Coach Damon Interview

In this episode, Coach Damon, Founder and Owner of Train Unique in Lafayette, Louisiana, talks about his quest to start a gym for special needs individuals. Not one to shy away from a challenge, Coach Damon has become a mentor, friend and motivational leader to many of the athletes to he encounters on a daily basis. Listen to his podcast episode to find out more about a "disaster" he created at  the tender age of 18, what he learned from it and most importantly, the life lessons that he has discovered while training the athletes at Train Unique.

Transcript

Mary Baudoin (00:00):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of This Ability podcast. I'm your host, Mary Baudoin, and joining us today is Damon, with Train Unique. Thank you so much for being here, Damon. Really appreciate you. Tell me about your background.

Damon (00:13):

I am from Maurice, Louisiana, so I'm a local. I'm a Cajun. I graduated in '13, and then I went straight to UL from there.

(00:20):

I started coaching general population, athletic population, and kids back at the UFC gym on Ambassador Caffery. Did that all through college. Graduated college in '17, got my certified strength and conditioning specialist cert in 2018, and then I've been coaching ever since then. It's been about 10 years in the game now for me.

Mary Baudoin (00:41):

Tell me how you got involved with Train Unique or how that idea, how that concept, came together for you.

Damon (00:47):

Yeah. Back at the UFC gym on Ambassador, the UFC gym and the Dreams Foundation had somehow got connected and we went do a Camp Unique for them one year. We did martial arts-style stuff. And they asked if we would continue doing that in a weekly boxing session.

Mary Baudoin (01:03):

Can you tell our audience briefly what Camp Unique is?

Damon (01:07):

Oh, yeah. Camp Unique is the best week of the year. Every summer, the Dreams Foundation puts on a camp for special-needs individuals. It is intellectual disabilities, the whole nine yards, kids and adults, two different sessions, one focused on adults, one focused on kids. And we do everything from art to fitness with Train Unique to science to praise and worship, dance, water balloons. It's just-

Mary Baudoin (01:32):

You were telling me that's how you first got involved with the Dreams Foundation.

Damon (01:37):

10 years ago, they asked [inaudible 00:01:38] gym on Ambassador to do a boxing class, and that was me. I was the one who led it.

(01:42):

And frankly, it was a disaster. I was 18 years old and never really worked with [inaudible 00:01:49] too much. Had done some stuff in high school, some mentoring, but a big group of special-needs athletes, trying to teach them to box, it was just not what we were going for.

(01:57):

I was like, "Okay, let's switch this to fitness." So I switched it to fitness. And having wrestling and fitness and martial arts background, I started doing things on the mat with them, like movements. We started with bear crawls and army crawls and those things, very gross motor skill-type stuff. But that also improved coordination, balance, strength, all those things. And we started to figure it out. We started to figure it out.

(02:20):

Well, a couple years later, UFC gym shuts down and I move to Headkicks on Johnston Street. We had one class going. It had got huge. I got it to 20 people.

Mary Baudoin (02:27):

Nice.

Damon (02:27):

We're like, "Okay, let's add a second class." Okay. It grew. We started to call it Unique Fitness. Still associated with Dreams, but its own thing now because I had individuals approach me for personal training now. Scott Burdell, Nick Trawhall, those guys. So, I'm doing personal training for individuals with special needs, I'm doing group classes.

(02:47):

We add a third class, officially called Unique Fitness now. And then eventually, the owner of Headkicks was like, "Damon, I really don't have a whole lot more room for you here. I'm not kicking you out, but..." And so, we got our own spot with Dream Foundation on Verrote School Road. I'm not sure if you remember that facility.

Mary Baudoin (03:03):

Yes.

Damon (03:03):

It was a partnership between Unique Fitness and Dreams, where we did our fitness programming there, they did some programming there, some school and learning-type stuff there.

