Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Moreira.
Michael, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Brazil, where sports are life. When I was a kid, I always saw my father being active, staying fit and leading a healthy lifestyle. He played soccer, went mountain biking, and practiced martial arts. Naturally, I followed in his footsteps. I decided I wanted to make my life’s work about helping people maintain a healthy lifestyle in hopes of living as long as possible for the ones they love! I began working as a personal trainer at the age of 17 while I pursued an education in Personal Training, Physical Education, and Kinesiology.
After my postgraduate school, I was invited to move to Portugal to work as a personal trainer for the largest premium health club in Europe, Holmes Place. Alongside of my best friend and classmate, Fernando Lopes, we picked up from Brazil and moved to Lisbon to continue our careers and eventually develop what has become an international speaking, training, and internship program. Throughout my time in Brazil and Portugal I have completed over 40 certification and classes in specialized programs to assist clients in very laser focused area of fitness. This gives me the ability to work with anyone at any age, no matter what level of fitness they are currently at.
Throughout my life I have participated in and coached a wide variety of sports. I have notable awards in Football, Volleyball, Soccer, Kayak Polo, Badminton, Padel Tennis (a sport well known in Europe), and Martial Arts. I have also coached athletes in Basketball and Power Lifting.
While leading a blossoming career in Lisbon, I met a wonderful woman who is a San Diego native and resided in Coronado. We fell in love and decided to be married. I also fell in love with Coronado and made it my new home, and incorporated that into my love of fitness: The Coronado Trainer was born!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
To pay my way through 5.5 years of college, I had to work 7 jobs. I came from a humble background and wasn’t able to have financial help from my family. I slept an average of 3-4 hours per night, working my way from job to class to job to home each day. I thought I would never make it out alive. But all the hard work paid off as I was able to graduate without debt.
Personal training is something that will always be in demand, but you have to develop your own clientele. When you move to a new area, and country in my case twice, you start at zero. You have to go out and find clients in the new area you’ve just decided to make home. In the cases when you work at a well-known gym, they do feed you clients to begin with. But being out on your own as your own business, you must learn to market yourself to your future clients. Sometimes that can be challenging, especially when you’ve moved between cultures.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with The Coronado Trainer – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
The Coronado Trainer is an all-encompassing personal trainer who specializes in custom tailoring to the needs of each individual client. Whether in a gym, a park, the beach, or their homes, I work with all people, of all ages, from all walks of life. While offering a supportive training technique, I am also certified in a wide variety of specific areas such as one-on-one sports coaching, body building, weight loss, injury rehabilitation, pregnancy/postpartum exercise, high level athleticism, and geriatric strength training and fitness. I also have a background in MMA/self defense training.
I have worked as a personal coach in several sports. I help young ones who strive for excellence in a particular sport to fine tune their skills and enhance their weaknesses into all around great athletes.
I have an extensive background in injury rehabilitation, and work hard to make sure my client doesn’t overdo it and re-injure themselves. We work hard to meet their goals and at a pace that is comfortable for them and in tune with their doctor’s recommendations.
Along with personal training, I have also been a health and wellness speaker for private companies and large conferences. I enjoy sharing my knowledge with others in hopes of inspiring others to lead a healthy lifestyle.
I am most proud of a very special client turned friend, Ana. She is a mother of 5 children, and used to think she could never have the body she had always dreamt of. She discovered she could. She is a shining example of health and fitness to her 5 children. Ana has more energy than most 20-somethings we know. She can keep up with and outrun most of her own kids. And her six-pack stops traffic!
What sets me apart from other trainers is my background and education. While it is an admirable desire to become a personal trainer, it should require more in-depth training than what is covered in a basic weekend certification course. It’s so easy to injure a client if you only have a limited knowledge of how the body works. I have 22 years of active experience. It is my passion, my purpose. I want to share that with others. My motto is “your health is your wealth”, and while not everyone needs to train to be an athlete, it’s amazing you can be an active participant in trying to live longer to be with the ones you love.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
As I mentioned earlier, my best friend from college in Brazil, Fernando Lopes, and our good friend and associate from Portugal, Eduardo Assunção, and I are currently developing workshops and exchange/internship opportunities to aid in the development of training and international skills between Brazil, Portugal and USA for those in the same educational programs we attended. We have already completed conferences in Brazil and Portugal, and are currently searching for the right partnerships in San Diego to host the next BESST International Fitness conference locally.
The goal of this exciting project is to exchange knowledge between three different cultures, and prepare personal trainers for real life experience. Covering subjects that are useful such as extreme professionalism, sales, health evaluations, training programs, exercise techniques, the use of neurolinguistics programming, and several other topics. By creating internships and exchange programs for the participants we can give them first-hand knowledge and experience in each difference culture. We hope to aid them the possibility of attending a class or school in a different country to further their careers.
In 2018 we plan to bring a group of Brazilian exchange professionals’ to the USA to see the best programs and personal training conditions in America.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thecoronadotrainer.com
- Phone: 619-961-0627
- Email: thecoronadotrainer@gmail.com
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-coronado-trainer-coronado-2
Image Credit:
Photos by Holidais Moreira
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
