EDIT: The initial story I wrote here was in the heat of the moment and not meant for anyone to see. I simply wanted to write what happened with an official date and time on it to cover myself, though I added a bit of emotion to it too. After I wrote the post, I spoke to a few people about it and came up with a better version of what happened that took a lot of the emotion out of it. That is what I ended up posting last week in a secret Facebook group for powerlifting coaches to warn my fellow coaches. Here is what I wrote:

CLIENT WARNING: Heather Connor

I tried many times to discuss this matter with Heather first to resolve it before posting here.

Leading into 2017 Raw Nationals, I noticed Instagram posts from Sandra Tran regarding her training looked eerily familiar. I looked into it further and figured out it’s exactly what I had been writing for Heather Connor, Sandra’s coach. I questioned Heather about it over the phone and she said she didn’t know what I was talking about and denied ever stealing my programming. A few days later she told me this story about how she had shown Sandra one of her training blocks and Sandra decided to do that programming instead on her own. She told me how she confronted Sandra about it, she admitted to it, apologized, and how Sandra would be contacting me to apologize.

That apology never came despite Heather telling me multiple times that Sandra would be contacting me. Sandra never contacted me from October until January 15th, when she messaged me asking about National Team stuff. So I decided to bring up the topic and ask her about it. Sandra was completely confused as she knew nothing about this topic at all. Heather had made the whole story up to cover her own ass. Rather than fessing up to what she did, she decided to throw her own client and friend under the bus.

Sandra forwarded me some of the training blocks that she received from Heather and I compared it to what I designed. It was all the same. We realized this was no longer just a one-time 4 week training block thing. This was pretty much an entire year’s worth of copied programming in the exact same order as I was giving to her.

I also learned from Sandra that at Nationals, Heather told her that I was mad at Heather because she didn’t compete, which is a lie. Heather also told Sandra that if I ask to see her programming, to not show it to me. She’s been lying to Sandra, me, and maybe others for quite some time now and covering her tracks up nicely.

I’m worried by posting something like this on Instagram, that it’ll cause a bunch of unnecessary drama. So I’m just hoping to save some of you from also getting your programming stolen by posting about it in here. She also still owes me money for a training block from September, which she’s told me a number of times she’d pay for, but that’s my own fault for trusting her and sending her training prior to receiving payment.

If you’re currently coaching her or want to coach her in the future, that’s fine. If you want to be friends with her, that’s fine. It’s possible that she’s changed her ways since Nationals, as I haven’t talked to any of her current clients. But I’m simply giving you all a warning to not trust her.

Here’s some screenshots if you want to look at them.