Pinellas Ultimate Strength House) in Tampa, FL will be hosting Show Up Fitness and our level 2 seminar May 30/31st Saturday 12-5, Sunday 9-1.

General Manager Javi Fraga IG-jfragatraining

You can have an exercise science degree, know every muscle action, and still fail as a coach if you can’t run a session that makes a real person feel seen, safe, and confident. That gap between knowing and doing is where most personal trainers stall and where great gyms quietly separate themselves from the pack.

We talk with Fraga, the 26-year-old general manager of Push The House (Pinellas Ultimate Strength House) in Largo near Tampa, about what it takes to build trainers who can actually coach. He shares how he went from a track background and early “pain-free performance” interests to leading a strength gym day to day after the owners moved out of state. We unpack what college does well, where it often misses, and why a gym’s onboarding process matters as much as its equipment list.

From hiring and internship design to baseline testing, templates for programming, and the reality that clients don’t care about “sciencey” terms, we get practical about communication, cueing, and integrity. We also dig into gym management choices that shape retention and culture: paying interns, hiring trainers as employees, building marketing funnels that support coaches, and using a mission and vision as real operating principles rather than slogans.

If you care about personal trainer certification, strength and conditioning education, gym culture, or building a career that lasts, you’ll leave with a clearer standard and a few concrete ideas you can apply immediately. Subscribe, share this with a trainer who wants to level up, and leave a rating and review so more coaches can find the show.

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Transcript

Show Up Fitness Opening

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showufffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy, y'all. Welcome back to the Show of Fitness Podcast. Today we have this young 26-year-old hunk, Mr. Fraga. He is the general manager of Push the House, and we will be there for a two-day seminar. Thank you, my man, for taking the time today. Excited to learn more about you. We're excited to come out to push. So tell us more about Push and how you got into fitness and love to chat with you more today, my man. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

But definitely right about the hunk part. So um, so a little bit about myself. I started um back when I was about 18, training people. Um, really started on the pain-free performance side of things, learning on the powerlifting. Um, took over as general manager here at Push when I graduated from college um after graduating the USF Exercise Science Program. And then from there, um now I'm really heavy in um more of like the physique kind of performance side of things, like everybody. Usually you still work with a lot of uh Gen Pop and a lot of diverse different uh people. So it's a it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I always love chatting with folk who you know go to great colleges and get a degree because I know at USF, uh Campbell, he's really big into the ISSN. I remember hearing him talk at there's so many of the conferences, and like it's just so great to learn from these individuals hands-on. And then when you talk to trainers who haven't, it's just kind of like, well, hold on a second. You read a book and I'm in the trenches learning from so he was actually your professor at USF?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Yes, yeah. Campbell was one of the professors. Uh he did all nutrition classes. So we had a just a general human nutrition, and we also had a sports-specific nutrition class as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

That's awesome. And so, how big were those classes? Were they pretty big or small?

Track Injuries And Career Path

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Or so when I went, it was still a cohort program. So it was 30. Um, you actually had to have a certain GPA uh in your prereqs in order to be able to apply to the program. And then afterwards, you got into the program and they kept it really small. Since then, um, just with budget stuff going on at USF, they've had they've they've really expanded the program, but they have pretty much all the same professors. So it's still a fantastic program to still be able to go to.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Talk to me a little bit more. You said you were training at 18. So were you in college while you were training? Or you know, how did you come across becoming a trainer?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

So, yeah, so I was in college while I was training. Um, I it really obviously, just like the majority of us, it starts off with the family, the friends, people that are asking. Um, I had been a track athlete for the last seven years. I started off with injuries, um, which is where I think is a pretty relatable thing, where now, oh, okay, all of a sudden now I want to become a PT when I get older. Um, and then afterwards, that's where I actually came across a lot of what John Ruston was doing. So being an exercise scientist and then a physical therapist, decided, hey, this is this is awesome. I want to kind of go through that track. Um, and then realized that the PT degree wasn't something that A made sense in the state of Florida. There's a lot of insurance uh things that that weren't present back 10 years ago. Um, and then now I was like, oh wow, this is what's really changing lives. Like the exercise science part of things, being the foremost like experts on exercise, which is what I think the standard for our field should be. Um, and then uh from there, I really uh worked through that in college and then started an internship um at the powerlifting gym uh that I was telling you about a little bit earlier, and then got hired on as a trainer once I decided, hey, look, PT is not the route I want to go. Um I really want to make sure that I'm just I'm leaning into this full time.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

