02-08-2025
‘Becoming a Sdudla': Fitness coach Kopano Mokhele gains 30kg to walk in his clients' shoes
In a radical and deeply personal fitness experiment online coach and content creator Kopano Mokhele has been deliberately gaining 30kg with plans to lose it all by November in a bold attempt to better understand, connect with and ultimately serve his clients.
The Johannesburg-based trainer, known for his digital fitness community, says he was inspired by a documentary he watched years ago featuring coaches who intentionally gained weight to empathise with their clients' struggles.
One such show is Fit to Fat to Fit, which follows trainers who abandon their healthy lifestyles to join their clients in the trenches of weight loss.
'Even though it's not an original idea, the first time I saw a trainer deliberately gain weight was from a documentary, maybe 10 or 15 years ago. I'm just the first person to do it in this day and time in Africa. I knew this was going to help me grow as a coach, so that I can become more impactful to my clients,' said Mokhele.
Mokhele said the idea was born from frustration over clients hitting a wall in their fitness journeys which, in fitness terms, is called a plateau where progress stalls and motivation fades.
'I always get to a point when coaching a handful of my clients where we hit a plateau. I know they can break it because it's all mental, but maybe there's a language or influence barrier. So I stopped talking to them or through them and decided to talk from them by embarking on this journey,' he said.
Mokhele has amassed more than 116.4K followers and 1.3-million likes on TikTok.
