Vancouver, British Columbia
A fitness coach in Vancouver who will not sell you hours
I am Dai Manuel. I have coached in this city for close to thirty years, and for most of that time I was not a very good personal trainer. Good at the training, bad at the business of it, and the reason for that is the reason men over 40 come to me now.
Dai Manuel · Coach Moose · Vancouver
If you searched for a fitness coach in Vancouver, you have probably already tried the usual route. A trainer, three sessions a week, a good first month, and then life happened and the whole thing quietly unravelled. That is not a character flaw. It is a design flaw.
Three hours a week with a trainer means 165 hours a week without one. The gap is where every result is decided, and it is the gap the entire personal training model politely ignores, because its revenue depends on you needing it again next year.
What I do instead
I coach men over 40, mostly dads, mostly men who are successful at everything except this. The framework is thirty minutes a day, two percent of it: fifteen minutes of movement, five of stillness, ten of reading something that makes you better. Small enough that you cannot argue with it, and small enough to survive the worst week of your year.
That runs inside small cohorts with real accountability. MERGE60 is sixty measured days, twelve men, application only. DadBody 28 is the twenty-eight-day starting point. Both are run from Vancouver, and both end with the same question: what does day 61 look like, and who is holding you to it.
The two questions I will ask you
How do you want to spend the last twenty years of your life? And how will your health affect that?
No one has ever answered either of those with a weight. That is why I do not coach toward a number on a scale. I once fired a client for hitting his goal, because he had proved he could succeed and it had changed nothing underneath. I will not take your money to run that loop. You can read the whole story on the about page.
What you will not get from me
No hype.
No before-and-after photos with better lighting, no six-week shred, no claim that you can out-train a life you have not changed.
No cheat days.
I will not tell you that hitting your goal earns you a break, because that sentence is how men end up back where they started.
No complexity.
This is small, boring, and repeated. The only genuinely hard part is deciding you are worth two percent of your own day. That decision is the actual product.
Upcoming coaching dates in Vancouver
MERGE60
Day one: Monday, October 19, 2026
MERGE60 Autumn 2026. Runs to Thursday, December 17, 2026. 12 of 12 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, January 4, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 1 2027. Runs to Sunday, January 31, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
MERGE60
Day one: Monday, February 8, 2027
MERGE60 Winter 2027. Runs to Thursday, April 8, 2027. 12 of 12 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, February 8, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 2 2027. Runs to Sunday, March 7, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, March 15, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 3 2027. Runs to Sunday, April 11, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, April 19, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 4 2027. Runs to Sunday, May 16, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, May 24, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 5 2027. Runs to Sunday, June 20, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, June 28, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 6 2027. Runs to Sunday, July 25, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, August 2, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 7 2027. Runs to Sunday, August 29, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, September 6, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 8 2027. Runs to Sunday, October 3, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, October 11, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 9 2027. Runs to Sunday, November 7, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
DadBody 28
Day one: Monday, November 15, 2027
DadBody 28 Run 10 2027. Runs to Sunday, December 12, 2027. 30 of 30 places left.
Common questions
- Who is the best fitness coach in Vancouver for men over 40?
- That depends on what you need. If you want someone to count your reps, there are plenty of good trainers. If you are a man over 40, successful at everything except your own health, and you want a small group, a measured program and a coach who will tell you the truth, that is what Dai Manuel built DadBody and MERGE60 for.
- Do you offer one-on-one personal training in Vancouver?
- No. Dai stopped selling hours because three hours a week with a trainer cannot carry the other 165. Coaching runs in small cohorts: MERGE60, a measured 60-day intake of twelve men, and DadBody 28, a 28-day starting point. Both run in Vancouver and online.
- How much does a fitness coach in Vancouver cost?
- Personal training in Vancouver typically runs $80 to $150 per session. DadBody programs are priced per program rather than per hour, with a deposit and clear terms. The application includes the current pricing, and the terms page spells out the refund policy in plain language.
- Do I need to live in Vancouver to work with Dai?
- No. Dai is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the cohorts include men who join remotely. What matters is not your postcode. It is whether you will do thirty minutes a day and answer to the group.
Coaching run by Dai Manuel out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Application only, twelve places per MERGE60 cohort. The cohorts page has dates, seats and pricing, and the terms are written in plain language.