Meet Our New Regular Contributor: Coach Daniel Heller
We are happy to feature this guest post contributed by Coach Daniel Heller, a new regular contributor here at coachdjtaylor.com. We’re excited to introduce you to him and share his knowledge and skills with our readers! Please read more about Coach Daniel below. You can also connect with him on Instagram at @coach_danielh.
We welcome submissions from other coaches who would like to be guest contributors. All guest contributors must hold certification from NSCA, CSCCa, or NASM. Five or more years of professional experience is preferred. Please send all submissions to dj@coachdjtaylor.com and include a reference sheet, a bio, and a photo. We will let you know as quickly as possible if your submission will be published.
My name is Daniel Heller. Some call me Coach Daniel, and some call me Coach Heller — it depends on the company I’m keeping or the group I’m coaching.
I was born in a very unique place: a wine vat in the Hollywood Hills of Southern California. I was placed in an unconventional learning environment called Play Mountain Place until 6th grade when I started at a public school called Wonderland Avenue Elementary. Then I was off to middle school and high school. I played ice hockey and mountain biked all throughout school, and I started racing mountain bikes when I was 14.
In my senior year of high school, I got a brain contusion after being hit from behind during a hockey game. I had been having one of the best seasons of my life, but that hit, which knocked me out for five minutes, changed its course forever. After barely graduating high school, I worked in biking and sporting goods stores from 2000 to 2004.
In 2002, my dad introduced me to a friend who was a counselor at a junior college. She helped me create a plan to attend Bastyr University in Washington State, just outside of Seattle. I was accepted into their Bachelor of Arts in Health Psychology program, which I chose because science had been a challenge for me. After my first sports psychology class, I met with my professor, who was also the chair of the exercise science department, to express my interest in changing from health psychology to exercise science. To this day, she tells the story of how, when I was in her office, I proclaimed that “I didn’t want to talk about my feelings anymore.” We still talk about feelings, though. I love talking about feelings (all of the senses), and that will never change. That decision extended my schooling by a year so that I could complete all the required science classes. I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science and Wellness.
Image by Daniel Heller
My Strength and Conditioning Coach (SCC) journey started in 2007 during a 2-year internship at Hope’s Gym in Monroe, Washington while I was attending Bastyr. When I first walked into Hope’s Gym, I was greeted by the owner Mike Hope. It was a little storefront place on the main drag of a small town. It had the essentials; a single platform with bumpers, dumbbells, a squat rack, and ample space for speed and agility work, not to mention the high school field that was a 5-minute run away.
During my internship, I was taught the importance of a utilitarian mindset and applying the principles of strength and conditioning does not require every piece of equipment under the sun. Over the two years, I went from being coached, to shadowing, coaching under supervision, then coaching entire sessions and speed camps. All along this journey applying my classroom knowledge to the weight room floor in preparation for becoming a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. It was the experiences of working with elementary to college students that lit the path for where I wanted to go with my life.
From 2009 to 2015, I worked in the private sector as a Strength and Conditioning Coach, running my business from a mobile gym I built. I specialized in youth athletes and coach development. During that time, I also worked as an adjunct faculty member at Bastyr, and I was consulting with a nutraceutical company called Metagenics Inc, developing a compression garment with Oakley’s Advanced Product Development Team.
After I graduated in 2009, I was trying to find the right master’s program for me. At that time, courses were transitioning to virtual formats, and that was not a good fit for what I wanted. I wanted to do my master’s in person, and get my hands dirty in a lab. I ended up attending the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. My dad introduced me to this school and to the idea of moving out of the country to experience something new. They had a strength and conditioning graduate program that focused on effectively reading, applying, and conducting scientific research ourselves in a lab. Our research dissertations were designed to prepare us for submission to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. In 2016, I graduated with a Master of Science in Strength and Conditioning from the University of Edinburgh. During my time in Scotland, I developed a curriculum for teaching our take on proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (a.k.a. muscle energy stretching or facilitated stretching) called Harmonic Release Theory.
That brings us to today in 2021! I am still a Strength and Conditioning Coach. I’m in the midst of rebranding myself and my practice, finding my niche, and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit my business hard. I went from everything being in person out in nature to everything being virtual for a good portion of time. This taught me that going virtual can be a great thing, since I can reach a much larger population.
Learning the value of virtual coaching was profound for me, because it allowed me to create and stand on a platform where I can express and demonstrate what I have to offer as a coach. I can provide an educational platform for sport coaches, athletes, and parents of athletes. I also am able to teach them about different tools they can use to get to where they want to be. More specifically, I have discovered that my passions lie in working with youth. I’ve also realized I want to focus on long-term athletic development with a strong emphasis on movement quality and the many facets that can improve it (breathing, sleep, proprioception, kinesthetic awareness, etc).
With a plethora of sport coaches focusing on “sport-specific training”, I pride myself on being able to supplement the work they do with their athletes with an applied science approach to enhance their coaching practices and athletes' performance. For example, I worked with a mountain bike coach that was developing her own coaching curriculum. Teaching her the differences between internal and external cues with an emphasis on the importance of demonstrating exactly what she’s saying using these different cueing tactics. It is important to practice what we preach so during a strength and conditioning session with her team, I put what I taught her into practice by using external and internal cues while demonstrating the exercises prior to having the youth mountain bikers perform them. I can proudly say I am good at what I do because I have discovered how to apply my passion for lifelong athlete participation to the lives of the people I work with.
So, as the reader of my posts here at coachdjtaylor.com, know that this bio is for you. This is your invitation to reach out to me. Get to know me so I can get to know you, and be there for your journey as you are going through high school, college, and beyond. Wherever your Strength and Conditioning Coach journey takes you, you’ve got an ear to bounce ideas off of and give feedback, insights, etc. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about my bio, my background, my dissertation, or my passion for this profession. I am also excited to be providing new posts here weekly.
Daniel Heller is an adventure enthusiast with a passion for performance that he brings to everyday. If you have the chance to see him on a trail in the Pacific Northwest you’ll be sure to be greeted with a smile and a huge hello. The mountains are his happy place and you’ll know it by his exuberant presence.
The uniqueness of his upbringing has naturally formed his fusion of art and science in his practice of coaching and consulting. With an inquisitive approach to working with people he gives them the space to find their own way while never allowing them to stray too far off the beaten path. Being there to guide them back by retracing their steps to learn from their experience.
Daniel also enjoys photography, so he’s providing all of images for his posts on coachdjtaylor.com. We’re so glad to feature his words and images here!
You can learn more about Coach Daniel and his work at www.DanielJHeller.com and feel free to contact him at Daniel@Ironwood-Fitness.com and on Instagram at @coach_danielh.
Daniel Heller, MSc, CSCS,*D, RSCC
Strength & Conditioning Coach
Ironwood Health & Fitness LLC
USA Hockey Level 4 Coach
USA Cycling Level 2 Coach
PMBIA Level 1 Instructor
FMS Level 1 & 2