If you’d told me ten years ago that I’d see my name plastered on a t‑shirt as some kind of brand, I would have laughed. “Yeah, right,” I’d have said. “What’s next, lightsabers are real? Donald Trump will be a viable presidential candidate?” And here we are in 2016, my name on a t‑shirt and Trump on the ballot.
To be honest, a small part of me still feels like an impostor, a fitness industry fraud. Who am I to put my name on a shirt? I graduated in 2002 with a degree in Health Education and was lucky enough to land an internship at a local corporate gym that summer. Eight weeks as an intern—opening and closing the gym, long hours, and feeling woefully unprepared the entire time. I remember when I was handed my first client and felt like crawling into a corner and hyperventilating into a paper bag. That internship led to a full-time job, then several simultaneous part-time gigs as a personal trainer in local gyms. I did that for three years.
Then I met a guy named Eric Cressey, and we became good friends. I left central New York and moved to Connecticut, where Eric encouraged me to interview at a gym he was part of. We worked together for a year and, after a series of events, moved to Boston in the fall of 2006. It was during this time that I started dabbling in fitness writing. I wasn’t very good back then (some might say I’m not great now), but seeing my first article published on T‑Nation was an amazing feeling. Not long after moving to Boston and landing a job at a stylish downtown venue, I got the chance to write a fitness blog for the Boston Herald. Some of you may remember the Step-Up blog. If you do, my sincerest thanks for sticking around—I’m grateful for the support.
In the summer of 2007, Eric, Pete Dupuis, and I opened Cressey Sports Performance. The rest, as they say, is history. From its early days, CSP grew into one of the most recognizable and respected training facilities in North America, if not the world. Up until recently, that’s where I happily resided in my little strength and conditioning bubble. That’s where “the magic happened.” I was a co‑founder, but for the business side of things my main role was to be an ambassador for the CSP brand—to help build an army of deadlifting Terminators and 95 mph baseball throwers. On the side, I was given the freedom to build my own brand under the CSP umbrella, to try to make Tony Gentilcore a thing. I hoped.
I transitioned my blog on the Boston Herald to my own site and kept hammering away at building that. The more I wrote, the more I started getting inquiries from T‑Nation, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and various other outlets. Mind you, this was all happening five to six years into my career. I didn’t start with a brand—I built one. I’m now fourteen years into my career and finally feel ready to have a t‑shirt. It’s a lesson I wish more fitness professionals would understand—particularly those just starting out. Many are more enamored with building a brand before building anything. I’ve seen trainers with less than six months of experience write ebooks on how to train people. Worse, I’ve seen people act as consultants on how to build a successful fitness business, yet they don’t run a business. And I won’t even mention Insta‑celebrities. Then again, I’m not the one with millions of followers.
Impostor syndrome—also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome—was a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes. It refers to high‑achieving individuals who can’t internalize their accomplishments and fear being exposed as frauds, despite external evidence of their competence. I know this is my own negative self‑talk, but when people place my name among elite coaches like Mike Boyle, Dan John, Gray Cook, EC, Mike Robertson, Bret Contreras, and others, I can’t help but feel underprepared.
Look, Tony’s got a t‑shirt. That’s cute. But I know I’m good. I know I’ve helped a lot of people and done things the right way. I’ve stayed in my lane. I’ve written thousands of posts and coached countless athletes. The past few months, since leaving CSP and going solo, have been both amazing and scary as hell. I’m not always sure what “scary as hell” means, but let’s just say it’s somewhere between Indiana Jones in a snake pit and watching The Biggest Loser.
As a good friend told me last year: there’s a reason you’ve worked so hard to build your own brand over the last ten plus years. You’re going to be okay. People want to listen to and support you.
So, long story short: buy a shirt. Big thanks to Nor East Apparel for their work on the design. I’ll be selling shirts at the studio, and TheLoyalist.com will handle domestic and international orders. You can choose from a regular tee (logo only) or the Special Edition tee, plus a hoodie and sweatpants. Materials include 100% cotton, a cotton/poly blend, or tri‑blend, in various colors. You can boost your level of awesome by a lot.
Thank you, everyone, for all your support over the years. None of this would be possible without your continued readership. If you’re hitting PRs, hanging at home, or fighting crime, please post pictures of you wearing TG apparel—I’d love to see them. Where’s my lightsaber? Science? Reading this again ten years later, it makes me cringe a little.
