Charles R. Poliquin

The Real Strength Sensei

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Charles R. Poliquin was born March 5, 1961 in Ottawa Canada and rose to be not only the most sought-after strength coach in the world, but to date, he also earned the title of the most successful strength coach in history.  Dedication, passion and determination set him apart from the rest in the years of his career. The initial inspiration of weight training came into Charles life at an early age of 14 when he was a student of karate by his first Sensei, Web Corcoran. Charles showed up for a karate class regardless of the fact that the studio was closed that day due to a severe snowstorm and walked in while Web was lifting weights; the rest is some of the greatest history.  That introduction to the health and fitness industry had Charles immerse himself in the study of kinesiology, nutrition and strength training for the rest of his life. Over the years, he layered in Chinese medicine and practices, soft tissue manipulation and more to develop a training curriculum unlike any other.  By his own intuition and the awareness of going global from the very start, his drive to be able to communicate to every and any potential coach and student, he was self-taught in several languages to meet the masses. In his home library, language tools for German, Chinese, Italian, Spanish and more were collected and read through with a fine-tooth mental comb.

The accumulation of his life’s work was poured into the Dojo of Strength. This was one of the first and most impressive online training programs that he devoted the last 3 years of his life developing so that students and coaches could completely out do their personal best, but also reach the highest level of service to clients. Without any hesitation and stepping in line to continue and honor her father’s work is his daughter, Krystal Poliquin. Growing up, she witnessed how devoted her father was to his career and how he would never settle for anything less than superior for his followers. While she is attending her first year of college, Krystal has delegated a team to be in position and hold Charles business; Strength Sensei Incorporated and The Real Sensei Training and Education Center in Colorado Springs in its rightful position. Her goal is to not only continue with The Dojo of Strength and the books Charles wrote, but to add onto his foundation through strength coaches across the world, never ceasing!  This team is comprised of her father’s lifelong friends and his professional peers that with loyalty and integrity and an incredible wealth of knowledge along with their own drive, are eager to carry out Charles wishes.

Read More

Dojo of Strength

Charles Poliquin’s Dojo of Strength was akin to a custom-built race car that he poured a lifelong passion into. With his wealth of knowledge and years of hard work he built a high-performance vehicle like no other. When Charles passed from this earth, his treasure was passed on to his daughter Krystal Poliquin who was only 17 at the time. She is prepared to treasure her father’s work and honor him with the return his workmanship to the open road of the world wide web where it was created to operate. Krystal has enlisted lifelong friends and peers of her father that she has faith and confidence in to manage and operate Strength Sensei Inc., and The Dojo of Strength on her father’s behalf.

Read More

Charles R. Poliquin

The Real Strength Sensei

Charles R. Poliquin was born March 5, 1961 in Ottawa Canada and rose to be not only the most sought-after strength coach in the world, but to date, he also earned the title of the most successful strength coach in history.  Dedication, passion and determination set him apart from the rest in the years of his career. The initial inspiration of weight training came into Charles life at an early age of 14 when he was a student of karate by his first Sensei, Web Corcoran. Charles showed up for a karate class regardless of the fact that the studio was closed that day due to a severe snowstorm and walked in while Web was lifting weights; the rest is some of the greatest history.  That introduction to the health and fitness industry had Charles immerse himself in the study of kinesiology, nutrition and strength training for the rest of his life. Over the years, he layered in Chinese medicine and practices, soft tissue manipulation and more to develop a training curriculum unlike any other.  By his own intuition and the awareness of going global from the very start, his drive to be able to communicate to every and any potential coach and student, he was self-taught in several languages to meet the masses. In his home library, language tools for German, Chinese, Italian, Spanish and more were collected and read through with a fine-tooth mental comb.

The accumulation of his life’s work was poured into the Dojo of Strength. This was one of the first and most impressive online training programs that he devoted the last 3 years of his life developing so that students and coaches could completely out do their personal best, but also reach the highest level of service to clients. Without any hesitation and stepping in line to continue and honor her father’s work is his daughter, Krystal Poliquin. Growing up, she witnessed how devoted her father was to his career and how he would never settle for anything less than superior for his followers. While she is attending her first year of college, Krystal has delegated a team to be in position and hold Charles business; Strength Sensei Incorporated and The Real Sensei Training and Education Center in Colorado Springs in its rightful position. Her goal is to not only continue with The Dojo of Strength and the books Charles wrote, but to add onto his foundation through strength coaches across the world, never ceasing!  This team is comprised of her father’s lifelong friends and his professional peers that with loyalty and integrity and an incredible wealth of knowledge along with their own drive, are eager to carry out Charles wishes.

