My story

Honestly: when a friend took me to the gym at 15, I had zero interest. But back then I often felt a sadness and an emptiness I couldn’t explain. And training is where I found my outlet – for joy, anger, emptiness and way too much energy.

I struggled with my mental health from early on. About a year ago I went through a depressive episode that really pulled me down. Therapy and the people around me helped – but sport was what gave me something to hold on to every single day. No matter what.

School teaches you that failing is bad. Training teaches you the opposite. You repeat until nothing’s left – and that’s exactly where you grow. Failure isn’t the end, it’s the way to your goal. That’s how I built my body. And my mind.

I was actually already standing in the gym as a coach at 14: every Wednesday I led two kids’ groups at a sports club – ball games, movement, fun. At school I was also a sports assistant. Teaching others felt right even back then.

Because I trained every day, people kept asking: “How do you train? What do you pay attention to?” So I started training people online. It helped a lot of them – but something was missing for me: being close to people.

Then an old friend asked me at the gym if I could train him. I actually wanted to train alone. I did it anyway – and realised: this is it. So I got my A- and B-license, even though I was still in the middle of my hard time, and built everything up.

I found my training location mid-set, by the way: the screen at McFit said “We’re looking for self-employed personal trainers”. Two days later I had a call, a week later the contract. Shortly after, a football club reached out – since then I also train football teams.

I dropped out of an apprenticeship because my instructors preferred shouting to actually teaching. And I’ve heard from so many people that their trainers worked against them: inflexible, with no understanding when things weren’t going well mentally. I know how that feels.

That’s why my standard is: I want to be the last trainer for every client. I listen, adapt and work with you – not against you. In the end, I want you to be able to say: “Dominik did everything he could.”