Lee Sommers on Strength Building

Lee Sommers joins us on this week’s episode of the podcast. Lee is a strength and conditioning coach that does amazing work and truly cares about his clients. He is somebody who is a servant leader, somebody who wants to make his athletes and clients as strong as they possibly can be, and he has worked with the tip of the arrow athletes, most notably Katie Ledecky. Lee started working with Katie when she was 15 years old. Lee has carved out a niche for himself in the Washington, DC area working with elite swimmers. He will share his journey and how he became a strength coach at a really young age and helped build Sport and Health’s Sport and Performance Program that works with elite athletes. In this episode, they discuss what life was like as a kid (4:20), the values his parents passed down to him (6:50), his transition from New York City to Maryland (11:20), his relationship with his Dad (14:05), his experience trying to play college basketball (17:30), what it was like leaving Temple to go to Towson (19:20), how he got into personal training (21:00), how he thinks about his relationship with money (23:30), his first job out of college and experience managing people (31:00), what he did to try to help his employees sell themselves (38:20), how much of his work is modeling vs. explaining how something should be done (39:50), what he does to make sure he’s a conscience coach (41:05), the habits he does to make sure he’s mentally at his best (42:05), his nutrition and strength and conditioning habits (44:50), his thoughts on grit and grind (50:00), his experience working with Katie Ledecky (52:05), where Katie Ledecky’s confidence comes from (56:50), why he believes Katie hasn’t experienced burnout (1:00:30), and his business now (1:01:10) Thank you to Lee for coming on the podcast. He has started his own business called Purpose Personal Fitness https://ppf-fitness.com/ and he is also a part of Healthy Baller https://www.healthyballer.com/aboutus. He works with all types of athletes and all types of cliental. He is also currently working with swimming teams including both nation capital swim clubs out of Georgetown Prep and RMSC swim club out of the Rockville area. You can find him on social media at @leesommerspt on Instagram, and you can find him on Facebook at Lee Sommers. Lastly, if you liked this episode and/or any others, please support us at Patreon or follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening. -Brian