Christian A.K.A The World’s Shortest SSC has been involved in fitness since 2013 when he needed to GAIN 15lbs to join Uncle Sam’s Army. In 2016 he discovered Starting Strength when he heard Mark Rippetoe on a podcast stating that the SSC had only a 15% pass rate and first time passes were few and far between. It was at that time that he set his ambition on becoming an SSC.
Since then Christian has worked with clients of all demographics with varying levels of training experience, as well as lifters with countless physical conditions and injuries. With a strong opinion of strength is for everyone he makes strength training fun and accessible to all who come his way. He is also one of the few to successfully coach his spouse through LP and to a meet (though he would not recommend it).
Personal training at Starting Strength Plano
- Intro sessions to learn the lifts
- One-on-one coaching in a small group format
- Semi-private coaching
Starting Strength Gyms Online Coaching
- Customized programming
- Remote coaching for each of your lifts
- Get stronger or get a full refund
$225/month — No contracts. No fees. Cancel anytime.
Online Coaching Membership Includes:
- TrueCoach Access - Communicate with your coach, access your programming, and upload videos for form checks
- Dedicated Attention - Feedback on your lifts to ensure safe and effective technique
- Individual Programming - Each trainee gets individualized programming to maximize progress
- Nutrition Advice - General nutrition recommendations to help you achieve your goals
- Instructional Videos - To help you perform the lifts in line with the Starting Strength model
- World-Class Coaches - The Starting Strength Coach certification is the most advanced in the industry
- Community - Online trainees are welcome to join Starting Strength Gym member events
- Fair Policies - We don't do what other online coaching services do - no contracts, no hidden fees
Schedule a free phone consultation to discuss your training goals with a member of our Online Coaching team
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13 Reviews on “Christian Fox, SSC”
I have nothing but good things to say about Christian! He is very knowledgeable and has a sharp eye for proper form and making corrections. I really appreciate that he has made strength training feel very approachable for me as I was pretty timid getting started. He’s always been encouraging and has helped me keep going through minor injuries & set backs by making appropriate modifications. He is also very engaging with all of his clients and makes class enjoyable which is a plus! I can now lift more than I ever thought possible and I have a lot more confidence in the gym and I owe most of that to Christian’s excellent coaching!
As someone who has basically never lifted before Christian takes his time to work with me. I appreciate him being thorough and working with me in details. Being in a new environment tends to be intimating and Christian makes it feel natural and fun.
TL;DR: Working with Christian is the best part of my week!
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Way back in 2013, after P90X just wasn’t giving me the gains I wanted, I made the decision to buy the blue Starting Strength book and dove straight into the whole gallon-of-milk-a-day (aka GOMAD) meme as my only hope to put on weight and get swole. After a few months of lifting in my garage, using a home-made wooden squat rack and some Olympic plates off Craigslist, I hurt myself while squatting and decided to give up on the idea of getting stronger.
Then 2021 rolls around and I noticed a Starting Strength sign while driving down the road. Of course I wondered, “could this be the same Starting Strength as the book I bought in 2013?”. It only took driving by and seeing nothing but squat racks inside to figure the answer was a resounding yes.
One open house later and there I was, signing up to come in every Mon/Weds/Fri night. It took a few months before I decided that nights were not it for me, at which point I switched to coming in on Tues/Thurs/Sat mornings at 5:30am where I met Christian and my progress since has been incredible.
Christian is, how you say, good people. To highlight a couple of examples:
– My first actual time training with Christian was during December (right before Christmas) where Christian dressed up as an elf and was having an absolute blast critiquing form left-and-right.
– Each time I start failing on any of my lifts, he hasn’t hesitated to adjust my programming (all so I can continue my personal pursuit to be an “absolute unit”).
– He’s extremely considerate when it comes to my past history of injury and has done everything in his power to ensure I don’t get injured again.
