About becoming a personal trainer

As I said, that statement about the deadlift was surprising to me. How can something hardly anyone does be "overrated"? When I get a chance I'll ask him about it. Many things which sound stupid or crazy when you first hear them, once you ask a bit about them, it makes more sense.

Generally, my impression is simply this: the teacher's knowledge is often deep but not broad. That is, they know a lot about their specialty, but not a lot immediately outside that specialty.

This applies to all teachers, and people in other professions, too. I'm reminded of the article how to be an expert. In this, she says that the people who say "I suck at this" remain bad at it, they give up. The people who say, "I do alright, and now that I know how to do it I'll keep doing it the same way," reach a level of competency but don't get really great. The people who say, "I do alright, but is there some other way to do it?" get great.

Markos talks about this in a recent newsletter in the context of growing your muscles - you have to keep giving them new challenges. This I think applies to most abilities and knowledge we have. To improve, we must seek out challenges, must be willing to fail.

Lots of people don't do that. They either fail early on and give up, or they reach a certain level of competence and relax there.

In the case of TAFE teachers, many of them are hired because they already have successful businesses, so the school thinks they'll have useful insights for us - and they're right. But between running a business and teaching classes and dealing with bureaucracy, as well as their own personal lives, they simply don't have time to broaden or deepen their knowledge - they reach a certain level of competency and stay there.

We just don't have enough time in our lives to improve all our abilities and knowledge, to constantly challenge ourselves in everything. So we specialise, our knowledge becomes deep but not broad.

This gives us moments like I've described, "what are 21s?" and "why do they use those chains with the weights?" and so on. Now, we laugh, but we must also remember - We students are still asking them more questions than they're asking us. So, they learn a little bit from us, and we learn a lot from them. That's how teaching goes.

I like to think that in the case of the fitness industry, I'll be the person who says, "I can do it alright, but I wonder if there's another way?" I'll keep seeking new challenges, trying to both deepen and broaden my knowledge.

For example, when we have to partner up and practice training each-other, I often try to partner up with the people in the class who I don't get along with very well, or who are difficult in some way - people who challenge my ability to explain things clearly, remain friendly and so on. Because I can avoid them in class, but won't be able to avoid them in the gym, so I better learn to deal really well with them!

In the end, school is only the beginning of your education.

Interesting Fadi.

I've heard the no calves activation theory in regards to deadlift before.

Next time somebody has a strained or pulled calf muscle, please try and deadlift, then report back the level of pain you felt in your calf muscle lol

You will be shocked.

I reckon you are going to do good at this PT stuff Kyle. Your passion is very obvious. I know there are a heap of people at my gym that could do with help from someone who wants to help them and not someone that wants to cash in on them.

Thanks Josh. Unfortunately we're not graded on passion in the class, nor do we get credit for it to make the course shorter

Today we had a practical assessment. We basically had to do a health and goals run-through. What is your sports background, do you have any health problems, now we take your blood pressure and all that sort of stuff.

I was a bit nervous, as the teacher said that last year everyone failed on their first go, not doing blood pressure or the calipers properly. And we did it in threes - the teacher can't assess the whole class at once - and had a staggered start... so I was the first, with the whole class watching me! Yay.

Most of the assessment was based on taking blood pressure, girth measurements and four-point bodyfat calipers, doing all that properly. However, a lot was based on communication - did we give feedback to the person in response to their answers?

For example, my person told me that she had salad for breakfast, salad for lunch, and McDs for dinner. So I was supposed to suggest some healthier eating options... which is a bit funny, since we haven't done the nutrition section yet. So actually I said nothing on that, but afterwards the teacher asked me, so I said... this will sound familiar to you guys... "I told her she should eat lots of fresh fruit and vegies, lots of nuts and beans, and some meat, fish and dairy, and have no booze or junk food."

We were supposed to be assessed as "needs work", "average", "good" or "excellent" on a whole swag of things like "open body language", and "overall positive" and "greets client", but when I got my test sheet back it had a tick in every "average" box. I said, "Um, surely I would need work or be excellent in a couple of things even just by accident?"

"Yes but for the assessment as a whole, I just mark you as competent or not yet competent, so I didn't worry about all those details, you were overall okay."

So yeah, I passed.

Oooookaaaayyyy. How are you meant to know what parts you need to work on? They can still give you an overall average, but have some 'excellent' and some 'needs work'. If there are a lot of 'needs work' then you're not competent, more good marks, then you are competent. Don't know if I'd trust your teacher to count my reps.

Well basically it was just about being open, friendly, informative and responsive. So if you were crap in one area they'd pick it up.

