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Coach Reuben Coached, not programmed

About the coach

The coach behind the cap

I'm Reuben Marsh. I've been coaching strength for eleven years — six of them on a commercial gym floor, the rest online, 1:1, with a roster that stopped growing at 45 because that's the honest limit of watching everyone properly.

Most of my roster is people with real constraints: shift work, old injuries with clearance letters, kids, a back with opinions. If your life is already optimized for training, you don't need me. If it isn't — that's my actual specialty.

Coach Reuben reviewing a client's training video together on a laptop, sitting on a bench in the gym
Check-in review — the unglamorous core of the job

The log so far

How this practice happened

  1. 2009

    The injury that started it

    A torn hip labrum ended my club rugby run at 22. Rehab introduced me to the barbell — and to how badly most training advice fits a body with history.

  2. 2011

    The gym floor

    Kinesiology degree by day, commercial-gym floor by night. Six years and 10,000+ sessions of watching real people move — desk backs, cranky knees, second kids, night shifts.

  3. 2015

    Online, 1:1, on purpose

    I took twelve floor clients online so they could keep training through job moves and life changes. Everyone stayed. That was the whole business plan.

  4. 2019

    The roster cap

    At 60 clients I caught myself skimming a check-in video. I cut the roster to 45 and it has never grown back. Skimming is programming; watching is coaching.

  5. Today

    Still 1:1, still watching

    Every program is written from your assessment. Every check-in gets my eyes, not an assistant's, not an AI summary. That's the trade I make for charging what I charge.

Portrait of Coach Reuben on the gym floor, arms at his sides, looking directly at the camera

Paper & floor hours

Credentials, briefly

Certifications matter — they're the floor, not the ceiling. The 10,000 in-person sessions matter more; that's where a form eye comes from.

CSCS
Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist
BSc Kinesiology
Undergraduate degree in human movement science
L1 Nutrition Coach
Certified nutrition coaching, level 1
Pain-informed training
Continuing-ed focus: training around (not through) old injuries
10,000+ sessions
In-person floor hours before going online — form eye built the slow way

The method

Four rules, one loop

The rules decide what goes in your program. The weekly loop decides how it changes. Neither is secret, neither is patented, and both only work when someone actually watches — which is the part you're paying for.

Assessment before prescription

You don't get a program until I've seen how you move, what you've trained, what's hurt, and what your week actually looks like. Anything else is a guess with your name typed on it.

The minimum effective dose

Three good sessions a week you actually do beats six imaginary ones. I program the least training that moves you forward — because the rest of your life is the point.

The log is the plan

Your training log — sets, loads, RPE, how it felt — decides what happens next week. The plan bends to the data. Programs that ignore your log are just PDFs with dates.

Strength is the anchor

Whatever the goal — first pull-up, return to sport, feeling capable at 50 — getting stronger is the through-line. It's the adaptation that makes every other one easier to keep.

The weekly loop

  1. You train & log

    Your week's sessions live in the app. You log loads, reps, RPE, and film the sets that matter.

  2. I watch everything

    Form videos get frame-by-frame voice notes. Your log gets read line by line — not skimmed.

  3. Sunday check-in

    You answer five questions about sleep, stress, appetite, and honesty-about-adherence. Takes ten minutes.

  4. Next week adjusts

    Monday morning your next block reflects what actually happened — not what was supposed to happen.

The app this loop runs on

Full disclosure

Who I'm not

Coaching sales pages are usually a list of everything the coach claims to be. Here's the opposite list — it does more work.

I'm not a physio

I train people who've been cleared, and I collaborate with the clinicians who cleared them. If you're in pain and undiagnosed, a coach is the wrong first call — even this one.

I'm not a nutrition guru

You'll get evidence-based targets and one habit at a time, and that's it. No meal plans, no banned foods, no supplements funnel. My affiliate income is zero and staying there.

I'm not a content machine

Two journal posts a season, no daily motivational reels. The hours other coaches spend filming themselves, I spend watching your squat. It's a worse marketing strategy and a better coaching one.

I'm not scalable

No assistant coaches, no AI check-in summaries, no 'team of experts'. That means a roster cap and sometimes a waitlist. It also means the person you applied to is the person who answers.

Start here

If that sounded like your kind of coach —

— the assessment is free, takes six minutes, and gets a personal reply within two business days. And if it didn't sound like your kind of coach, genuinely: better to know now.

Start the free assessment See programs & pricing

Roster capped at 45 · currently reviewing applications

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