At Monarch, our strength team does far more than lead workouts. Every coach brings a unique background, perspective, and philosophy that shapes the experience members have on the floor every day. The technical skill matters, but what often stands out most is the journey that brought each coach into this work in the first place. Today, that story belongs to Justyn Williams.
For Justyn, coaching has been part of his life for as long as he can remember. His earliest experience being coached started at four years old on a T-ball field with his dad. That foundation carried through football and into college athletics, where coaches consistently shaped not only how he performed, but how he saw himself. Those experiences still influence how he approaches coaching today.
“People like Coach Chris who instilled my love for lunges, Coach Don who brought out that dawg in me, and Coach Porterfield who encouraged me to behave as a citizen of the world.” For Justyn, great coaching was never just about performance. It was about identity, accountability, growth, and learning how to carry yourself through life.
Finding Purpose Through Coaching
Like many former athletes, pursuing coaching professionally was not always the obvious path. There was tension between choosing a more traditional career aligned with his degree and following the work he felt most connected to. That perspective shifted through the influence of mentor and former teammate Joe Holder.
“He professes a practical, holistic approach to health that encompasses all aspects of daily living, which I believe enables people he touches to deepen their health journey even if it feels aspirational.” That philosophy reshaped the way Justyn viewed movement, health, and purpose. “Make movement a movement” became more than a phrase. It became the framework behind how he coaches.
Two things now shape his approach most deeply: continuous education and understanding the individual standing in front of him.
Growing up surrounded primarily by women in his family also shaped his perspective on coaching. He became increasingly aware of how often women actively seek guidance in fitness while remaining underrepresented within the coaching industry itself. Less than 20% of strength coaches are women.
That awareness pushed him to become more intentional about learning how to better support women through training, communication, and education. It’s one of the reasons he values Monarch’s collaborative environment and the ability to learn directly from women on the team leading conversations around coaching and performance.
Why Monarch Felt Different
After hearing Ryan Greene speak on the Fitt Insider podcast, Justyn was drawn to the way Monarch approached health differently from traditional fitness environments. “Monarch operates in a way I’ve not seen elsewhere. Strength coaches work directly alongside physical therapists, nutritionists, and medical professionals, which helps members understand training in a way that is hard to grasp when you’re piecing it together across providers.”
That level of collaboration reflected exactly how he believed coaching should work. Not isolated workouts, but integrated care. An environment where performance, recovery, movement quality, nutrition, and long-term health all support each other instead of operating separately.
The Athlete Inside Every Client
To Justyn, every person he coaches has an athlete inside them. “Our day-to-day lives are an amalgamation of our physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and environmental states. And when the physical bucket is depleted, everything else gets harder.”
That belief shapes the responsibility he feels with every client interaction. For him, coaching is not just programming sets and reps. It’s helping people reconnect with capability, confidence, and momentum in their lives.
And the wins matter deeply to him, especially the ones that happen slowly over time. Recently, a former client, a 50-year-old neurodivergent individual he helped rebuild strength and return to skiing, reached back out to share that they were still following the habits and systems he had taught them more than a year later.
For Justyn, that kind of message means everything.
Not because of a single session or short-term result, but because it reflects what consistent coaching and genuine care can create over time.
That’s the kind of impact our coaches strive to make every day at Monarch.