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Thread: A Starting Strength Gym in France?

  1. #1
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    Default A Starting Strength Gym in France?

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    Dear Rip,

    According to startingstrengthgyms.com, no Starting Strength Gyms are to be opened outside of the US.
    Yet, do you see demand coming from countries outside the US? Specifically in France?
    In particular, do people ask to be coached through the coaching.startingstrength.com website in French?

    Thank you,
    PHF

  2. #2
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    I have seen no request for coaching in the French language. But that would constitute demand for a book, not a gym.

  3. #3
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    I took a look at:

    At first sight, prices related to SS services (coaching and gyms) are 2x to 5x the prices of relatively high-end gyms or services in France.
    By « high-end » I mean spacious, clean, well equipped (Eleiko bars and weights) with relatively well-trained coaches (with some form of sports achievements).
    These gyms are available in France starting at 75 USD/month and personalized coaching starting at 45 USD/month ;
    this tells me that convincing a French to do online coaching for 150 USD/month with an SSC certification would require an immense effort.
    This effort must include a blue book translated into French and a massive amount of marketing (YouTube channel, articles, interviews, etc).
    Also, health seems not to be as big an issue as it is in the U.S.: healthcare in France is perceived essentially as free ;
    so the argument « Starting Strength means strong, strong means healthy, and health is money in the bank » won't work.
    Well, I may be jumping to conclusions here but after these 20min thinking about it, I must conclude that we will not see SS gyms popping up left and right in France as did McDonald's anytime soon.
    Getting an SSC certification to do online coaching 4H/week is probably not worth it.
    So, I will just do the program.

    Thank you for your answer.
    PHF

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre-Henry F. View Post
    I took a look at:

    At first sight, prices related to SS services (coaching and gyms) are 2x to 5x the prices of relatively high-end gyms or services in France.
    By « high-end » I mean spacious, clean, well equipped (Eleiko bars and weights) with relatively well-trained coaches (with some form of sports achievements).
    These gyms are available in France starting at 75 USD/month and personalized coaching starting at 45 USD/month ;
    this tells me that convincing a French to do online coaching for 150 USD/month with an SSC certification would require an immense effort.
    This effort must include a blue book translated into French and a massive amount of marketing (YouTube channel, articles, interviews, etc).
    Also, health seems not to be as big an issue as it is in the U.S.: healthcare in France is perceived essentially as free ;
    so the argument « Starting Strength means strong, strong means healthy, and health is money in the bank » won't work.
    Well, I may be jumping to conclusions here but after these 20min thinking about it, I must conclude that we will not see SS gyms popping up left and right in France as did McDonald's anytime soon.
    Getting an SSC certification to do online coaching 4H/week is probably not worth it.
    So, I will just do the program.

    Thank you for your answer.
    PHF
    If your goal is online coaching the whole thread loses its meaning. If it's online you can coach anyone in the world.

    As far as health, I believe that all the issues that being stronger fixes or slows down are the same anywhere in earth. Regardless of what people perceive. There are old fragile people in the US as well as in France. As well as people wasting their time with useless exercise programs and so on.

    Also if a 20 minute thinking session is enough for you to not pursue an SSC certification, you probably weren't gonna get it anyway

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    If your goal is online coaching the whole thread loses its meaning. If it's online you can coach anyone in the world.

    As far as health, I believe that all the issues that being stronger fixes or slows down are the same anywhere in earth. Regardless of what people perceive. There are old fragile people in the US as well as in France. As well as people wasting their time with useless exercise programs and so on.

    Also if a 20 minute thinking session is enough for you to not pursue an SSC certification, you probably weren't gonna get it anyway
    Please, let me clarify my position and correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

    Alive and healthy is the goal.
    It turns out that if one is strong then he is most likely healthy.
    To my knowledge, the Starting Strength Method is the most efficient way to get strong.
    To do The Program®, people need at least: books, gyms, and coaches.
    So, I find it desirable to count as many SS gyms, books, and coaches as possible.

    Now what?
    I cannot open a SS gym.
    I cannot translate SS books (or very slowly).
    I may be able to coach a few people in my spare time.

    If I coach people in France, in French, and in my spare time for money then I end up with the few lines above.
    I would like Rip to tell me: « Listen, that's all BS, it's possible to coach people online in France, in French, online or otherwise, just do this and that and you're good to go. Stop whining. »
    The only remaining option is to « coach » (i.e. w/o proper SSC certification) people randomly, for free, pointing them to Starting Strength, and it's fine by me.

    Please, let me know if I missed something.

    Now, for Starting Strength to replicate what they are brilliantly doing in the US but outside of the US will, obviously, require a massive amount of work.
    As far as I can tell, they are not there yet.
    So, let's do the program and give a helpful hand whenever needed.

    PHF

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre-Henry F. View Post
    Please, let me clarify my position and correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.

    Alive and healthy is the goal.
    It turns out that if one is strong then he is most likely healthy.
    To my knowledge, the Starting Strength Method is the most efficient way to get strong.
    To do The Program®, people need at least: books, gyms, and coaches.
    So, I find it desirable to count as many SS gyms, books, and coaches as possible.