What was your events you were running for track?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Oh, so I ran um I ran the two 200 hurdles, uh 300 hurdles, 400, 4x4. Um and I tried to do the one tens, but I am way too short for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

That's awesome. That's literally in hearing you talk, I'm like, that's literally me. I was track, you know, triple jump, long jump, get hurt. I was like, okay, let's go to physical therapy school, but I was too dumb. I couldn't figure it out, physics. And so then I just lucked out to get into this, but that's pretty crazy. Do you get involved with like the hiring process as the general manager? Talk to us more about that role.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Okay, so as a general manager, um, so our owners actually a few years ago, because of their capacity and what they're doing in their in the big bodybuilding company of Fitbody Fusion, um, which is a nationwide like online um bodybuilding company, they had to move out to Arizona. So I actually run pretty much everything. So I go to them, we've developed a relationship over four years where I the way I've they described it was I treat them kind of like the bank. If I need money for something that's over a certain threshold, I'll ask them. And if not, I kind of keep them updated in weekly check-ins. Um, but everything from hiring, I actually created our own extended onboarding process slash internship program as a result of what with the gaps that we didn't have necessarily in such a fantastic exercise science program, and how to like, okay, well, now you have the base. How is it that you get into the practical day-to-day application?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

When I went to my first gym bladium in Alameda, I had this expectation that everyone as a trainer that had a degree in kinesiology and we were on the same playing field. And then I started interviewing people, and I've never even heard of NASA. And I was like, what the hell is this? I started looking it up. I'm like, you're fucking around the Bosey ball. Like, can you? I remember during my interview process, I'd ask people like size principal and go over like the sciencey shit, and people were just completely lost. Anatomy, no clue. Have you is that why you created your internship? Because you saw a lot of holes with the hiring process, or talk to us more about that.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah. So um, what we kind of what I what we've seen is if somebody comes from the exercise science program, they have a good baseline of anatomy, of um, of physiology, of all those things, but they lack the skills to be able to apply it. So when we don't have the practical knowledge, a lot of times people are like, oh, okay, so sure, I know that um there's this is this muscle and it has this action, but being able to actually see it in real time, having an understanding of what's happening, um, people seem to lack and being able to put together the whole puzzle. So we usually start off with a baseline test where that includes a little bit of anatomy, but it's super heavy on the communication side of things. So taking that practical knowledge and then being able to apply it. So um, so that's that's really where that started.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Now I I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I want to make sure you said it properly that you have my book that you give out to some of your interns.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yes, I do. So um, I will. If you're not gonna pat yourself on the back, I will do that for you because um, so what we do is we use uh I have I've got the essentials of strength and conditioning, pain-free performance uh textbook, I've got your textbook sitting right here next to us, and I've also got um a biomechanics book that we have for all of our trainers to be able to use as a resource.

Coaching Communication Over Jargon

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I love that. That's so great. And what you're talking about right there, I I you know I'm not saying that my degree wasn't helpful because it definitely was. I love being in the trenches and learning all that nerdy shit. But the practical side, it's not like we were training each other, we weren't like learning how to actually do a full 60-minute session. So that technical part of cueing and the communication, as you said, is huge. You can you can be a book nerd, but if you can't communicate with someone, then you're gonna be screwed. It's gonna be hard to turn this into a career.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Absolutely. I think nobody really cares if you're using the science y terms or not. Like the majority of people do not care. They don't care if I'm like, hey, look, there's this is this equipment manufacturer, this is what they're doing, this is multivariable resistance loading. Here's how you line up the resistance profile. They're like, What? Can you help me? Yes or no? Can you help me get to where I want to be? Um, and I I like that like they do have a lot of hands-off, hands-on in the USF extra science program. My favorite thing about them is that they're open to growth. So if we give them feedback, they'll either bring us in or they'll try to figure out how to fill in those holes that they need to in their program.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

