Coach Damon Vincent, who lives in Louisiana, shares his passion for adaptive fitness and functional movement, highlighting how personalized training and innovative coaching can help individuals with rare diseases build strength, boost confidence, and improve daily independence.
Disclaimer: The information in this video is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or other trained medical professional before beginning any new exercise program to ensure it is safe and appropriate for you.
Transcript
I was 18 years old, just started my career as a personal trainer, had just gotten certified and a nonprofit in the area, The Dreams Foundation, asked me to do like a summer camp — the camp Unique — and do some fitness over there. And we did it. And the athletes loved it. And so then we started a weekly fitness class, and it just kind of took off.
But I think the reason that it really spoke to my heart so much is, I have a disorder called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, CAH for short.
And so, like, while I don’t have special needs or a disability or rare disease like there, I was able to understand kind of where these athletes were coming from and what they were having to deal with as far as medications and special accommodations and just not having a space where they always feel comfortable — from my battle of having to be on medication for my whole life and being under the microscope and the doctors and the pokes and prods and stuff.
So I think it’s my calling, and it’s been amazing from here on.
I really believe that if you want to improve your life — number one — if you want to improve your life or you want to live the best life that you can, I think fitness is one of the foundations that allows you to be able to do that, right?
So, especially for our rare disease and adaptive athletes, we say fitness equals freedom. If you want to go — and in Louisiana, we have tons of festivals, right? We’ve got a festival every weekend. If you want to go to Festival International, well, your ability to get around independently has a great impact on how much you enjoy that experience, right?
If you want to travel, being able to transfer yourself to the bathroom, right? Just — it opens up so many more opportunities as far as experiencing things. But the quality of your life is directly correlated to how you feel day to day.
And especially for a rare disease and adaptive athlete who’s already got a lot of things working against him as far as the diagnosis goes, let’s take as many barriers away — and as many factors away — as we can by being as healthy and as strong as we possibly can to give ourselves a better fighting chance to have a good quality of life and feel good day to day.
So that’s one thing. And the other side is the mental aspect. Like, living with a rare disease is not easy, and having the mental fortitude to be able to fight through that day to day — I believe that fitness helps give you that, that superpower to be able to do that.
Number one, what we try and do at Train Unique. The line that we always try to skirt — and this is one of my favorite things about working with this population — is we’re trying to find the line of, OK, we’re going to push you right up to it, but not over it.
Right? So you’re going to leave me like, man, you’re going to do some things you didn’t think were possible,” but it’s not going to be too far to where maybe it’s inhibiting the rest of your day or you’re hurting the next day or anything like that.
Right? So going — like I said — up to it, but not over it. And then the other thing too is managing or balancing things that our athletes enjoy doing with things that they need to do, right?
Normally, the things that you need to do — like when I was talking to Kiersten — she wasn’t really excited about the standing stuff, but that’s what she needs to do, right? So we’re going to have some of that stuff in there because it’s what she needs. But we’re going to pad that with some things that she enjoys. Like, you notice her talking a lot about the core workouts, right?
She enjoys doing that. So we’re going to use that to help motivate her into the other things that she needs to do. So we’re balancing what they like versus what they need. We’re evaluating each athlete individually so that we can figure out, OK, what is it that you need based on your life, your goals, where you’re at, and your diagnosis — what your diagnosis is — all those things.
But the first thing we do is just kind of bring it back. Like, we get a new athlete, we figure out what their diagnosis is, how their diagnosis affects them, and then what they want to improve within their life. And then we can build a training program based off of that.
So everything kind of comes to the diagnosis because, you know, that’s usually what we’re kind of working on — fixing the things from that so that they can have a better life.
I have two answers to this question, if that’s OK. Number one, people think that inclusion means taking the rare disease or special population and forcing them to mesh into the general population in our society. And that’s not what inclusion is. Inclusion is creating spaces and opportunities and programs that meet them where they are.
So inclusion is not forcing somebody with a rare disease to fit into our life — it’s us fitting into theirs. Right? And so that’s what Train Unique is trying to do. We created a program that — everything from the exercises to the program to the communication to how we talk about nutrition, lifestyle — like all of that is catered toward and focused on rare disease and adaptive athletes because we have to meet them where they are, not the other way around.
So that’s number one. Number two, Train Unique differs in the sense that in our training philosophy, people think that inclusive fitness is just, “OK, let’s just focus on what they can do,” which is part of it, yes. But what we’re trying to do is we’re also trying to not just focus on what you can do.
Because then a lot of people would just be doing upper body the whole time. No — it’s not about that. It’s about finding a way to do things that you think you can’t do, right? So like there’s modifications that can be made.
Maybe you can’t squat on your own, but with some assistance — maybe you push up with your arms or you pull yourself something up — you can use your legs, right?
So not just working around things, but finding ways to go through what you think your barrier is.
The hardest day is the first day. That is the biggest challenge here. And the hardest thing that you’re going to do is just start.
So if you can start and just commit yourself to whatever it is — if it’s 10 squats, 10 pushups, and 10 situps — that’s better than nothing, right? So just — whatever you have to do to make yourself comfortable enough to start, do that.
And then the next day, we can do. The next week, we can do 12 squats. Then we can do 15. Then we can do two sets of 10. The steps look like this — it’s very small and incremental. It doesn’t look like that.
And we would never ask any of our athletes to do that. We just take small steps every day. But if you commit to doing it over a two-year period, you’re going to get pretty far.
So my advice would be: Just start. And don’t worry about how it looks or try and make it look like somebody else’s workout routine. As long as you’re breathing a little heavy and breaking a little sweat, then you’re doing a good job.
I hope that people take away that there’s so many ways to get it done. All these athletes — all of our athletes that we use in the rare disease series and all the athletes that are doing this — are so diverse. And we want it that way.
That’s one of the reasons why we’re here, right? Is the diversity aspect. And so there’s going to be 100 different ways it looks. It’s going to feel different to everyone. But it’s about doing the best that you can and not comparing yourself to anybody else.
That’s why we use three different athletes in the rare disease series — so that you can kind of see, like, OK, maybe a pushup looks like this for one athlete. Maybe it’s just a cobra pushup.
But then, for this athlete, they’re going up on their knees and using their core. And then this athlete’s going up on their toes. Like, cool, it’s still a pushup. No matter how it looks, no matter how advanced it is, it’s still a pushup. Do what you can do to the best of your ability, and that’s how you win.
I think it’s really important for athletes to know that, like, this series and this fitness — this is not about being the biggest or the baddest or the strongest — it’s not vanity-driven, right? Like, yes, looking good is great because it makes you feel good. And that confidence is important, for sure. But this is about life.
This is about having the confidence and the strength up here to know that you can do things and that you can overcome things that allow you to live a better life. And we believe that this translates into every area of your life.
And that’s why we focus on the three — we focus on the training side, the nutrition side and the lifestyle side — because we believe all those things make a healthy person.
So, just try and pick one thing you can do in each of those areas. Like, just start with maybe adding those squats for your training. And then for your nutrition, try and eat a little bit more protein. Then, for your lifestyle, try and put your phone down a little bit more and get some fresh air. Like, just start and just take the first step forward.
And the culmination of all those things in your life is going to make you realize what being fit is all about.
It’s about those things. It’s about being able to experience life — about being able to go out with friends and by being able to feel good on a day-to-day basis. It’s not about you know, looking jacked or any of that other crazy stuff.
