Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Stein.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Daniel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Since the age of four, I was diagnosed with ADHD. My parents enrolled me in sports as a child, and I quickly learned that physical activity helped me gain a sense of confidence and self-control over my challenges with ADHD. I ended up falling in love with fitness and pursuing it has a hobby. After high school, a mentor of mine suggested that I should become a personal trainer and consider working with people that had disabilities. I ended up getting certified through NFPT and started working part-time at a local gym to pursue this idea. Eventually, I had an opportunity to work with Dakota, my first special needs client.
I fell in love working with Dakota, and I knew that I had to train the special needs population full-time. I started working on a business plan and eventually launched Special Strong in 2016. We started with one client who drove over an hour to see us and eventually grew to serve the North Texas area. When we started to get more recognition, people started finding us in other states that we were unable to help. In 2019, we started Strong Education, our nationally accredited certification program with the hope to help more people across the globe. Within only a few short months, we have been able to certify over 70 parents and professionals all over America and equip them to implement adapted fitness into their profession.
Has it been a smooth road?
“The greatest challenges bring the greatest rewards.” I often like to quote that, because I’ve experienced it. Starting Special Strong and Strong Education has not been a smooth road. When I quit my full-time job to start Special Strong, we had almost no money. Not knowing any better about finances, we maxed out credit cards to live and fund the business which caused a lot of problems for us. Additionally, some of the contractors to help us grow our business ended up costing us tens of thousands of dollars from bad service and no return on investment.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Strong Education story. Tell us more about your work.
Special Strong provides adapted fitness personal training for special needs with autism and other disabilities.
Strong Education teaches trainers, parents, and professionals to adapt fitness for autism and other disabilities with our online special needs certification. We are known for the company that specializes in fitness for special needs.
We are the only special needs certification in the world that teaches people how to work with any condition.
As a company, we are most proud of how our faith plays such a role in the way we treat our team and our clients.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Since fitness for special needs is a new concept, I’ve really seen the industry embrace it. In August of 2019, we had a video go viral of a young man walking for the first time in eight years. It had over 150 million views, and people all over the world learned about what we do. We had thousands of emails and messages, all of which said: “we need you where we are!” For that reason, we plan on franchising in 2020 and expanding all over the world. As we have started to certify trainers, we have seen other trainers buy into this idea of fitness with special needs and take ownership of it with their own clients.
In general, the disability rate is growing rapidly. The need for these types of services will only grow. According to https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html, autism was one in 150 in 2000. As of 2014, autism is now one in 59.
Pricing:
- Special Strong Certification Private Fitness – Level 1 – $449
- Special Strong Certification Private Fitness – Level 2 – $449
- Special Strong Certification Group Fitness – $449
- Special Strong Adapted Video Library – $449
Contact Info:
- Website: www.certifystrong.com
- Phone: 707-927-1466 (Call/Text)
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/specialstrong
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/specialstrong
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