Between track & field, marching band, martial arts, weight training, playing roller derby on the world stage and competing in NPC Men’s Classic Physique, Men’s Bodybuilding and Men’s Physique, Cesar Loza have always been into fitness & staying active. Cesar began his bodybuilding journey in 2014 and 3 fast years later, his potential was spotted by IFBB Pro and Owner of Builtco Body & Fitness (Uptown Dallas) Miguel Martinez while working out at his gym in 2017. Cesar already had the desire to help others achieve their health and fitness goals and under Miguel’s tutelage he honed his skills as a trainer and learned to apply those skills to others in a high caliber manner with a high standard of conduct. Cesar Loza is an ACTION Certified Personal Trainer, ACTION Certified in Advanced Nutrition and uses this knowledge as a Trainer & Macronutrient Coach to build custom-tailored diet and exercise programs with accountability and check-in schedules, to help his clients achieve their body transformation goals.
Were you involved with sports at an early age?
I didn’t know when I was younger that I wanted to go into personal training, but I did play sports growing up quite a bit. I performed cross country, ran track, played baseball, and then I played professionally in roller derby for about a year around 2014. I broke my ankle doing that and then got into bodybuilding after my ankle surgery and recovery. I was interested in getting into personal training anyways, and I had already been working out myself for about three years. And by happenstance, I wandered into a gym in Dallas and the owner asked me to come work for him and he taught me everything I know now.
How did the ankle injury occur and what was the recovery like?
In roller derby, you have the track and it’s an oval shape. If you jump the track, you’re jumping from one end of the oval to the next whilst staying inbounds. I was in a scrimmage against the Dallas Derby Devils with my team and I went to go do a jump to cut across the track like I had done hundreds of times before. I just landed weird and as soon as I landed, I didn’t know it was broken. I feel transitioning to training others was very smooth just because kinesthetically it was easy to me. I was able to see other people and fix little things. I wouldn’t even say I apply my work out to other people because the way I train might not be the best way for someone else to train depending on where they’re at. But after my recovery, I just kind of found myself in a gym one day. Six months later, I started to like it. And then three years after that, I had built my physique impressively and that’s when I met my mentor at the time. He taught me how to take what I know and apply it to other people.
Were you succeeding more with first-time gym goers or did you work better with experienced performers?
I do very well with both. I like having clients that have no prior experience with the gym, just because they don’t have any of the bad habits that some experienced lifters do. I’ve had worked with several experienced lifters over the years, and a lot of my work with them is just fixing bad habits and correcting form and bringing up lagging muscle groups. It’s not really teaching them how; it’s making sure they do it right on their own and then having them take that knowledge and run off with it and continue their physiques. I do really enjoy training beginners. I’ve had a few people with great success. One of them was with me for 16 weeks where he put on 15 pounds of muscle and lost about 12% body fat. Another individual that I was training, didn’t originally come for physique transformation. He came for rehabilitation of a recent quadruple bypass. He had some nerve damage in his extremities, hands, and feet. Over the course of six months I was able to help him get rid of his cane and start dancing again. And then also helped him lower his A1C because he was heavily diabetic when we met and by the time we were done, he was almost in pre-diabetic range again.
How did you build your client base prior to the recent pandemic?
I count myself very fortunate because when I was at the gym, the owner sold it off and helped me and one of my other coworkers start our own LLCs. I was very fortunate in that all my clients from the gym followed me to when I went on my own. And as far as client base, I don’t do online training only because I’m anal about quality control, so I only train people in person. Over the past four years now, except for COVID, my clients all were still booking consistently and wanted to come back as soon as things opened again. I truthfully haven’t had any problems getting or maintaining clients through COVID, which is why word of mouth is so important in my marketing.
What is the dynamic like between a trainer and gym owner? Were clients comfortable during the pandemic?
