• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

About becoming a personal trainer

This is a good argument.I am with Kyle in theory but with Markos in reality.
I try to motivate my students but at the end of the day all I achieve is that I motivate the motivated ones more and the unmotivated not at all.
The point Markos is missing here is,Kyle will be just starting out so he will be in no position to cherry pick clients.He will be out of work within a week if he does.After a few years when he has built up a reputation and a core of good clients he can start trimming the deadwood and building on his reputation.
Markos got a job in a good place and learnt from a great trainer and carried on from there.Kyle will be competing with all the Mcgyms and Mcgymized masses unless he can get the kind of opportunity Markos did.
 
In PM I've been asked,
given your recent experience with TAFE Cert III - have your views on the above changed at all? Is tafe still good??
Hard to say, really. I think it probably depends a lot on the individual place. Like I've said about the Army, two guys describe their experiences in two different units it's like two different armies. Same in an office or kitchen or factory floor, a new manager or different team members and the whole tone and productivity of the place changes.

So other places could be awesome.

When it comes down to it, though, most people are not going to learn any more at a school than you could by your own diligent research and study of a textbook. The school's for the piece of paper at the end, and for the fact that you get out of education what you put into it. At a school you have access to knowledgeable people, if you're interested you can learn more.

Most aren't interested. But those few who are can get more at a school than away from in it. If you're not intending to get into it as a profession, I would probably go for the cheapest course that'll take up the least of your time.
 
Kyle,

You’re doing very well and I’m really very proud of you mate. I’ve been holding back throughout this exchange here, so let me sum it up for you in just a few words:

Kyle, if I had a gym or a fitness centre; you Kyle would be welcomed to a position of head trainer as well as head manager. This is based on what I’ve learnt about you through this forum and nothing else. Enough said.


Fadi.
 
if you had a gym he wouldnt have to worry about clients that dont want to squat lol

Oh you made me laugh David :D. Good on you mate. we should have a gym called Ausbb Gym where all the forum members can attend.:)


Fadi.
 
Kyle, if I had a gym or a fitness centre; you Kyle would be welcomed to a position of head trainer as well as head manager. This is based on what I’ve learnt about you through this forum and nothing else. Enough said.
No, no, you would be the head trainer and manager, I would be the second-in-charge and learn from you.

If any of our clients got insolent, we'd threaten to send them to Markos :p
 
Because this thread contained a lot of useful information about becoming a PT, I've decided to resurrect it.

Please keep things friendly here, as with any other thread on the forum.
 
You picked a bad time to unlock the thread, school is out for two weeks. With only 15 hours of scheduled classes a week, 15 hours which usually become 9-12 what with absent or late teachers and early knockoffs, or 6-9 hours if you take the gym workouts out, I'm not sure what we're having a break from, but there you go.

I have a couple of assignments to do, have to do a detailed analysis of a netballer, footballer and basketballer and the on-court stuff they do and the workout you'd recommend to help them perform well. And there's the anatomy & exercise physiology exam to study for, 75% is the pass mark.
 
I'd be interested to hear about the basketball workout! Have recently been playing 2 games, back to back, at lunchtime (each game is 2 x 15 min halves). The constant bursts of sprinting really finish you off...
 
After our two weeks' holidays, we came roaring back, all the students actually early for... a rather pointless day.

From 0900 to 0915 was just people chatting. Then at 0915 the teacher said, "Alright, come up with an exercise, tell me the muscles involved and the action of the joints, then we'll go demonstrate that in the gym. A break - from what? - came at 1010 until 1040, we returned to the classroom, into the gym at 1100, everyone took turns demonstrating an exercise to the whole class. This took till 1130 when people could do their own workouts.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why we're demonstrating single exercises only AFTER doing an entire workout showthrough, I would think it'd be the other way around, but...

"What are we doing in the afternoon?" I asked as we were about to go for lunch.
"We'll do revision for your test tomorrow."
"What kind of revision?"
"You guys can read your books and talk amongst yourselves and if you have any questions, just ask."

At least half of us decided to just go home. I was one of them. I can tidy up my assignments and revise a bit for the exam.