Read More

Dojo of Strength

Charles Poliquin’s Dojo of Strength was akin to a custom-built race car that he poured a lifelong passion into. With his wealth of knowledge and years of hard work he built a high-performance vehicle like no other. When Charles passed from this earth, his treasure was passed on to his daughter Krystal Poliquin who was only 17 at the time. She is prepared to treasure her father’s work and honor him with the return his workmanship to the open road of the world wide web where it was created to operate. Krystal has enlisted lifelong friends and peers of her father that she has faith and confidence in to manage and operate Strength Sensei Inc., and The Dojo of Strength on her father’s behalf.

Read More

Seminars

The second leg that Strength Sensei firmly stands on is the conducting of world class in-depth multi-day seminars. Our presenters are sourced from the best trainers, all of which have had extensive training with Charles himself and are now passing on the received knowledge and insights to the next generation of trainees and trainers.

Kinetic Chain Enhancement

June 16 @ 8:00 am - June 21 @ 5:00 pm MDT

The Pearson Method

July 16 @ 9:30 am - July 19 @ 6:00 pm MDT

Posture Pro Sports Performance Course

August 22 @ 9:00 am - August 23 @ 5:00 pm MDT

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Articles
Life & History of Charles

Preventing Injuries in Arm Training

  Essential guidelines in building bigger and stronger biceps and triceps By Strength Sensei CP Publication Date: 1997   As I’m sure some pharmacist once said, “Sometimes the best medicine is not laughter, but medicine!”

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May 18, 2020
Life & History of Charles

The Training Toolbox: Forced Reps

Practical guidelines on this popular training method By Strength Sensei CP Publication Date: 1997   I’m often asked about my opinion of forced reps. Short answer: I’m not a fan of how they are commonly

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May 11, 2020
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In Memory

I will miss our impromptu calls Charles, and your friendship. My mentor is no more in flesh, but you will always, always, be with me every single time I write a program or when I’m coaching. The best mentor I have ever had. I owe him, my career my back health my sport performance even my wife Susan (therefore my family). You always said I was the Yin to your Yang. Well, I guess that made you the Yang of my Yin my friend. I will miss you horribly Charles without a doubt. I am happy and grateful to have had such a long friendship with you. A friendship that many will never get to experience in their lifetime. I love you and will never forget you, my friend.

Andre Benoit, Owner of The Canadian Center for Strength and Conditioning, former Poliquin Group Instructor and Senior Director of Content and Course Conductor for Strength Sensei Inc.

Charles Poliquin had a profound impact on my life in many ways, and I think of him often, and always with a spirit of gratitude. He changed my career long before I ever met him in person. My early mentors were direct descendants of Charles’s coaching methods, so I had access to long-term programs he had actually written for the athletes that he had coached, as well as the context behind those programs. I felt I had tools in my toolbox that other coaches in my position at the NCAA D1 level didn’t have access to, and the training results of the teams and the individual athletes that I coached showed this clearly. When he called me personally to hire me onto his staff, my career was officially ignited in ways I’d never imagine. Over the course of the next few years, my network grew, and I met many friends, colleagues, and business partners, all through Charles’s grand influence. Even more than changing the trajectory of my career, however, I am grateful for the time that I could call Charles my friend. We had some torturous workouts together, our text message strings were epic and hilarious, and I have so many fond memories of his gut-wrenching one-liners, sharing a meal together, and talking about life experiences, of which he had many great ones to share. He showed our whole industry how work harder to learn and understand the language of weight training, and how to give back and be charitable to others in the process. I miss Charles very much, and I’m forever grateful for the impact he’s had on me as a person, a friend, and as a coach.

Ryan Faehnle, industry leader as NCAA Division I Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning responsible for the fitness and physical performance of hundreds of athletes competing at the highest levels in the collegiate ranks and Founder of VIPAR

Charles has been such a tremendous help in my success. I still have that paper of our meeting when I finally told him I was starting my own private center. This paper holds everything he believed in and told me to do. I can tell you one thing, to this day I still apply everything we spoke about and also it is the information I share with my interns when they feel it’s time to start their own businesses. Most of what I teach has been influenced by his teachings and I can honestly say that I owe him my love for teaching and training. Hope to do some jiujitsu and arms in the next life with you coach.