Like I said, it's just pass/fail at TAFE. So they look at the details for the objective things like taking blood pressure, and at the overall picture for the more subjective things like communication style.

I do think a few students might bomb out on the communication aspects, and in some of the details. We've some students who say, "why am I here listening to this stuff? This is obvious!" and so they come in the morning but then don't return after lunch... but then they don't know how to find the brachial artery for the blood pressure, or how to do the calipers, nor would they look at the assessment and realise that they had to give the person feedback on what "blood pressure" actually means, whether theirs is high, low or average, and so on.

If you are open and interested and make an effort you'll pass. But a surprising number of students are closed and not interested and make no effort, missing a third or more of the class sessions, and not really being present even when present. They'll fail.

I don't expect everyone to love every moment, I'm don't. Nor would I expect them to be fascinated by everything that comes up in class, I'm certainly not. But, you know, be basically interested in the thing as a whole and show up regularly and on time, ask questions when you're lost, it's not really a big ask.

I guess this comes back to that thing that only a small number of people doing Course X will end up doing a job related to it.

Kyle's Extracurricular Learning
Tired of having zero exercise technique in my course, I decided to head down to PTC Frankston to have some extracurricular learning. It was a fair hike on the pushbike, and I got rained on and spattered with mud.

I can tell Morgan that it was indeed a blasted wasteland of villagers huddled around burning tyres with gangs of mutant bikers wreaking havoc among the women, and when I walked in Markos bodyslammed me and put me in a headlock, he screamed that "You're not worthy to train here until you can break out of it!"

I can tell him that, but it's not true.

Markos and his family live in a very mundane little court, one of those estates with lots of windy little roads, dogs and kids playing. Markos is very friendly and approachable, and even more talkative in person than online. He very obviously loves what he does.

He did tell me I was a dickhead, but only when he heard I'd cycled there.

Also there was his son training his soccer team mates, a strong bunch of kids. And a nice woman who got a personal record, deadlifting close to twice her weight. I went in the afternoon since my bike's light is dead, heaps more people come in the evening.

He asked, "What do you want to do today? Just watch, workout or...?"

"I may as well work out, I already cycled here and warmed up."

"What do you want to do?"

"Hey, you're the trainer, you tell me what to do."

He went easy on me, introduced me to deadlifts with kettlebells. These actually feel more like squats and are easier on your lower back compared to regular barbell deadlifts, good for old cripples like me. Hard work, though.

After that it was some military presses.

We finished with some thrusters, which is Markos' version of cardio - you hold a kettlebell in each hand at your shoulders, squat down then stand up and press the kbs in the air. Do as many reps as you can for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, repeat 7 times - 4 minutes in all. Certainly gets you breathing heavily!

While resting between sets, he gave some tips about the exercises people were doing. That was just the sort of thing I was after! You just can't learn that from a book. We could certainly do it in PT school. We have a heap of gym sessions. We could go in and do (say) military press, the teacher could have each person do it, point out common mistakes and how to correct them, and we could do it with an anatomical drawing, pointing out the muscles used.

Instead it's just "let's read from the book for a bit... okay, now go do a normal workout." I hate that. I've joined a gym already, I don't go to school to do workouts - not like that, anyway.

Anyway, visiting PTC will be very useful for me, I can learn a lot.

We finished up with a long chat and so I ended up cycling home in the dark along the railway track. It was only after getting on the train at Frankston railway station that I saw anyone dodgy. A couple of drug addicts got on - identifiable by their slurred voices, scrawny physiques, acne faces, and so on. One was loudly negotiating a heroin deal on the phone. "He wants three hundred for a gram? Fuk him in the arse, take half a g."

Meanwhile his mate graffiteed the blue box where is stored the ramp the driver uses for wheelchair passengers, writing his name "Manik 7". He didn't seem very manic to me, more apathetic. Perhaps it was an aspiration rather than a description.

Just before Cheltenham the dealer (buyer?) got up and wanted to get off.

"Nah man we can't get off at Cheltnum, the cops will see me man."

"Don' worry 'bout the Cheltnum cops, Cheltnum cops are fat, man, Cheltnum cops are fat, Cheltnum cops are fat, Cheltnum cops are fat, Cheltnum cops are fat, eh? Just run, eh."

"Nah man they'll see me whaddawe do if they see me man I dunno what I'll do man."

"Just look straight at 'em eh whaddathey gunna do prolly won' recugnise ya anyway doesn' matter eh Cheltnum cops are fat."