– Every day he pushes me to my limit – but at a point where I was honestly just dreading doing my heavy deadlift, he assured me, “If you ever are just DREADING doing a lift, let me know so I can adjust your program!”. That day and moving forward I now have a light deadlift day as part of my program. It only took a few weeks before that same weight moved easily – but minus the dread and with the added trust that Christian always has my best interests in mind. It was a big turning point where I realized that as much as my physical progress is important, none of it matters unless I’m enjoying it and actively trying to improve.
– Out of all of the instructors I’ve had in my life (including a lot of amazing college professors), Christian is without a doubt the MOST Fun (with a capital ‘F’ obviously) – but he still has this amazing knack for keeping /me/ focused AND staying focused /on/ me. Even during a warm-up set, Christian is always giving excellent cues and looking out for way to correct my form.
– Like any amazing teacher, Christian has a dozen ways of explaining the same concept until it starts to make sense. He’s also constantly experimenting and working on what the best cue is to correct my form.
It’s been such a pleasure working with Christian, and I look forward to continuing to train with him as long as I can.
Thank you, Christian, for being such an amazing instructor, and teaching me that it’s not just about “going to the gym” or “adding 5 pounds to my lift”, but instead to focus on “having fun getting swole with friends.”
Christian is an extremely knowledgeable and effective trainer and I am so glad to have had him as a coach for the past year. I have never felt unsafe or intimidated working out under his guidance and have lifted more than I ever thought possible for myself. He listens well and tailors his programming with you to help you surpass your goals. He is a great teacher and it is so much fun to watch him work with the other clients and with the other coaches and see the progress they make despite their individual challenges. He has helped make it easy to keep up a consistent schedule and makes the gym a fun space to return to every week.
Christian Fox is a great coach for new and experienced lifters alike. He has a deep knowledge of the lifts and explains the why behind his recommendations clearly. I appreciate how he manages his sessions, gives each lifter his complete attention during their work set, and gets us out on time every time. Highly recommend Christian to anyone looking to get stronger no matter the age or experience level.
We chose Starting Strength because we believed in the core philosophy of stress, recovery, and adaptation (and box jumps look terrifying). We recognized that being expert-level couch potatoes wasn’t good for our long-term health outlook and joined the Plano gym soon after it opened.
Christian has turned my wife into a beast 😉 She keeps our gym time sacred and reminds me not to schedule anything that would conflict with moving heavy things. Every session she gets stronger and is able to load more cast iron to the bar. It is a joy to see her confidence and strength grow each session.
I have needed plenty of adaptation. Shoulder mobility limitations took the press off the table, so we work on the incline bench press until the shoulder is sorted out. Low bar back squats are also out, but the gym has Marrs-Bar and I have been able to squat and increase the load most every session.
Three months in, I’ve topped out of the linear progression and more work is required to put more load on the bar. I’m very pleased with the progress each of us has made. Clothes are fitting more loosely and we’ve had to down-size things in our wardrobe.
No one looks forward to the alarm going off at 4 am to go to the gym, but Christian has kept us motivated for nearly a year, and every week we see progress. Every week we do something at home, pause, and think how much easier it is now than it was the year before.
After five months of training with Christian, I’m happy to give him my strongest possible recommendation. Whether you’re out of shape, strong, young, old, new to barbell training, or an experienced lifter, I guarantee Christian can help you make substantial progress–I’ve seen him do it first hand.
While it’s easy enough to follow a program, everyone is going to hit some kind of a roadblock, and that’s when you need Christian. Maybe you get stuck on a lift. Maybe your knee hurts. Maybe you come down with the flu and miss a week or two recovering. Christian knows exactly how to modify your programming to help you work through whatever issue you’re dealing with. He’ll approach the situation pragmatically–not dogmatically–and will help you get back on track.
Christian also is a pleasure to be around and great at motivating you to stick with your program. I both like and respect him, and if you’re reading this, I hope you take the opportunity to work with him.
I have been working with Christian for almost a year now, and have had an excellent experience. He is thorough and knowledgeable, and communicates well. He’s helped me set goals and remain consistent in my training to achieve them, as well as adapt the training program when necessary to fit me. I would recommend him highly as a coach.