Eric Falstrault, Montreal-based strength coach, Naturopath, Sport Therapist, founder of BODHI Fit and Author of The Strength code.

Charles was a vision of possibilities to me, as I’m sure he was to many people. Coming out of the military, I did not have a clear plan in front of me on how I would support myself going forward or a long term game plan in mind. The only thing that made sense to me was training and health, but how would I turn that into my career? Was that something that was even possible for someone like me? Meeting Charles for the first time answered all those questions and then some. He was living proof that if you pour yourself into your passions, aim to understand them better than anyone, keep your nose to the grindstone and produce, produce, produce then … as he would put it “what you appreciate, appreciates.” With him being the standard I would judge myself against since then I have never stopped in my goal to learn, apply, and grow more every day. It is because of him and his example that today I can support myself and my family with my passion.

Jance Footit, Owner 5 Rings Barbell. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor and Archive Manager.

I’m very lucky to have attended 19 courses and various conferences with Charles from muscle stimulation, nutrition, S&C and understanding fascia. When it comes to strength Charles will always be no.1 in the world in my eyes, I still apply all of his S&C principles and still have a ridiculous amount of success as a result with individual and team athletes. I also learnt so much from him about nutrition for athletes, most of which I still apply today. I’m grateful to have shared lots of memories with Charles over dinners and break times, listening to his stories and having a giggle at his anecdotes, sometimes the best conversations with him were in the hallway or while eating a juicy steak! After I sent Charles a copy of my MSc thesis, which was based on some of his earlier S&C research, he said those words to me that you’ve always want to hear from your mentor, “I’m very proud of you”. I have taken the concepts I learnt with Charles, for structural balance and brain methodology, and formulated my own process called the Pearson Method which I will be teaching at the mentoring seminar.

Heather Pearson, UK-based Sports Therapist & S&C Coach at 1body4life. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor. Author of: Back Pain Free.

I first met Charles when I did an internship with him in 2004. Charles had flown in that afternoon from Colorado, so I had the pleasure of following Ben Prentiss for the first day. When Charles arrived, he didn’t even say hello to me. Ben just handed him the results from my structural balance test, and he grunted to me to follow him into his office. When he sat down and after a long pause looking at my results, he just said “You are too skinny and weak to be a strength coach!”. Charles was known for his bluntness and I always appreciated that from this first encounter. He would never sugar coat any answer. That week in July 2004 was the biggest influence ever on my career. I watched Ben and Charles coach world class athletes during the day and then Charles would answer every question I had on strength training, nutrition, supplementation and rehab well after it was time to finish up.

It was around this time that Charles was launching the Poliquin International Certification Program and me, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, decided to host one of his first seminar series with my business partner Eoin Lacey. As a result of hosting several of these seminars myself, Eoin and Andre Benoit took Charles immense knowledge and put it in to a more structured approachable format for people. Those days of teaching the PICP were incredible times and I was constantly learning from Charles, my fellow instructors and from many of the coaches and trainers I met on the courses.

I started coaching athletes involved in MMA & boxing more than 10 years ago and Charles helped me so much in those early years designing strength training and conditioning programs. From there I got heavily involved in helping the athletes I was coaching in developing their nutrition plans and with their weight cuts. The approach back then to weight cutting was mostly from word of mouth and anecdote with no real science or research behind the methods used. As a result of this I started to seek out research in other weight class sports and this led me wanting to my own studies on this topic. In the last few years more experimentation has been done in this area and I will be presenting the latest research in this field that is still bogged down with bioscience.

John Connor, Dublin based S&C Coach and Co-Founder of the Irish Strength Institute. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor.