(03:13):

And then eventually, we grew out of that facility, and then now we're in our current facility, right in the center of town. Big, awesome facility. Actually got a chance to purchase the building, which is really exciting because a lot of times, in the special-needs world you're kind of borrowing spaces from people or doing what people will let you. But it's actually our facility. Nobody can ever kick us out.

Mary Baudoin (03:33):

That's wonderful.

Damon (03:36):

It is Train Unique's and Dreams Foundation uses it for cheerleading, art whenever they want, and it's my place. So we get to do what we want to do-

Mary Baudoin (03:41):

That's great.

Damon (03:42):

... which is really create a home for our athletes.

Mary Baudoin (03:44):

Back when you were in school, in college, did you think that you would be taking this route, personally?

Damon (03:51):

I think that it occurred to me about halfway through college. About halfway through college, I really started to understand the opportunity and the privilege that was in front of me, and so I started to take it a lot more serious. About halfway through college, I was like, "This is what I'm going to do."

(04:09):

From then on, I started actually taking less general pop clients and less athletes and focusing on training individuals with special needs. Actually, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who connected me with somebody, and he told him in the email, he's like, "I remember Damon telling me..." Let's see, I graduated in '17, so that would've been 2016. He's like, "I remember Damon telling me eight years ago that he was going to one day have a program and program offerings for special needs athletes. Here he is now.

(04:36):

And so I think that I've been lucky to find my calling and early in life. There just ain't nothing else I can do now.

Mary Baudoin (04:45):

That is a wonderful story. I love hearing that and how it probably developed you as well. You have probably learned a lot from the people that you work with. These athletes, they need to learn, but you probably have learned a lot yourself, haven't you?

Damon (05:02):

Yeah. Perspective is a wonderful thing. I was actually talking about that with some people. I was in a conference in Chicago last week. Empathy is something that I was blessed with. My mom's a very empathetic person. Something about it, I just can't shake that feeling of just wanting to serve this community.

(05:24):

And I think part of it is because watching these athletes go through life, yes, sometimes they have bad days, we all do, but just continuing to show up every week, every day, day in and day out, is incredible.

Mary Baudoin (05:39):

I love that you were committed to it too, because you said at first you did the boxing with them and it was a catastrophe.

Damon (05:45):

Yes.

Mary Baudoin (05:46):

But that didn't break you down. That didn't stop you. You found a way to be flexible with it. You found a way to work with it and say, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to modify this and I'm going to see how we can mold it into something that they can do." I think that's so admirable, so thank you for doing that.

Damon (06:04):

Yeah, thank you. I think that's probably one of my favorite things about this population. Like you said, how much I've learned, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of how. That's the real question.

(06:15):

Going back to your question before, what have I learned? Probably that. It's not "if" or it's not "when", it's "how." That is the big question. How are we going to do it and why we're going to do it, of course, but you just got to keep on going and finagling things until you find it.

Mary Baudoin (06:28):

I know you have some different fitness programs within Train Unique. One of them very specifically that appeals to me, because I do have a daughter who is in a wheelchair, but you do wheelchair fitness. Talk to me about some of your athletes that you've had in the past and/or now and how that's changed them.

Damon (06:44):

Yeah, where do I start? We have a huge adaptive athlete population at the gym. We have everyone from athletes with cerebral palsy who can get out of their chair and stand, but who use a chair of course because it makes daily life a little bit easier for them. All the way to severe, profound, nonverbal cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, spinal stroke, amputees. Everything that you can think of, our adaptive program covers.

(07:10):

I'm going to give you two athletes off the top of my head. Number one is an athlete that I think of really often and who I look forward to seeing every week. Her name is Katherine Swallow. She has cerebral palsy, uses an electric wheelchair, doesn't have fine motor skills, so we have to find lots of ways to do what we do with her. I'll give you an example.

(07:29):

Monday morning, every Monday at 10:00 AM, we have an adaptive athlete session. Sometimes we call it Hot Wheels. Big wheelchair group session. And in that session, you'll find a range of athletes. Like I said, athletes who can get up out of their chair but maybe use a chair all the way to Katherine.

