In our last EliteFTS Road Trip as interns, we headed to The Spot Athletics. The Spot Athletics is an 8,000 sq.ft. training facility located minutes away from The Ohio State University, owned and operated by EliteFTS Coach J.L. Holdsworth. The Spot Athletics is an incredibly equipped facility, suited to train any athlete at any level of competition. Sporting an extremely organized layout, clean environment, and motivating atmosphere, The Spot Athletics was built for optimal human performance.

We sat down with Head Strength Coach J.L. Holdsworth to get the inside scoop on The Spot Athletics’ success:

Andrew Triana: How has your professional career affected the success of your clients?

J.L. Holdsworth: "My professional career has been very effective in motivating clients. All of our staff are required to compete in something and clients enjoy seeing our employees competing and training for higher goals."

Andrew Triana: What would you say is the biggest limiting factor in programming?

J.L. Holdsworth: "Recovery with proper nutrition, so that our clients are getting stronger. It’s a smaller facility, so it’s tough to program sometimes. There are a lot of modifications in programming for when we are busy. We program to rotate at certain times so that no one is in the way. Not having membership options helps with this as well."

Andrew Triana: How would you say your personal training philosophy differs from that of The Spot Athletics as a business.

J.L. Holdsworth: "We are very individual specific here. For myself, I use a concurrant/conjugate system. My clients receive a modified version of that model. I think it’s important that the philosophies I use for myself and for my clients reflect each other."

Codi Casper: With football camp coming up soon how have you been preparing your college athletes?

J.L. Holdsworth: "We get our athletes ready for camp by having them conditioned and ready for their conditioning tests. Yes we get them stronger and prepared for the strength aspect, but once they are in camp that responsibility falls onto the college strength coach so really it is up to us to get these guys running and condition their bodies for the long haul of two a days that can take a toll on the player’s body. When we as a staff can get our football guys in shape and physically ready for camp then the athlete can worry about mentally doing what he needs to do from learning the playbook and gaining reps on the field."

Andy Hingsbergen: In terms of percentages, sports do most of your athletes come to you for?

J.L. Holdsworth: "We see a lot of the smaller sports: lacrosse, wrestling, volleyball, mixed martial arts. We have football, basketball, and baseball as well but it’s mostly the smaller sports. I couldn’t really put them in percentages, they are really all over the place."

It was abundantly clear that The Spot Athletics really does build champions.  We'd like to give a big THANK YOU to J.L. Holdsworth and his team for the insightful visit!

Learn More About The Spot Athletics

Andy Hingsbergen is an intern at EliteFTS. He's currently finishing up a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology at The Ohio State University.  Andy competes in powerlifting and is currently setting his sights on taking the physique stage.  He is originally from Springboro, Ohio.  

Andrew Triana is a Springfield College student studying Applied Exercise Science. He competes in Strongman. 

Codi Casper is from Carrollton, Ohio. He recently graduated from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in Applied Journalism while playing strong safety on RMU's football team. New to the powerlifting circuit, he placed 3rd in his first ever meet this past April. He competes in a full meet this August at Lexen Extreme.