Vaughn’s Story

PERFORMANCE TRAINER, BUSINESS OWNER

AND WORLD CUP ATHLETE

VAUGHN BETHELL BRINGS ATHELETIC

TRAINING TO THE MASSES WITH

GROUNDBREAKING HEALTH AND FITNESS TECHNIQUES

By Vanessa Van Petten

Vaughn Bethell has taken his experience as a World Cup Soccer player on the Bahamas National Team and as a professional speed and strength coach to grow his business, Performance QSA into a cutting edge performance training center in Greenville, South Carolina.

Performance QSA has been open since January 2005. This state of the art human performance institute for high performance amateur and professional athletes as well as the general population features the latest training equipment in the sports conditioning and fitness industry. Bethell’s techniques have been featured in the Greenville News and on a 12-week segment on CBS evening news. Performance QSA was also voted one of the top fitness facilities in the country by Net Profit Explosion, one of the country’s top fitness marketing groups. Bethell is also a co-author of the best-selling book “Three Steps to Your Best Body in Record Time,” which gives readers an introduction to Bethell’s innovative athletic training techniques.

Bethell’s road to success was a long one. Born in Nassau, Bahamas and raised in Lakeland, FL he has played sports all of his life. “My dad played soccer for the Bahamas National Team and I always felt like sports ran in my blood. I loved athletics because of the camaraderie. Out of sports came my love for fitness,” explained Bethell. His natural ability was quickly recognized when college recruiters snatched up Bethell to play soccer at Furman University. While earning his degree in Health and Exercise Science, he was also a four year starter on the University’s team which was ranked top 20 nationally all four years of his career, including an Elite Eight appearance and a number 5 national ranking in 1999.

Bethell was not only competing on the field, but was also being challenged academically in one of the toughest majors in the country. “Only ten or fifteen schools in the country have a Health and Exercise Science degree because it combines two majors into one—public health and exercise science. It was incredibly challenging,” said Bethell. While working in a personal training studio, Bethell discovered his passion for working with people. The one-on-one atmosphere and Bethell’s ability to help people push past their personal expectations to develop healthier lifestyles was just the start of Bethell’s career as a fitness business owner and performance coach.

Bethell’s own family is plagued with diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure and is one of the major reasons he began to train clients. “Because of my family history, I want to do as much as I can to ward off diseases that can be prevented by taking care of your health. Not just for myself and my own family, but for other families as well,” said Bethell. However, Bethell was surprised when the personal training facility he was working in did not meet expectations. Bethell tells his story on his website, http://www.performanceqsa.com. “It was your old-fashioned traditional personal training gym with wall to wall machines and a whole lot of rep counting.  Monday: “Back and bi’s”, Wednesday: “Chest and tris”, Friday: “legs”.  You know the routine—it was so boring mentally and physically!” Bethell argues that just like your mind, when your body is bored or gets into the same routine it simply stops working and programs are no longer effective.

Bethell learned that the ‘country-club’ atmosphere was not only boring, but also not helping clients with their health goals. He decided to develop his own techniques based on how athletes are trained. “My whole methodology is based on the fact that our movements are for overall daily function. Machines isolate muscles. But you never isolate muscles on the court or field of play—we use our entire body to move and function. I began to build workouts around optimal health for the whole body.”

Bethell’s experience working with athletes and his credentials helped him develop unique programs that appealed to clients. He has worked as a Speed and Strength Coach for numerous organizations and clubs including the Bahamas Men’s National Soccer Team, the Furman United Soccer Club, Furman Men’s Soccer Team, Presbyterian College Men’s and Women’s Soccer and Lacrosse teams as well as the Doug Allison Soccer Academy. He is also a certified Performance Enhancement Specialist, Weight Management Consultant, High School Strength & Conditioning Specialist and an authorized Nike SPARQ Trainer as well as an Under Armour Combine 360 Certified Trainer. These experiences helped Bethell develop exercise programs that were outside the box and attracted attention. “Clients wanted to train with me because I was doing activities that they had never seen before,” said Bethell.