In 1996, I met Charles for the first time. I was impressed and intrigued by all that he had to teach. I remember being the only female in the courses, for at least the first 8 years. Having been in the Canadian Forces for 15 years, it was like second nature for me to be surrounded with my male counterparts. I was one of the boys. I never felt diminished by Charles. He always encouraged me to become the best I could be. I attended every course he ever gave and sometimes more than once. I also had the privilege to be the first female coach to be asked by Charles, to present a seminar at his strength institute located in RI. Charles was my inspiration and became more than my mentor, he was like a brother to me. He believed in me and that was a huge motor for my motivation as well. He used to say that “success left clues” and I had a lot of successes and this, was in a big way because of his teachings and business advice. All of which put me ahead in the fitness business. For me, paying for a course valued at 2500 to 3500US, was standard. Never had a second thought about it. I always considered that knowledge was an investment and not a frivolous expense. As it turned out, I was right to possess that opinion. He was the person who valued my opinion and asked me often for it. I always believed in the motto in which he said and applied, “Value your time and your worth”. That precious advice, I always applied and then some. Time has flown by and now, what remains is the worth of his teachings. It is up to every single of us to be and become the best version of ourselves as people and coaches. I knew Charles for over twenty years, he liked to say that I was his oldest client but also took great pride in saying that I had become very successful in my field after applying his teachings. He was right. I saw him grow as a coach, businessman but also as a proud father. I learned so much from him. I miss him every day even though I know he is not that far away. Today, I am honored to be part of his legacy as I am sure, you are as well.

Francine Savard, Owner Proactif Fitness. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor. Author of the Barbie Doll Effect.