    Now what?
    I cannot open a SS gym.
    I cannot translate SS books (or very slowly).
    I may be able to coach a few people in my spare time.

    If I coach people in France, in French, and in my spare time for money then I end up with the few lines above.
    I would like Rip to tell me: « Listen, that's all BS, it's possible to coach people online in France, in French, online or otherwise, just do this and that and you're good to go. Stop whining. »
    The only remaining option is to « coach » (i.e. w/o proper SSC certification) people randomly, for free, pointing them to Starting Strength, and it's fine by me.

    Please, let me know if I missed something.

    Now, for Starting Strength to replicate what they are brilliantly doing in the US but outside of the US will, obviously, require a massive amount of work.
    As far as I can tell, they are not there yet.
    So, let's do the program and give a helpful hand whenever needed.

    PHF
    Rip already told you in one of the latest podcasts, and I quote "Don't think that you can't coach the program without having the certification, because that is not true"
    And he, and nick, as well as other coaches, talked many times about how to go about becoming an SSC, regardless of location.

    You wanna wait and hope that the franchise gets so big that they're gonna start opening gyms next to your door so that you can conveniently do an apprenticeship and get certified? You want everyone else to put in the effort so you don't have to? I think this is the wrong certification to go after, then. There are already SSCs outside the US who run their own gyms and they will happily tell you they're doing just fine.

    Rip also said in the same podcast that people fron Sweden came to the US just to get an in-person coaching session from an SSC.
    Of course this isn't something that everybody can afford, but there is a reason for it, and there is a market for it.
    Why don't you start by actually coaching people professionally and getting the certification, which is already a pretty long and hard process, and then try to coach people in Europe (because you will be contacted from all around Europe, not just France), and tell us if it's worth it or not.
    Based on the data we have, your hypothesis is illogical.

    You can open a gym and coach SS, even without the certification at first (you just can't associate with the brand from what I understand)
    The translation can be done if there is a request, like for the spanish version.
    If you wanna be a coach, it is not something that you "may do in your spare time", especially not for free.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    Rip already told you in one of the latest podcasts, and I quote "Don't think that you can't coach the program without having the certification, because that is not true"
    Well, if I added quotes around the word coach, it is for a reason : it is because w/o SSC certification it cannot be considered proper coaching for obvious reasons. Please, read carefully before commenting.

    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    You want everyone else to put in the effort so you don't have to?
    Ho God...

    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    I think this is the wrong certification to go after, then
    In my case, yes, it's the wrong move.
    I'll just redirect people to SS whenever appropriate and get stronger, being a happy client of the great product SS offers.
    I do believe that SS is more than just a product, it should more be considered as some sort of preventive medicine probably, but it's not the place to discuss this.

    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    Based on the data we have, your hypothesis is illogical.
    Sight...

    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    You can open a gym and coach SS, even without the certification at first
    Yes. I actually already tried this and some messages have been exchanged between the very nice head coach at my gym and a few people at SS.
    My gym did a few Instagram posts advertising that someone was doing SS programming there.
    As a result, I had a few people coming my way, interested by the performance at first, but for a few reasons, it did not go very far.
    That's life.
    Whenever appropriate, I will still try to bring people to SS anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by francesco.decaro View Post
    If you wanna be a coach, it is not something that you "may do in your spare time", especially not for free.
    Well, in my case, I see the SSC certification as one can consider an amateur pilote licence.
    You do it because you love the thing, and you fly in the weekends.
    I just enjoy training and I like to see others getting stronger at the gym.
    By the way, the videos of your squats are very helpful, thank you for posting them.

    PHF

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pierre-Henry F. View Post
    Well, if I added quotes around the word coach, it is for a reason : it is because w/o SSC certification it cannot be considered proper coaching for obvious reasons. Please, read carefully before commenting.
    This is a rather simplistic view of the situation. There are competent coaches of this method who are not certified, several of whom post on this forum. Likewise, over the years several incompetent people have managed to wiggle their way through the certification process, and we cull them when possible (usually they cull themselves). All professions are plagued with incompetence that the credentialing process failed to catch. Stop thinking of "credentials" as the same thing as competence, and you should have learned that over the past 2 years from Your Doctors -- who, after all, are Doctors.

  9. #9
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    Well, it is simplistic because it's that simple, at least in France.
    We, French, subjects of the the french Government, do not get to define what « coaching » means.
    Thankfully, the Government tells us what that means in the article L212-1.
    Essentially, it means taking care of the physical activity of someone else in exchange for payment.
    And yes, you guessed it, you cannot do that unless you have official credentials.
    To the French Government, you can coach someone to « squat » 10 inches above parallel, that's fine.
    So, you cannot be considered a coach of any method, SS or otherwise, unless you have official credentials.
    I understand that it might no be the case in the US, or else I really do not see you come to the conclusion that I think « credentials = competence ».
    If did think that « credentials = competence » then I would trust anyone with a Bachelor of Science in petroleum geology from Midwestern State University for learning me how to get strong.
    I do not wish to say anything about the last two years, your thread COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events is pretty thorough about it, I have nothing to add.

  10. #10
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    starting strength coach development program
    As is said all over Europe, "It is good to hate The French."

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