The only amusing part of the day was during the free workout time. A woman in the class was being shown dumbell flies by a more experienced guy. Another guy laughed, "Pathetic weights! You're weak!"
"Yes, I am," she replied, "That's why I'm doing this, to get stronger."

He kept laughing. This pissed me off, especially since the guy is in class to become a trainer. I grabbed him by the shoulder, "Come on, mate, if you want to show how strong you are, let's try the bench press."
"Okay."
We started at 30kg and worked up to a single with 70kg. He was happy to push himself, but afterwards exhausted.

Then I hopped on and knocked out 10 reps. I said, "There you go. However strong you are, someone else is warming up with your max. I know of a gym where there are more than 50 lifters benching over 100kg. And it's just someone's garage. Remember that next time you want to laugh at someone's lift. Everyone has to start somewhere."
 
Last edited:
We started at 30kg and worked up to a single with 70kg. He was happy to push himself, but afterwards exhausted.

Then I hopped on and knocked out 10 reps. I said, "There you go. However strong you are, someone else is warming up with your max. I know of a gym where there are more than 50 lifters benching over 100kg. And it's just someone's garage. Remember that next time you want to laugh at someone's lift. Everyone has to start somewhere."

:D cop that!
 
Yeah, it was amusing, but I didn't learn anything. I already know how to make a young bloke feel like crap, it's part of training to be a Corporal.
 
You should have demanded he dropped and gave you 20 :p hahahaha.
I considered it, but given that we're at school he's less likely to have gone along with it than benching. I just wanted to give him some exercise and make him feel weak.

Of course it was possible that he was actually heaps stronger than me. But I have never seen a genuinely strong person who mocked weaker people, let alone weaker people who were trying to get stronger. The 70kg bench press guy might make fun of people, the 140kg bench press guy doesn't. I'm sure it must happen sometimes but I've never seen it.
nievs said:
What a douche
Agreed, it really pissed me off. I tried to make something constructive of it, though, gave him a couple of tips about benching - he was wriggling his bum around, had his legs in the air, his shoulders moving - and the 70kg x1 was a new PB for him.

Hmmm, people only comment on the gym drongo, I guess my tales of lazy and disorganised teachers at TAFE are getting old :p
 
Nice work Kyle, and your spot on with your assesment
Cheers. Which one, about the middling lifters mocking, but not the strong ones?

Today we had the anatomy and physiology exam. It was as badly written as the manual. "Label the muscles on this diagram" - it was basically a grey splodge, we couldn't see where the lines went to. "Just draw your own lines and label the muscles," said the teacher. So I labelled the ones I knew :D

A few questions were repeats of other questions, for some reason they asked about postural defects three or four times. Oh well, easy points!

It was definitely a test of what we knew. Interestingly, it was a test of some stuff we didn't know, either - things which weren't in the manual, which we commented on afterwards. "Yes but you were taught them," said the teacher.
"Um, not X and Y."
"Yes but you should know."
"Um, if it's not in the manual and nobody taught us, how should we know?"
"It's time to go to lunch."

The pass mark is 75%. I'd definitely have got over 50% even before the course just from my own prior knowledge, probably people who'd done biology and physical education in year 12 would've as well. That plus it being an open book exam I'd say will give most people the extra 25% they need. We should have results in a week or two.

Well, they said the pass was 75%. Maybe they lied. Once on an Army fitness test we as would-be recruits had to march with rifle, webbing and pack 15km in under 2 hours. When we arrived exhausted, we were told, "well done... you actually had 2 hours 30 minutes to do it." So maybe they were just pushing us to excel ;)

In afternoon we began the nutrition section of the course. Basic to begin with, at least. In the discussion, the teacher seemed - to me - overly concerned with obesity. I think there's too much focus on that, mainly because of our image of what is a hot-looking person.

I'd rather be talking about health and quality of life. I'd rather be fit and strong and flexible with a fat belly - like Soviet Boxer in the class - than unfit and weak and stiff and skinny - like lots of people I know.

It went a bit slowly. The "I want to be so big I have to walk sideways through doorways" guy commented, "This is a waste of time. I could google my way to Cert III."

Next up we have to keep a food diary.
 
Last edited:
Top