I have been training with Christian Fox for one year at Starting Strength Plano. As a former NCAA athlete and a former NPC figure competitor, I can easily recognize an exceptional coach and Christian Fox is an exceptional coach! It is because of Christian’s expertise in technique and in programming that has allowed me to make consistent progress. Christian listens to me and helps me with my specific goals. He manages to do all of that and make it really fun! Most importantly, he makes me want to train harder and that is what makes Christian Fox one of the best coaches I have ever known!
Christian has helped me reach weights I didn’t think possible in a safe and planned approach. He is fun during class and genuinely cares about his students.
Christian has been my coach for more than 6 months, since the beginning of my Starting Strength journey. From the outset, I figured I would take a training session or two and then mostly work from home; however, the quality of instruction I was getting from Christian was so compelling that I stuck to a 3 day per week schedule for several months longer than I ever intended.
Christian is clearly among the best coaches Starting Strength has to offer. In addition to understanding the theory of strength training (and being able to communicate it effectively), it’s clear he has ample real world experience as well, and is great at debugging problems and adapting programs to fit peoples’ individual needs.
I would recommend Christian to everyone who wants to reach their training potential.
I’ve had a terrific experience with Christian as my coach over the past year. He’s extremely knowledgeable about the lifts and programming, but also does a really good job of not overwhelming newcomers with information. Christian takes a comprehensive approach to coaching, including nutrition and sleep. A few months after I started, my progress was beginning to stall, so he asked me to send him a photo of each meal and snack, in order to get a rough idea of the calories and protein I was taking in. He made some recommendations after a couple of weeks, and I started making more rapid progress. The atmosphere in class is fun, but everyone works hard as well. I would recommend Christian as a coach to anyone who’s looking to get stronger.
Starting Strength is where I learned to lift weights for the very first time. Although it’s easy to be intimidated by the activity of heavy weightlifting, Coach Christian Fox guided me through every step of the lifts. With his direction I became significantly stronger, and am feeling the best I have in many years in terms of physical health. I became a little leaner through diet and training, and my muscle mass is solid. My legs have never looked so muscular, it’s actually insane. I’m lifting more than 1.5x my body weight on certain lifts, which I never would have dreamed of doing at all, let alone in 5 months.
Christian goes over every technical detail, and never was short on answers to all my random questions. He is a leader, mentoring even the other coaches I worked with at SSG, and a good human being. I’m very thankful for my time under his wing, and I’ll continue to get stronger in life thanks to the foundational basics I learned here.
10/10 ,would recommend; 5/5, had a great time.
Shout out to our friends: Deborah, Lolisa, Jack, Chloe, EZ and Angel. Peace and love!
Limiting my experience with Christian Fox to coaching would be to offer a purposely myopic representation of him as an individual.
He possesses many traits that are fundamental to any exceptional human.
Christian invests in those that invest in themselves. With both apprentice and client alike, he offers the right amount of nurture to everyone’s particular nature. He is genuinely interested in the continued betterment of those around him. This is immediately apparent on initial impression.
His coaching psychology and maintenance of client/class relations is a nuanced and profound affair, striving to make the most out of what he has at hand. His “barside” manner is unrivaled.
He has a honed eye and adapts his communication impeccably. There is a devastating love for coaching in him, palpable even, and it impresses in proximity.
Ever patient with those seeking to learn and grow, both physically and mentally. A natural converationalist, he is authentic, forthcoming and benefits from a distinctly warm nature.
Our relationship has developed just as well inside the gym as it has outside. A humble, well-humored, reliable fellow. I am honored to considered Christian a close friend of mine.
Christian has furthered my abilities as a coach, a lifter and as a person. For this, I am terribly grateful.
He is the best damned coach I have ever had the pleasure of calling a mentor. A true professional.
I can personally attest to these claims as I am an apprentice, mentee and friend.
It has been an absolute pleasure working with him and I know when I leave, his absence in my life will be a great sadness.