(07:43):

For example, we're doing chest press, dumbbell chest press. That is the movement. I have some athletes getting out of their chair and getting on the mat to do it, I have some athletes like Katherine leaning her wheelchair back. We have to strap the weights in her hands so that she can hold them and she is squeezing with all her might. And her only goal is to touch those three pound dumbbells together.

(08:03):

On the other side of the gym, I got somebody on the ground doing 40 fifties in each hand and it is just so incredible to watch that. But Katherine has learned to compare herself only to herself.

Mary Baudoin (08:13):

I think that's great that Katherine is able to find what works for her and how she can have goals.

Damon (08:20):

Right. That is the beautiful thing about fitness. I have one more athlete that I want to tell you about before we move on, but that is the beautiful thing about fitness, is it is an individual sport, but it's in a team environment.

(08:30):

In that 10:00 AM group session, the other athlete I want to tell you about is John Deja. She had a spinal cord injury years ago, whenever she was a child. Those acquired injuries to me have always kind of boggled my mind because it's different than being born. She has taken the bull by the horns and she will get out of her wheelchair and get on the mats. This past Friday, she had a 50-pound dumbbell in each hand and she was going all the way from elbows on the floor to weights touching. It is insane, chest pressing off-

Mary Baudoin (08:56):

Look, dude, eight-pound weights kill me right now.

Damon (08:58):

She has learned to compare herself with herself and just fallen in love with, "Okay, this week at the gym, I'm going to get a little bit better. This week at the gym, I'm going to get better." And she's working now, she has a full-time job doing some call center support stuff. She has a worker that gets her to and from the gym. She's living life and it's incredible.

(09:13):

Being able to have those two athletes with such a gap in between them, but there for the same reason, being able to, once again, compete with themselves only, but have each other in the same session to look to for inspiration, we're all here supporting each other. I'm not comparing my weights to her, but we're all here just getting better in a team environment, cheering each other on. Cortland's in that session, Logan's in that session, Katherine, John Deja, Caleb, Mr. Milton. It's incredible to watch.

Mary Baudoin (09:40):

Definitely inspiring. And I know you have a good website and also a Facebook page. If anybody's listening and they want to find more information, where could they go?

Damon (09:50):

On Facebook, we're Train Unique. Post all kinds of awesome videos, pictures of our athletes. Instagram, wetrainunique. Our website is wetrainunique.com, and then we're also on YouTube, which has a lot of cool athletes' spotlight videos, Train Unique as well. And then we're on Google, if you just type in "train unique."

Mary Baudoin (10:06):

I know that there's a physical transformation with the athletes. Tell me about internally. There's got to be some transformation with their confidence. Tell me what you've seen throughout the years.

Damon (10:17):

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm going to talk about some surface, not surface level stuff, but some stuff that the athletes immediately, but then I'm going to talk about the deeper thing that you see from being in it from a long time.

(10:28):

First and foremost, you get in the gym, you start being able to lift heavier weights or you start losing weight or you start transferring in and out of your chair better or you start being able to get off the ground better. Or you notice that whenever you go to a festival or you go on a walk, you can walk further or you start... For a lot of our intellectual athletes, they start noticing some muscles they're having. They're walking around flexing all the time. That's huge for an individual's self-esteem and confidence, their social life, and being able to have the confidence and have the self-esteem to start a conversation with somebody.

(11:00):

So, those things, self-esteem, confidence, social skills, those things are obviously huge. And that happens to 99% of the people that we have in the gym.

(11:09):

But I think even more important than that, and something that you see from athletes who have been in the game for a long time... And I've been blessed to be around probably the widest range of athletes from anybody you've ever met. I've been around world champion UFC fighters, high-level athletes in the NFL. I've been around world-class athletes and I've been around our athletes with special needs at the gym.