It went on like that for a bit, with them chatting about the nurse denying them methadone and they got off a few stops later.

Next an old alcoholic got on the train and played Metallica on his mobile, he was extremely polite and gentlemanly. Just a friendly old pisshead.

So I had to cycle half an hour away from PTC Frankston before I saw anyone dodgy.

Anyway I think I can learn a lot. I might drive next time, though...

Kyle Aaron said:

I can tell Morgan that it was indeed a blasted wasteland of villagers huddled around burning tyres with gangs of mutant bikers wreaking havoc among the women, and when I walked in Markos bodyslammed me and put me in a headlock, he screamed that "You're not worthy to train here until you can break out of it!"

I can tell him that, but it's not true.

Click to expand...

you must have went on a quiet night

I think the mutants bikers were chased away by the fat "Cheltnum" cops

I have a phobia of taking trains after dark...

I knew it!

Sounds good though Kyle, I will probably make the trip down to Franghanistan in a few months to get some help from Markos. Although... No way will I ride a friggen bike there... hahahahahaha. Markos was right.

Depends where you go, lucku, but Sydney's not too bad.

Hooray for extracurricular learning!! Sounds awesome. How does Markos manage to train multiple people at once?

Well this afternoon Max was training his mates, so Markos was only training me and the strong woman. Easy.

For his busier evening sessions, as I understand it they'll have something like 4 bars out, lifters in groups of 3-4 similarly-strong people, while one lifts the other 2-3 rest. So there are only 4 people lifting at any one time.

You'd have to be alert and know your stuff, but it's quite doable, especially with spouse and children to assist

Kyle got there too early, I only have scattered sessions during the day. From 6.00pm onwards, its packed. For the weightlifting session at 8.00pm I had 9 lifters. At 7.00pm I had 8 lifters and 9.00pm I had 4 lifters.

Kyle did okay. Knowing his back condition we went pretty easy. He was able to deadlift the 64kg KB x 10 in good form. Tabata Thrusters killed him, but they do that to everyone.

Kyle saw Vicky deadlift 107.5kg. At 6.00pm Annie deadlifted 125kg and Bec deadlifted 130kg.

Katie, training one person alone is gay. Its not a challenge, a vegetable could train one lifter, in fact they do in commercial gyms all over the place. I need the stimulus that a gym full of lifters provides. Take Monday at 6.00pm. I have Emma, Stacy and Nikki, Sean, Fat Dave and James, Hamish, Kasper and Beatrix, all at the same time. These are my favourite sessions.

My clients are empowered, they know what they have to do and simply do it. While I was talking to Kyle, Vicky simply kept loading the bar and squatting up to 70kg x 5, she weighs 58kg and is 35 years old. She's the one who deadlifted 107.5kg.

One of the boys Max is training weighs 61kg, 16yo and benches 90kg.

Hopefully Kyle comes at 7.00pm and lifts, then hangs around to watch the weightlifting session at 8.00pm.

PTC said:

My clients are empowered, they know what they have to do and simply do it.

Click to expand...

I noticed that. And that is why I expect to learn a lot.

PTC said:

Hopefully Kyle comes at 7.00pm and lifts, then hangs around to watch the weightlifting session at 8.00pm.

Click to expand...

Yes, I am negotiating the car use. I am not hardcore enough to cycle every week

Edit: I forgot to mention earlier, I saw Noodles on the train home, he was going home from his martial arts training. Nice person to bump into, I told him PTC would love him because he is naturally strong and also very humble. I will try to see if I can help him come along some time (he lives even further out in the wilds than Markos does).

Ahhh, Kyle, your story of dodgy druggos reminds me of the one that threatened my boy and I with a knife on the way to the Bledisloe. He had wandered far from home and showed us his knife to prove that no one in my 'posh' suburb was better than him. I guess I'll have to take that on board and remember that knife weilding is an effective way to show off next time I go to a party with people who have more money than me.

Anyhow, I reckon you are going to be an awesome PT. Keep it up.

Cheers mate, I hope you're right.

Kyle I train @ PTC Wednesday 8pm and Saturday 10am, I'm more than happy to give you a lift. Depending on where you live of course, and how many others are in the car of course.

That offer stands for anyone who would be interested in coming to PTC to train at those times.

Thanks for the offer. I'm in Clayton South. Where are you, Nick?

At the moment my Wednesdays are busy with nerdy stuff, but Saturday mornings are free.

I can now get the car for Thursdays, but car-pooling is always better, I reckon.

I'm in South Yarra at the moment. Clayton is a bit out of the way. If you could make it to Sth Yarra station that would helpful.