Engagement Insider
NEW YORK, NY September 30, 2013 – Adam Terry’s body betrayed him by the end of his NFL career, but his mind more than made up for it by turning all those training days into his next career.
In fact, the former Baltimore Raven is off to such a fast start running his first Power Train Sports Institute (www.powertrainsports.com) location in Rochester, NY, that he is about to open his second a mere 18 months later.
“I am thrilled to be opening a second facility, since it seemed like everybody was asking me when I was going to open one on the other side of town,” said the upstate New York native. “And the funny thing was, it’s only 20 minutes from the west side to the east side, so I knew the market was there, plus it’s great to give back to the community.”
So how did the former offensive lineman from Syracuse grad end up with this west side-east side story?
“I worked with Power Train founder Steve Saunders and liked his program, and thought about it as a future career when I was playing,” he recalled. “Fortunately, I had taken the Player Engagement program at HarvardBusinessSchool, where I asked the professors what they thought of the model, and I received positive feedback.”
That learning experience led Terry to training “when my body was not forgiving me for playing and I had microfracture surgery, and then my wife said simply, ‘Time to get off the sofa.”
That’s all the 6’8”, 335 pound Terry needed to hear.
“I trusted Steve after training with him as a player, and he instilled confidence with his program,” stated Terry. “So I decided to take his model and run with it, and with the numbers looking right in the first location, I am taking the plunge with the second.”
Saunders’ working model is a high-energy environment with athletes training athletes in sports far beyond football, from baseball and hockey to soccer and lacrosse, which appeals to Terry.
“Given my experience of having three surgeries in one year, I can feel when a kid might come in after having a bad day, and I can put myself in their head and hopefully help,” Terry said.
But it’s not only kids coming to Terry’s Power Train locations, since the ages of clients range from 11 to 62 and is comprised of current and former athletes.
Terry’s success is no surprise to Saunders.
“Adam is a deep thinker who understood our approach,” said the Pennsylvania-based founder and former athlete himself. “When I worked with him as a player, he was already thinking about his life after football, and asked a lot of questions, always adding “tell me more.’”
That foresight is proving to be a perfect partnership between Terry and Saunders, with the owner of nearly a dozen other Power Train locations in the northeast adding, “Adam is a sharp guy and hard worker who is ahead of the game given his passion for training and how he follows our model.”
A model that is quickly paying off for both men.
“When the first one took off in Rochester and we were doing such a great business, we knew it was the right time to open a second since Adam simply gets it,” exclaimed Saunders.
And as the father of five, growth is something Saunders understands.
“We are going national and hope to get to 300 locations across America,” said the former Central Pennsylvania Piranha, a legendary minor league football franchise where Saunders starred.
By that time, Saunders had already graduated from the gridiron at Millersville (PA) University, and had even opened his first health club.
It wasn’t his last, leading to him starting Power Train in 2001, where he has now worked with hundreds of former NFL players and other athletes, including the likes of James Harrison in football and Jimmy Rollins in baseball.
“Once I started, the word of mouth really spread and I was able to establish a circle of trust,” stated Saunders. “From there it took off into other sports and now even includes Hollywood celebrities.”
But for now, Saunders is in a New York state of mind as he and Terry take the plunge of opening a second location in the same city.
But they may not be done there, since Terry sounded like Saunders as he closed by saying, “We would like to keep expanding throughout the state of New York, from Buffalo to Albany.”