(11:30):

I went to that conference this past weekend, and the way that he put it was so eloquent. He was a CrossFit Games world champion. Now he's a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu, he has gyms all over the place, just a very successful guy. And then his daughter got leukemia. And he was like, "Man, of all the things I've done in my life, that was by far the hardest."

(11:45):

He talked about how fitness and training gave him superpowers to overcome that. Because life will come, you will get kicked, it's going to be hard. Stuff's going to get hard always. It's inevitable. And so when that happens, are you prepared for that?

(11:59):

And having, let's say money in the bank, that's great and that helps out. But not everybody has that and it's hard to control that. But one thing that you can control is your mental fortitude and your ability to show up every single day. Control what you can control, control your effort, control the things you eat, control your sleep, control your stress levels, and just know that you can get through something challenging and hard.

(12:23):

And working out two to three, four days per week is one of the fastest way to develop that characteristic. Putting yourself through hard training sessions, getting stronger, being more confident in yourself. Our athletes, they develop that and they become more resilient. They become stronger mentally, become stronger socially, stronger physically. That's my favorite part.

Mary Baudoin (12:44):

I was looking at the website and you explain how there are so many benefits to working out. And it's not just physically. Social awareness, better communication, a quality of life, and you build your strength, but also coordination, which is a big thing in balance too, because balance is a huge thing to consider. How do you work with someone that has some issues with balance?

Damon (13:05):

Yeah, great question. Number one, the first and foremost thing when it comes to balance is actually strength. Having the strength in your muscles that translates into your tendons, ligaments, and your joints. That is really the first component of strength. And then you get into the finer things like proprioception, which is where your body is in space. Small joint stability with your ankles and your knees and whatnot.

(13:28):

First and foremost is strength, and then second is going to be what we call athletic movements. We're going to get strong doing squats, pushups, rows, chest press, et cetera, et cetera. That's number one.

(13:38):

And then we're going to move like an athlete. We're going to move in some different planes of motion. We're going to move laterally, we're going to do some twisting, we're going to do some throwing. When you throw something really hard, you generate all that force and you have to catch yourself. We're going to do some jumping.

(13:51):

Those are the things that develop balance without really having to work. Because obviously, one thing that's important with Train Unique is we got to keep it fun. So if I'm just like, "Hey, we're just going to work on our balance and do all this," physical therapy is great, but if I make it too therapeutic and too slow, I'm going to lose a lot of our athletes' attention.

(14:07):

So we treat them like athletes. We call our athletes athletes.

Mary Baudoin (14:09):

Athletes, right.

Damon (14:10):

That's what we mean.

Mary Baudoin (14:11):

He is correct about that, because I asked him before the show, what do you call your clients or members? He's like, "Athletes." I love that.

Damon (14:21):

Exactly. Yeah. And when you train somebody and treat somebody like an athlete, not only does it translate into those things like balance, coordination, et cetera, et cetera, but people start to think of themselves like athletes and treat themselves like athletes.

(14:32):

They're thinking about what they're eating, they're thinking about their nutrition, they're thinking about their sleep, they're thinking about who they spend time with. And those are all amazing things that we want to strive for.

Mary Baudoin (14:41):

Right. And if you tell me that on a daily basis, or even if I just go to your gym once a week, but you tell me I'm an athlete, I'm going to start believing it.

(14:49):

One of the things you touched on, Damon, was that, I think you said last week, you went to a conference. And I like hearing that because it definitely sounds like you know what you're doing. I know you have a good education on it, but it sounds like you're always developing or attending conferences. Tell me about that. What conferences do you look for and how does that help you?

Damon (15:09):

That's a great question. First off, they are one of my favorite things to do because when you get to be around like-minded individuals and being around people who are going through the same things you are, it's really special.

(15:29):

But what's really cool about Train Unique and why it's my dream job is because it brings together two worlds. It brings together the special-needs world, which is what I feel like God has called me to do. And it brings together my passion, which is health and fitness, and it marries them together.