In Memory

I will miss our impromptu calls Charles, and your friendship. My mentor is no more in flesh, but you will always, always, be with me every single time I write a program or when I’m coaching. The best mentor I have ever had. I owe him, my career my back health my sport performance even my wife Susan (therefore my family). You always said I was the Yin to your Yang. Well, I guess that made you the Yang of my Yin my friend. I will miss you horribly Charles without a doubt. I am happy and grateful to have had such a long friendship with you. A friendship that many will never get to experience in their lifetime. I love you and will never forget you, my friend.
Andre BenoitOwner of The Canadian Center for Strength and Conditioning, former Poliquin Group Instructor and Senior Director of Content and Course Conductor for Strength Sensei Inc.
Andre Benoit
Charles Poliquin had a profound impact on my life in many ways, and I think of him often, and always with a spirit of gratitude. He changed my career long before I ever met him in person. My early mentors were direct descendants of Charles’s coaching methods, so I had access to long-term programs he had actually written for the athletes that he had coached, as well as the context behind those programs. I felt I had tools in my toolbox that other coaches in my position at the NCAA D1 level didn’t have access to, and the training results of the teams and the individual athletes that I coached showed this clearly. When he called me personally to hire me onto his staff, my career was officially ignited in ways I’d never imagine. Over the course of the next few years, my network grew, and I met many friends, colleagues, and business partners, all through Charles’s grand influence. Even more than changing the trajectory of my career, however, I am grateful for the time that I could call Charles my friend. We had some torturous workouts together, our text message strings were epic and hilarious, and I have so many fond memories of his gut-wrenching one-liners, sharing a meal together, and talking about life experiences, of which he had many great ones to share. He showed our whole industry how work harder to learn and understand the language of weight training, and how to give back and be charitable to others in the process. I miss Charles very much, and I’m forever grateful for the impact he’s had on me as a person, a friend, and as a coach.
Ryan FaehnleIndustry leader as NCAA Division I Assistant Director of Strength and Conditioning responsible for the fitness and physical performance of hundreds of athletes competing at the highest levels in the collegiate ranks and Founder of VIPAR
Ryan Faehnle
Charles has been such a tremendous help in my success. I still have that paper of our meeting when I finally told him I was starting my own private center. This paper holds everything he believed in and told me to do. I can tell you one thing, to this day I still apply everything we spoke about and also it is the information I share with my interns when they feel it’s time to start their own businesses. Most of what I teach has been influenced by his teachings and I can honestly say that I owe him my love for teaching and training. Hope to do some jiujitsu and arms in the next life with you coach.
Eric FalstraultMontreal-based strength coach, Naturopath, Sport Therapist, founder of BODHI Fit and Author of The Strength code.
Eric Falstrault
Charles was a vision of possibilities to me, as I’m sure he was to many people. Coming out of the military, I did not have a clear plan in front of me on how I would support myself going forward or a long term game plan in mind. The only thing that made sense to me was training and health, but how would I turn that into my career? Was that something that was even possible for someone like me? Meeting Charles for the first time answered all those questions and then some. He was living proof that if you pour yourself into your passions, aim to understand them better than anyone, keep your nose to the grindstone and produce, produce, produce then … as he would put it “what you appreciate, appreciates.” With him being the standard I would judge myself against since then I have never stopped in my goal to learn, apply, and grow more every day. It is because of him and his example that today I can support myself and my family with my passion.
Jance FootitOwner 5 Rings Barbell. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor and Archive Manager.
Jance Footit
I’m very lucky to have attended 19 courses and various conferences with Charles from muscle stimulation, nutrition, S&C and understanding fascia. When it comes to strength Charles will always be no.1 in the world in my eyes, I still apply all of his S&C principles and still have a ridiculous amount of success as a result with individual and team athletes. I also learnt so much from him about nutrition for athletes, most of which I still apply today. I’m grateful to have shared lots of memories with Charles over dinners and break times, listening to his stories and having a giggle at his anecdotes, sometimes the best conversations with him were in the hallway or while eating a juicy steak! After I sent Charles a copy of my MSc thesis, which was based on some of his earlier S&C research, he said those words to me that you’ve always want to hear from your mentor, “I’m very proud of you”. I have taken the concepts I learnt with Charles, for structural balance and brain methodology, and formulated my own process called the Pearson Method which I will be teaching at the mentoring seminar.
Heather PearsonUK-based Sports Therapist & S&C Coach at 1body4life. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor. Author of: Back Pain Free.
Heather Pearson
I first met Charles when I did an internship with him in 2004. Charles had flown in that afternoon from Colorado, so I had the pleasure of following Ben Prentiss for the first day. When Charles arrived, he didn’t even say hello to me. Ben just handed him the results from my structural balance test, and he grunted to me to follow him into his office. When he sat down and after a long pause looking at my results, he just said “You are too skinny and weak to be a strength coach!”. Charles was known for his bluntness and I always appreciated that from this first encounter. He would never sugar coat any answer. That week in July 2004 was the biggest influence ever on my career. I watched Ben and Charles coach world class athletes during the day and then Charles would answer every question I had on strength training, nutrition, supplementation and rehab well after it was time to finish up. It was around this time that Charles was launching the Poliquin International Certification Program and me, not really knowing what I was getting myself into, decided to host one of his first seminar series with my business partner Eoin Lacey. As a result of hosting several of these seminars myself, Eoin and Andre Benoit took Charles immense knowledge and put it in to a more structured approachable format for people. Those days of teaching the PICP were incredible times and I was constantly learning from Charles, my fellow instructors and from many of the coaches and trainers I met on the courses. I started coaching athletes involved in MMA & boxing more than 10 years ago and Charles helped me so much in those early years designing strength training and conditioning programs. From there I got heavily involved in helping the athletes I was coaching in developing their nutrition plans and with their weight cuts. The approach back then to weight cutting was mostly from word of mouth and anecdote with no real science or research behind the methods used. As a result of this I started to seek out research in other weight class sports and this led me wanting to my own studies on this topic. In the last few years more experimentation has been done in this area and I will be presenting the latest research in this field that is still bogged down with bioscience.
John ConnorDublin based S&C Coach and Co-Founder of the Irish Strength Institute. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor.
John Connor
In 1996, I met Charles for the first time. I was impressed and intrigued by all that he had to teach. I remember being the only female in the courses, for at least the first 8 years. Having been in the Canadian Forces for 15 years, it was like second nature for me to be surrounded with my male counterparts. I was one of the boys. I never felt diminished by Charles. He always encouraged me to become the best I could be. I attended every course he ever gave and sometimes more than once. I also had the privilege to be the first female coach to be asked by Charles, to present a seminar at his strength institute located in RI. Charles was my inspiration and became more than my mentor, he was like a brother to me. He believed in me and that was a huge motor for my motivation as well. He used to say that “success left clues” and I had a lot of successes and this, was in a big way because of his teachings and business advice. All of which put me ahead in the fitness business. For me, paying for a course valued at 2500 to 3500US, was standard. Never had a second thought about it. I always considered that knowledge was an investment and not a frivolous expense. As it turned out, I was right to possess that opinion. He was the person who valued my opinion and asked me often for it. I always believed in the motto in which he said and applied, “Value your time and your worth”. That precious advice, I always applied and then some. Time has flown by and now, what remains is the worth of his teachings. It is up to every single of us to be and become the best version of ourselves as people and coaches. I knew Charles for over twenty years, he liked to say that I was his oldest client but also took great pride in saying that I had become very successful in my field after applying his teachings. He was right. I saw him grow as a coach, businessman but also as a proud father. I learned so much from him. I miss him every day even though I know he is not that far away. Today, I am honored to be part of his legacy as I am sure, you are as well.
Francine SavardOwner Proactif Fitness. Strength Sensei Inc. Seminar Contributor. Author of the Barbie Doll Effect.
Francine Savard
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