That's so rad. I mean, you're you're kind of in a bubble because you have the connections, you have you see quality people coming in. And if they're not, maybe they have the personality side, you can give them the resources to really level themselves up. So you're doing great stuff there. And and how did you first start thinking about, you know, I need to improve my, you know, pain-free aspects of it because you have the foundation, but then we where did you start training right out of college?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Um, so right out of college, I started training at um Gorilla Bench Training Center. So it was before, it was while I was in college. I was actually able to do it because of COVID. So because of how fast we opened up um in Florida, I was had all my classes online. So I was I actually was just able to be at the gym taking my classes in the office uh while I was doing that. And um from there I learned the value of like, hey, look, we're on the powerlifting side of things, they just train hard. Like it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to. I was a bit of I was I stuck out a little bit there where I was like, hey, but can we do this better? And they were like, no, this is the way. And I feel like that was a really fantastic experience because sometimes you do need to shut up and train, but make sure that your that your like your program makes sense. If something makes sense, then you better be training hard. Otherwise, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Uh, because I'm always just fascinated on the the practical side of being in the gym and where you like to learn. And like, how did you come across the John? And like how did you, you know, this is someone who I want to go and learn from. And then now you've got brought him out there and you're you're definitely big into the hands-on stuff, which I love.

Programming Templates And Paying Trainers

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yeah, so um, actually, I it was an instance of Instagram ads doing their job because John back then was advertising his FPT, so he was just selling uh PDFs online. So uh being uh I actually bought his PDF, which I think honestly is one of the best ways to learn and learn different ways of programming. That's actually one of the ways that I started kind of learning and developing my own ideology around programming, um, by taking his program, taking a look at it, being able to understand it, running it for myself over and over again. And then from there, I started programming in the language that I learned there. And then afterwards, you learn a new language, right? Okay, so now whether it's somebody else that you look up to or buying somebody else's program, like you have to be able to invest in order to learn. Um, and then since then, it's like, okay, what works in practice? What am I learning more? Now I can start tweaking. But I really I'm really big on, and something I provide for all our trainers is templates that then they can actually riff off afterwards once I know what it is they're doing in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Until you're a sharp cat because you have that natural curiosity to keep on learning. I mean, one of the questions I'll ask at seminars is, you know, who are people you like to learn from? And people will just cite free resources, like, oh, I you know, I love this Instagram, or it's like, what actual about like, you know, people who have a background in this stuff. And have you been to seminars? Who are you learning from? And it's just it's so few and far between today. And so that's pretty awesome that you're a young buck and you're just out there, you're changing the industry. And so how many trainers are at your spot?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

So right now we've got um five, including myself. We just hired an operations manager to allow me to kind of pour into the trainers a little bit more. Um, but right now is when we've really it's taken what four years to solidify a team, uh, an infrastructure on how to onboard well, how to um like train them well that now we're seeing really, really good retention results. Because, well, when it's two people, you can run it to the moon, but it's just you doing it. Now, when you have to kind of build it more um more a little bit more of an infrastructure, then that's when things become a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So if I were to apply to your spot and you know, I fit the role and you bring me on the team, is there clients that you provide? Do I have to go out there and get them? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

So we do a little bit of both. So we hire everybody on as an employee because I want to be able to be like, hey, look, like from a culture perspective, if I need you here, I need you here at this time. So the way we kind of start, we try to build um people's buffer in the beginning using our classes. So we have for youth athletics classes, we have a rock study boxing Parkinson's class as well that we've had for years. Um, and then we also have some small group programs too. Um, and then we actually pay clock in hours throughout our internship, unless they're coming for USF and it's for their degree. Because even if it's just a little bit of a buffer, um, usually people are a little bit more invested, are showing up. If I'm like, hey, look, this is your job. You're coming in, we're gonna make sure we're paying you, which I found a lot of gyms don't. They're just like, they should be excited just to be here. I'm like, sure, yeah, but like they need to live. So that's a little bit of a reasonable thing. Um, and then um we but all of our marketing, we do, we do find clients for trainers, it all comes through our funnel. And then afterwards, they put them through an assessment process, and then we usually help with, hey, how are you doing your sales? How are you doing your marketing for yourself, our social media, all that?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

That's awesome. And you're running all that stuff, huh?