(15:47):

This past weekend, I was at the Two Brain Summit in Chicago. Two Brain is a group of a thousand of the world's best gym owners. So we had people from Europe, people from Australia, people from the US, Canada, I mean everywhere. And it was three days of meeting there, talking about being better gym owners, coaches, managers in our community, the whole nine yards.

(16:11):

And then of course, special needs-focused or adaptive-focused events as well. I just know that our special needs world is so vast and there's really so much to learn. And my background, most of my education is in fitness and I realize that. I'm always looking for ways to improve, of course on the fitness side, but especially in the special needs side because that is what we're trying to marry.

Mary Baudoin (16:42):

Right. And you've probably learned about diseases or conditions that you didn't know existed before.

Damon (16:47):

Still hearing stuff. Actually, I believe whenever you told me about your daughter, I was like, "Okay, there's another one."

Mary Baudoin (16:52):

Right. Yeah, lissencephaly, which not many people know. It is rare. It is one of those rare neurological conditions that happens, but it means smooth brain.

(17:02):

And in conjunction with that, she has microcephaly. So "cephaly" is brain, "micro" is small, and some people that have developmental disabilities do have microcephaly. And of course, probably people have heard of hydrocephaly too. That's water in the brain. So "cephaly," anytime you hear that, of course, means there is something in the brain going on. But lissen is not that typical of a condition.

Damon (17:32):

It's really fun on our side because honestly, the specific condition on the health... As far as keeping it safe, I have an athlete with a shunt, for example. I have to make sure that I don't do things that mess with that.

Mary Baudoin (17:45):

That's a great point. I didn't even think about that.

Damon (17:49):

Yeah, we've got tons of little things like we have athletes with pumps, we have athletes with shunts, we have athletes with all these things. And so, of course that stuff is really important. But the overall aspect of health and fitness applies to just about everyone.

Mary Baudoin (18:05):

It could. Yeah. My daughter had scoliosis and she has rods in her back. From the tip of her neck, the base of her neck and the back to all the way to her cute little butt, she has a scar all the way down and there's plastic parts all in there.

Damon (18:22):

We've got multiple athletes, multiple athletes with rods in their back. So of course I need to know that, and all of our trainers know how to work around that and adapt that. But the pillars that we have, fitness, nutrition, and stress management, they apply to everybody.

Mary Baudoin (18:40):

Yes.

Damon (18:40):

We want everybody to get stronger. We want everybody to get cardiovascularly more fit. We want everybody to eat more protein. We want everybody to eat more vegetables. We want everybody to take sugar out. We want everybody to drink more water. We want everybody to sleep better, everybody to spend time with their friends more. The little specific diagnoses and all the little things, that's fascinating to me and part of what makes our job fun, but at the same time doesn't change the basics.

Mary Baudoin (19:06):

Yeah, I love that. Especially the stress management, Damon, that's huge, especially for us here in South Louisiana. We love to eat and we love things that taste really, really good. So, sometimes our diet is not necessarily the best, and cardiovascular surgeons, doctors will tell us to not just look at diet but also to reduce stress.

(19:31):

And it's like, "Well, how do you do that in this day and age?" But I know that there's got to be some techniques to do that. I think working out probably is a stress reliever. You can decompress when you work out.

Damon (19:44):

Yeah, that's actually one of my favorite topics. I actually myself have a condition called CAH, which stands for congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Another weird little thing of how I got into this, maybe just God kind of having a certain plan for me, but my adrenal glands have never functioned before. I've been on experimental medication, experimental steroids.

Mary Baudoin (20:06):

All right. Now, tell me what adrenal glands... What exactly do they do? I mean I should know this, but I don't.

Damon (20:11):

They are your stress hormone creators. So anytime your body gets stressed, your body produces more cortisol. You've probably heard of cortisol and when people take cortisone or hydrocortisone.