Bethell slowly built up his client base and trained out of studios and at local sports fields.  In January 2005, with a growing client list, Bethell opened his own space. At the time, the majority of Bethell’s clients were competitive athletes ranging from the ages of eight to eighteen. However, Bethell stumbled into what was soon to be a business-changing niche—amateur athletes. “Not long after opening up shop, parents of the athletes I was training started asking me if I would be willing to work with them.  They saw what I was doing with their children and the results they were getting and they said it looked like FUN to them—we use medicine balls, bungee cords, bands, and big inflatable balls.”

Bethell began to train these adults the same way as he was training his younger competitive athletes and the results were astounding. Bethell and his facility became known for training ‘amateur athletes.’ In fact, Bethell did a 12-week segment on CBS Channel 7 news with reporter Jessica Drew. On the segment Bethell shared his groundbreaking health and fitness techniques while training Drew who ended up dropping 9% body fat and getting to her goal weight.

As Bethell’s client list grew, his business had to expand as well. “It was not an easy ride. I worked way more than a 40-hour week and training consumed my life. I had to learn to be a business owner as well as a performance coach.” Bethell taught himself both business strategy and marketing and in 2006 brought on other trainers and part time office help to help deal with the growing demand of his company.

Amazingly, while running his business in Greenville, South Carolina, he is also a member of the Bahamas National Team and took part in the Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 World Cup qualifying competitions. He also wrote a chapter in the best-selling book “3 Steps to Your Best Body in Record Time.” His chapter, entitled, “The Secret to Ultimate Fitness and Wellness: Train Like and Athlete,” explains Bethell’s vision of providing the highest quality training for both athletes and the general population to help them reach their personal maximum potential.  “My main principles focus on training people for optimal health. All of the clients who come to us want to look better, feel better, or perform better or all three and we help them achieve this.”

Bethell’s approach has resonated with clients. Over the last eight years, Bethell’s unique training programs have worked with thousands of clients and helped many elite level athletes ranging from high school to the professional ranks move on to play at numerous colleges and many professional organizations including the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. Bethell’s facility currently trains over 250 clients—coming in with a variety of different fitness levels. Athletes who want to work with Bethell’s trainers have to apply to the program to show their level of commitment. “We want athletes who are serious and are going to give the program 100%,” said Bethell.

Bethell is now backed by 4 full-time, highly certified performance coaches with a wealth of knowledge and eagerness to help athletes reach their goals. Bethell and his coaches have three unique approaches that set them apart from other training facilities. In addition to their train-like-an-athlete method, Performance QSA trainers use metabolic testing and total health concepts. Performance QSA is one of the few facilities that does metabolic testing with a breathing machine to calculate exactly how many calories a person burns in a day. “Getting accurate metabolic information is essential. Most people plug their height, weight and sex into some online calculator and they do not understand that those don’t work. Even identical twins have different metabolisms!” Bethell encouraged.

Performance coaches use the metabolic information as well as working with the client on their overall lifestyle. “If clients spend one hour in the gym with us, we also want to know what they are doing the other 23 hours of the day. Health is not just about fitness—it is about nutrition, eating and sleep,” explained Bethell. He also shares this approach in his workshops and speaking engagements. Bethell’s facility also offers bootcamps for women because he realized that many females want the group support. In fact, Bethell shared that this is the fastest growing part of his business, “Women at 6am want their own comforting support group. We are very encouraging and inviting even when they are working hard to get in shape.”

In addition to being a husband and father, Bethell is working on his next book due out this Fall on functional training at high intensity intervals which will be called “The B.E.A.S.T. Method: Why Everyone Should Train Like an Athlete No Matter What Age.”  B.E.A.S.T stands for balance, explosiveness, agility, speed and talent. Bethell’s work addresses better lifestyles and he encourages his clients to pass on the knowledge they learn at his facility. “If we start educating the people that we can extend our life by becoming healthier, they will learn that proper food education, fitness and wellness will help them live a better quality of life. I think it is my responsibility to not only take care of myself and my family, but also my friends, clients and staff. Each person we help can pass on the knowledge,” said Bethell.

Bethell has truly reached clients with his personal mission. He said, “We work tirelessly to help educate people about healthy living because I have a passion for helping people live better.”