Mindset | Mental Skills | Athlete Well-Being
Affiliate Member
Change Your Mind-Change Your Game-Change Your Life
ABOUT
About Brad Robinson and The Complete Athlete
About Me
Brad Robinson is a Mindset & Mental Skills Coach and Founder of The Complete Athlete.
The Complete Athlete is a game changing model which is the missing link between sport specific skills and the whole person. This approach helps players truly optimize their performance. The model also helps coaches use a people first approach to player development ,understand communication, how we learn, and how this affects performance, which will ultimately create an environment for their athletes to thrive for long term success on and off the field.
For Brad, creating The Complete Athlete has been a life long endeavour, learning from experiences and pulling from 47 years of ups, downs, overcoming obstacles, injuries, healing, to ultimately living a life of consistent personal growth. Everything Brad shares, he has experienced and uses in his own life. Brads experience on the Canadian Junior National team, a professional contract offer with the California Angels, playing college baseball in Long Beach California and the Western International League across Canada and the U.S., assist in truly understanding the individual needs of the player. Brad also has had a successful career in the Fire Service for 17 years as a Firefighter and Lieutenant/Acting Captain, giving Brad an unparalleled skillset in leadership and team dynamics, most notably, the ability to understand and deal with group dynamics for successful outcomes in stressful situations. Brad has also owned a successful fitness business, and while in the Fire Service he was an IAFF Peer Fitness Trainer and Health/Wellness committee chair.
Brads a-ha moment came back in 2009 when after 20 years of lower back problems, and being off work due to another back issue, Brad was told by the Chief of the day “ If you don’t get this problem figured out, you might not be able to be a firefighter anymore.”
That statement changed his life and lead to a journey of healing, knowledge and ultimately formed the foundation for The Complete Athlete. This is where Brad realized that to optimize his health and thrive in life he had to use a long term wholistic, foundational approach to get the results he wanted. No surgery was required so it was up to him to take responsibility for his health. The road began with a philosophy of foundation and longevity, no more bandaids. First, learn to move properly so I do not create any more problems for myself. Then Decrease inflammation from diet, no more eating for sport but eat for fuel, which was a tough one to tackle, especially in the firehall. That being said, with his own personal journey, he was able to help initiate change in the culture around a healthy lifestyle at the firehall. From there, it was just a progression of increasing exercise and training modalities with a wholistic intention to health, while considering previous injuries and limitations. This is when his passion for health really stared to morph and he started training others to do the same. He had lost 30 lbs and others were feeling similar results and at least now, they were off the recliners and moving their bodies. So now he had the physical and nutrition dialled in and on the road to optimal health, He's golden right? That’s what he thought too. But little did he know, a holistic approach means the “Whole Person” which he didn’t realize at the time, but was being increasingly made aware of. He wasn’t taking care of himself mentally, and was just unaware because the physical fitness was helping temporarily helping cope and making him feel good for the time being. So, with the stigma surrounding mental health and with the old school “ suck it up” attitude that was in the fire service at the time, what he's learned is that we are all HUMANS FIRST and our brains can literally take it, until they can’t take it. There’s warning signs, but if we’re not aware, the signs are of little significance. After Brad's final night of work where he was praying to "please let me go home without a call", he left in the morning and never went back. Brad was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Complex - a permanent disability, recommended to not go back to firefighting. So in order for Brad to thrive and live a healthy, fulfilled life he chose a new path. That was December 2016. Fast forward and after two years of healing, counselling, psychology, psychiatry, self education, Mental Strength Training and now as an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Practitioner , he finally realized that all of these experiences in his life make him who he is and have given him the strength and tools from inside to build the true foundation for The Complete Athlete. Now, Brad wants to share it with you.
“Baseball has been my passion my entire life and is part of me deep down in my core. I am truly grateful to have had the personal and professional experiences throughout my life which have allowed me to create and develop this program so I can help others achieve the success in life that they desire”
The Complete Athlete development model is for players and coaches using a unique and wholistic, people first approach. We believe that a foundational model focussing on the whole person including, sleep, fuelling your body, mental health, mental skills, rest, recovery, purposeful movement and of course sport specific skills allows the athlete to optimize performance and experience success in life, long after the game is over on the field. If we build stronger people, as a result, we will build stronger athletes, students, workers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers and so on.
Brad is currently using his model with Baseball BC High Performance Programs, Baseball Canada, BC Minor Baseball, Big League Experience, Yale Baseball Academy, Coquitlam Little League, Douglas College Royals and too many more to list!
Brad is married to his yoga crazy, kayaking, baseball mom Vanessa and has his skateboarding, baseball playing, Foo Fighter loving, drumming 16 year old son Nolan. Brad also has a side hustle podcast, and you will most likely find him in the gym. All three spend any free time at or on the diamond.