(20:23):

So my body does not react to any of that, which at first glance, you would think that'd be a good thing. However, if I get in an accident or I get sick, if I don't get that emergency medication quickly, I go into adrenal crisis and I could die.

Mary Baudoin (20:39):

Oh, wow.

Damon (20:39):

Which is why I have this cool medic alert tattoo right here. I've been in athletics my whole life and I've gone through about 50-

Mary Baudoin (20:45):

I'm going to take a picture of that.

Damon (20:47):

I've gone through about 50 medic alerts in my life, maybe more. And so finally, one day, I was like, "You know what? I'm a grown man now. I'm just going to get this thing tattooed on me and nobody's going to miss it."

Mary Baudoin (20:58):

I love that.

Damon (20:59):

Thank you.

Mary Baudoin (20:59):

That's awesome.

Damon (21:01):

People ask me about it, it's like, "Yeah, it kind of is what it is." But where was I going with that? Yeah. Because your stress hormones, right? I've been taking steroids my whole life because of it, so I have a really unique insight and a lot of knowledge on stress.

(21:17):

What's funny is working out actually produces stress hormones in the body. At first, working out is a stress. There's such thing as working out too much. When you work out too much, your body's constantly having to produce cortisol to keep up with the muscle damage, etc. It can be a bad thing.

(21:33):

But what it also does is it raises your tolerance to stress. The acute response is more cortisol. Although you burn cortisol whenever you work out. So you have somebody who's really, really stressed, they are burning that cortisol whenever they train.

Mary Baudoin (21:53):

I've heard of people that can be addicted to working out too.

Damon (21:56):

That's part of it. That's more of the endorphin side, which I'm going to get to a little bit.

(22:00):

So your body's burning cortisol and producing cortisol whenever you work out. What happens after? The physiological responses, when you strengthen your heart, your heart gets so strong and it gets more efficient that it beats at a lower rate. Your resting heart rate lowers because your heart is stronger, so it's having to do less work, which means you can be more relaxed throughout the day. You can breathe deeper throughout the day, which lowers stress levels.

(22:28):

The mental aspect, the endorphins release after you complete hard workout and your body telling you, "You made it through that! Good job!" That is how people get addicted to working out. And so that's more of an emotional aspect of it.

(22:41):

But yes, the burning the cortisol off, the building muscle, which produces anabolic hormones like testosterone in the body, which are related to lower stress levels, the lower resting heart rate, lower blood pressure, all of those things are physiological responses to working out and training that help you to be less stressful.

(23:02):

But also, like we were going back to, that mental aspect of, "I work out hard. Whenever something pops up, I don't have to immediately freak out about it. I'm going to get through it. I already know I'm going to get through it." But there are some other things that we can do just to lower stress. And my favorite one, and one that we preach to all of our athletes, is getting outside and going for either a walk or a roll. Outside. No phone, no music, no nothing like that.

Mary Baudoin (23:35):

No technology.

Damon (23:36):

Doing what you just did. Taking deep breaths, just going outside.

Mary Baudoin (23:40):

Just the idea of it made me breathe and relax better.

Damon (23:44):

Exactly. So put your shoulders down, put your shoulders back, pick your chin up, take some deep breaths through the nose. Exactly. The nose is associated with that sympathetic nervous and relax. Taking some deep breaths, soaking in the sunshine, which also leads to lower stress. The vitamin D production. That is my favorite thing to do.

(24:02):

We have athletes going outside and walking. We have athletes going outside wheeling in their wheelchair, athletes riding their bike, whatever it is, about 10 to 15 minutes, a couple times a day. Particularly as the sun is going down, man, that can change your life.

Mary Baudoin (24:17):

Oh, yeah. Damon, I think I could sit here and talk to you all day, but unfortunately, we don't have enough time to do that. But I did want to ask you, is there anything that we did not get to talk about that you would like to touch on or have any final thoughts that you'd like to say?

