About the Episode

Ian Perry is a personal trainer, strength coach and has years of experience working with athletes from a wide range of backgrounds from regular joe and jane to amateur athletes to professional athletes. He is the Director of Performance at Capital Strength Training Systems in Ottawa.

Fitness and strength are two things we all should be mindful of. As we age, having strength training, athletics and sports as part of our lives make it much easier to maintain our muscle mass and bone strength. 

Ian joins us today to talk about physical literacy, the long-term athlete development model, diet, sleep, recovery and more. 

Sports and fitness were embedded into Ian’s life from a very young age and we dive right into how he got started with fitness and strength training. 

While Ian was at Queen’s University, he started a training business in the summers and ran the business for four years on his Summer breaks. He talks about what inspired him to start the business, how it evolved over the years, and lessons learned.  

In his early years, Ian has worked with lots of young athletes. Today, he takes us through some of the strategies for keeping young athletes motivated, adapting training strategies based on the personal traits of the athletes, long-term athlete development, and what parents should consider when guiding their children toward sport specializations. He also shares with us how his career evolved after finishing his university years and an interesting story of going to Taiwan to provide guidance to coaches and trainers of a professional volleyball team there.

Although fitness training is a regular practice in the life of an athlete, it may be a bit harder for the average person to integrate into their busy life. Ian talks in-depth about how to get the most out of the minimum. He provides some simple diet advice, the importance of adequate sleep, how walking is underestimated by the average person and how to be consistent. 

Wrapping up the episode, Ian talks about what 2020 was like for him, some of the strategies he used to keep in touch with his clients remotely and what the future looks like for him and Capital Strength Training Systems.