When I started, I was a W2 employee and worked for the gym. The clients that I got, I got through the gym. The gym owner would do marketing for the gym and bring in clientele and he would split the clients up with whoever he felt would do best with that individual. I never had to worry about having to make any extra on the side. My client’s reactions were about safety first. I stopped training people in person completely for about three months while Dallas was in lockdown. And then as soon as things opened, everyone was a hundred percent okay with coming back so long as we all wore masks. I did train two people out at parks, but most clients stopped training just because they didn’t have any location available to use. We didn’t have any place to go and they weren’t interested in training outside. I was at a place called Trophy Fitness Club prior to COVID hitting, and then they closed their doors down. Trophy Fitness itself is laissez-faire and everyone will do whatever they are going to do. They opened soon, right after the mandate lifted. We all came back and trained with masks and Trophy didn’t care if people wore masks or not, but I still wore them with my clients.
Have you ever done any group classes or wanted to try one?
I don’t do groups classes because I really prefer having the one-on-one instruction. So, the most I train in one session at a time is two people. As far as classes, I’ve never done that and have had zero interest in doing so. I would drive myself nuts trying to correct everyone in the class all the time. I do see the benefit in group classes for a lot of people, but I personally much prefer training one-on-one.
Were there any noticeable effects to fitness with the pandemic?
As far as my business is concerned, the effect was just going into wearing masks. A lot of my clients did a really good job of maintaining their physiques through dieting alone. You’ll hear people mentioning not going to the gym and they’re concerned about losing their gains. I stress to all my clients that if they maintain their nutrition, the gain loss should be very minimal. As far as cardiovascular health, they were all doing cardio on their own, so everyone did well. I haven’t experienced many issues in my business with COVID, aside from just being in lockdown, most people were ready to get back. I’m vaccinated and all the people that I trained are vaccinated.
Are there any upcoming programs you’re excited for in your business?
I use an InBody 270, which is a body composition analyzing scale, and that information is what I use to build client programs. That helps me really customize programs to an individual. One of the reasons why I don’t like doing online training is because I feel like with what I see with online trainers, a lot of the programs are pretty cookie cutter. I’ve heard from clients that have tried those in the past that they didn’t work only because it wasn’t made for them. But as far as going forward, I’m just interested in seeing how at-home workouts transformed because as more people are willing to go out to train, more are wanting to stay at home. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but there’s a machine called Tonal, which is a digital weight resistance machine. One of my clients got one of those back in October. I’m excited to see how at-home gyms transform. I have no problem traveling to people, but I’m at a central location now, which is not the gym that I was at pre-Covid. I only train one person right now at their home. But as far as the future of my business and the future of what I see for personal training, I don’t see it changing much aside from how it’s always changed in that. People keep learning and growing and finding out new methods, new techniques, et cetera.
Is there any equipment you recommend for at-home workouts?
I’d recommend an adjustable bench, a set of dumbbells, and bands. Depending on the individual, you can get a lot of progress with just bands. There is a point when someone gets advanced enough that bands don’t really supply the necessary stimulus to continue to grow. But most people can have some pretty great results and, or very little maintenance with the band workout, and homework-outs alone. What I like about the Tonal system is that most people will not be able to max out the Tonal and what it has to offer for a while, so it’s quite literally a gym in your home. So that’s the most versatile machine that you can find in the gym as far as what you can do with it. If you have one of those in your home and just some other attachments, it’s easy. Everything that I help my clients with can be found on the internet. And I’ll tell them that directly, what I’m educating on is not something that you can’t find on your own. The problem that people face is information overload. What I do is I come in and help really dive into what they need to be doing for themselves. But with a lot of patients, people can figure it out on their own. But I had three or four people that have been with me for the entirety of the four years that I’ve been training. And I’ve told them countless times, like you don’t need me anymore. Technically you’ve done an incredible job, you can maintain your physique on your own, you have the knowledge and the skills to do it on your own. But my clients still prefer to train with me because they like that extra push. And what I will finish with saying is I’m not really worried about the future of personal training because there will always be people who would rather pay to have someone tell them what to do than do it themselves. My goal is to ultimately help people be able to continue their fitness journeys on their own without me. If they decide to stay, I love that. If they don’t and they have everything they need, then they can go out into the world and f**k it up.