Damon (24:32):

That's a great question. I don't have anything particular, besides the fact that a lot of people think from the out, they'll look at Train Unique, we have to do a better job of posting all of our athletes. But sometimes it's fun to post people doing cool stuff.

(24:50):

But we like to say that effort is the universal language. I have tons of athletes in our gym who are nonverbal. I have tons of athletes at our gym that would be considered severe, profound. And if we can get an athlete moving, we can get them to use any part of their body, we can work with them.

(25:13):

And we can add to their life, whether that's physical, whether that's something that they just look forward to, whether that's socially, whatever it is. Everybody is welcome at our gym as long as they're willing to try. If they're willing to try and put forth effort, we love to have them.

Mary Baudoin (25:31):

I love that. I want to thank you and, again, tell you how much what you're doing is changing the community for the better. Saying thank you just really isn't enough to say wonderful job, great job because you make a great impact on people's lives and you're changing them for the better.

(25:54):

I want to also give a shout-out to your staff because I've spoken with them on the phone a few times and they are so polite, so wonderful. It's nice to have that welcoming feeling, especially when you go to a gym. Look, people can be intimidated to go to any gym. But Train Unique, you guys are different. It's nice.

Damon (26:13):

Thank you for that. That means a lot. Yeah. I got to give a shout-out to one thing that I learned. When we first opened our gym back with Dreams, it was just Unique Fitness and Dreams. And the cool part about that was that it did give our athletes a home to call their own, but it also wasn't truly inclusive. And I learned that some people really valued that.

(26:37):

And so, what we did when we got this new facility was I brought in a general pop and athletic pop program as well. The owner of that program is called Claire Savage. Her name is Claire Savage. She is one-of-a-kind, incredible individual. She's a little crazy.

Mary Baudoin (26:55):

Well, if your last name is Savage, I think that would come with the territory.

Damon (27:02):

Right? Exactly. But she jumped in with us and we coexist in the space. She doesn't have the same background, many years of experience with these athletes that I do, but she has that same attitude of as long as you're willing to come in here and get better, everyone is welcome.

(27:18):

And so our gym, between the professional fighters that she trains and the older individuals that she trains and the kids that she trains, and especially these athletes that we train, it is incredible. It is just so cool to see a truly inclusive environment in it.

(27:37):

I got to tell Claire thank you for jumping into a world that she really may not have been ready for or had experience in and just loving and accepting everybody with her whole heart. But also, she pushes people.

Mary Baudoin (27:50):

That's great.

Damon (27:50):

She will call you out. If she sees you with a soda that she knows you know you're not supposed to be having, she's going to say something about it. Oh, yeah. Even the parents. The parents would be sitting in the lobby just trying to... And she's like, "Why are you not working out?"

Mary Baudoin (28:02):

Right.

Damon (28:03):

Yeah. Because all of our athletes, when you're an athlete a Train Unique, your plus one also gets a membership.

Mary Baudoin (28:09):

Oh, nice.

Damon (28:09):

So any parents or caretakers that bring their athletes, we realize they took their time and gas to bring them, you can go work out too. Let's get fit as a family. And she'll go in the lobby and she'll be like, "Why are you sitting? What you doing?"

Mary Baudoin (28:20):

Oh, yeah. She'd be fussing at me a lot.

Damon (28:22):

She's hilarious. She's incredible. But yeah, I just had to give her a shout-out.

Mary Baudoin (28:25):

Ah, that's awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for being here today, Damon. And we'll definitely refer people to visit the website and check out the YouTube videos as well as on Facebook. Thank you for what you're doing and keep up the great work.

Damon (28:41):

Thank you for being here.

Mary Baudoin (28:42):

Yes. So, everybody, thank you for listening to this episode of This Ability podcast.

(28:48):

If you enjoy listening to our show, be sure to like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.

(29:00):

Great job, Damon.

Damon (29:01):

Man!

Mary Baudoin (29:02):

Yeah.