Humility In Leadership And Culture

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Um, not anymore. So um I I have been, and there's times where I've just been like, okay, well, I have to do everything so that we don't go afloat, uh, we don't just we have to just stay afloat. Um, but now we're at a good spot where I've kind of been able to divide roles a little bit more, and that's how I can keep on pushing this thing forward.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

And I like what you said earlier about when you stepped into the role of the GM, you were kind of like, I don't really know what to do. And you just kind of had to figure it out. And so it's you know, I would really like to learn more about like what was going through your mind when you you, you know, background kinesiology, you're your rock star, and then like, okay, here are the keys of the ship essentially. You gotta run this fucker.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah, honestly. So honestly, I felt top of the world, and I guess right being super, super naive and probably a little bit arrogant, that like, oh wow, they think that, like, hey, look, I'm equipped for this role. They think they wow, these people think that I'm ready for this. And so automatically I thought I was ready for this. And I've learned very quickly that I was not. So I think it definitely takes this degree of humility in order to be able to succeed at that. And they had patience. Um, we had we kind of had our struggles up and down, but at the end of the day, we've had a team myself between myself and the owners where we've been able to talk and work through things that are hard. So when I first started, um I was trying to come up with a bunch of different programs, trying to come up with okay, how is it that we that we um like really improve the gym and move forward? Um, but the biggest thing for me has always been if we build something slow and we build it with culture first, it's something that's gonna last. So um being able to build, I had to, I felt like I've needed to build a whole new culture because the two people that were running the entire business were stepping out. So now I needed to establish what was this company gonna be. Um, and during my internship program, my my project for the internship, which we have to do for school, and I presented them, was coming up with all the business systems for the organization, starting with the vision and mission statement. So those are our guiding principles moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

And what are they?

Mission Vision And Seminar Details

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So our vision is to be the premier center for fitness and education. Um, it's been in the state, but we have a lot of exciting things coming up that uh we're hoping to build a bit more of a nationwide brand coming soon. Um, and then our mission statement is to do that with a uh standard of high high, highly educated, um, but most importantly, high integrity trainers that are committed to helping this community and pushing them forward um for every person that walks through our doors.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Oh my man, I can't say enough about that. That's like you are literally changing the industry. That's a great model, and and you had to work through it from literally the ground up and not look at you. And so you know we're gonna be out there and at push. And what does push stand for again?

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Pinellas Ultimate Strength House.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

And what is Pinellas?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Uh so Pinellas, it's Pinellas County. Um, we're a little bit closer to the beach, we're west of Tampa. Um, but yeah, we're really looking forward to hosting you guys.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

We'll be out there the 29th and 30th. And uh is it technically Tampa or is it Largo?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It's in Largo, so it's just a small municipality.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Oh, that's awesome. I'm really looking forward to getting out there. I appreciate your time today. Where can people find you on social media?

SPEAKER_01 15:25

So we are at push the house. If you go ahead and look us up at push the house, um, you'll see all of our stuff. We've got a walkthrough gym tour. Uh, so you kind of know what to expect if you're looking to come through for the for the certification.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

That's great, man. I'm super impressed and proud of you. That's you know, I'm I'm almost speechless on your success at such a young age of 26. It's amazing. The sky's a limit for you.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Well, I appreciate that. It's a lot of exciting things, and I it's really made me realize that the whole self-made thing is a farce. Because if I didn't have opportunities and people in my corner and people believing in me, there's there's no way I would be doing what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

That's awesome. I mean, I'm looking forward to meeting you in person, getting a lift on, and then we'll be seeing you soon.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Awesome, Chris. Looking forward to it. And one more thing I if anybody's coming to the cert, we will be opening the doors early so that people can come in and train. We have microwaves, we have fridges if people need to bring it and just plan to hang out all day.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I love it. Looking forward to it, my man. Thank you for your time. Of course. Talk soon.