About becoming a personal trainer

[PTC]

They waived a $1000 signing on fee for uniforms etc, I think thats the only deal he got.

I was too stunned and stopped listening

 

[The Hamburgler]

That has to be one of the worst deals ive ever heard of
Do either of the boys have money saved from a part time job? Sounds like they're gonna need it

 

[PowerBuilder]

They waived a $1000 signing on fee for uniforms etc, I think thats the only deal he got.

Gee, now nice of them considering how much money their getting from them........

 

[Kyle Aaron]

More work with Gina today. She is 48kg. Two workouts compared,

• 2011-01-19 Wed --- SQ 37.5kg 2x5..... RP 55kg 1x5... Tabata thrusters w/ 6kg for 63 reps
• 2011-02-02 Wed --- SQ 40.0kg 2x5 .... RP 55kg 1x10 ... Tabata thrusters w/ 6kg for 79 reps

Progress is progress.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

I may have told this story before, just occurred to me today.

I had a... discussion with another trainer recently. She was warning me against giving people deep squats.
"Why?"
"It risks injury to their knees."
"What part of their knee will be injured, and how?"
"..."
"Well?"
"Anyway why go deep?"
"If you go shallow, it's mostly quads. If you go deep, you bring in glutes and hamstrings more. If I only wanted to work their quads, we wouldn't need to screw around with a barbell, we could use the leg extension machine."
"But the glutes are involved enough if you go to parallel."
"They're more involved if you go below that."
"They're not."
"Look at it this way: the function of the biceps brachii is to flex the elbow, right? So when I do curls, will the biceps be more involved if I extend my elbow fully, or if I just half extend it?"
"Fully, obviously."
"So if a flexor muscle is more involved the more the joint begins extended, then an extensor is more involved the more a joint begins flexed, right?"
"But -"
"So if the squat is deep, the hip is more flexed than if the squat is shallow. More hip flexion means more work for the hip extensors getting the person back up. That's the glutes and the hamstrings."
"The hamstrings aren't involved in the squat at all."
"How do we extend the hip without using the hip extensors?"
"But they've done studies, and -"
"I said, how do we extend the hip without using the hip extensors? And if the hamstrings are uninvolved, what mechanism causes them to be sore the day after squatting? My clients would like to know."
"But the studies -"
"I've read those studies. Their squats aren't deep. I agree that a shallow squat will not work the glutes and hamstrings much. A deep one will. Why do my clients' arses and hamstrings hurt after squatting?"
"But you risk injury."
At this point I gave up.

 

[Bazza20]

As someone who has had plenty of knee problems all from playing footy. Squats help my knees, the stronger my squats get the better my knees feel. Endless running would cause many more knee injuries than squatting.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Well, my mind is open. It's just that no-one has yet been able to tell me exactly what injury is caused to healthy knees in a correctly-performed squat.

I can tell you what exactly might be injured with years of correctly-performed bench-pressing or running or snatching in healthy individuals. But nobody can tell me about this dangerous squat.

Gina has a recurring twinge in her hip, it's probably the gluteus medius, though I don't pretend to know what causes it. When she began, I said, "let's keep it in mind, if anything hurts during exercise, tell me, we'll tune up technique, if it still hurts, we'll do something else." This twinge, she reports, has nearly disappeared.

And this has happened quite a lot from what I've seen. Obviously outright medical problems like herniated discs or impinged nerves or whatever require medical care. But all sorts of mysterious aches and pains which have no medical explanation tend to disappear after a period of correctly-performed squats, deadlifts, and overhead presses.

 

[PowerBuilder]

More work with Gina today. She is 48kg. Two workouts compared,

• 2011-01-19 Wed --- SQ 37.5kg 2x5..... RP 55kg 1x5... Tabata thrusters w/ 6kg for 63 reps
• 2011-02-02 Wed --- SQ 40.0kg 2x5 .... RP 55kg 1x10 ... Tabata thrusters w/ 6kg for 79 reps

Progress is progress.

what's an 'RP; ?

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Rack pull. That gym doesn't have bumper plates. So we work up to RP70, then they'll be comfortable with DL60.

 

[The Hamburgler]

First mistake. People won't listen to their friend. I can rebuke clients for their failures of effort, I can't rebuke my friends. Nobody does as their friends tell them. Hell, most of your non-friend clients will ignore you, too.

If you did not charge her, that's a second mistake. If the person is serious, they'll pay for it. This money commitment also acts as a mental commitment. It's not a total commitment, they can still skive off - but they're at least a bit more likely to actually do the right thing.

Friends will expect freebies, then ignore all your advice, then complain about their lack of results - and their lack of results will be your fault. Two years from now you'll see them on ausbb.com saying, "I hired a PT once, he was useless, I got no results."

Give your friends general fitness advice only, just as you might give them advice about other stuff you're experienced with, like lovelife or what kind of car to buy. Don't train them. If they really want to be trained, refer them to a trainer buddy of yours - while telling your buddy to refer their friends to you. But most of the time they won't follow up.

Go back to training people who are serious about it, and let your friend go back to their Macca's.

She didn't pay for the session no. She's got one more free one on Saturday then she's going to start paying. She says she's going to bring down 2 or 3 friends and they'll all train together. Money isn't too much of an issue for me cos it's just a casual/getting experience thing atm. Probably say to her it's gonna cost $45 total for the 3 of em for an hour. Still not 100% sure what I'll charge for individual clients. Probably $20-30 per hour. If I can upgrade from the garage ideally I'd be training people in a way more similar to Markos - just rock up with everyone else. People tend to train better with other people around (just an observation, obviously doesn't apply to everyone).

I might have to set up a strike system like you Kyle, but include poor nutritional habits as a strike-able offence

 

[Kyle Aaron]

I might have to set up a strike system like you Kyle, but include poor nutritional habits as a strike-able offence

I am thinking of the same thing. The ones who have a truly atrocious diet and rest, eg burger just before the session, or a wine and cheese evening the night before, going to bed at 0400 and getting up at 1100 for the 1130 session, etc - and the ones who do little or no physical activity outside the sessions - these people make little or no progress. It's just depressing.

Of course in every job you meet deadbeats, but it's good if you can minimise them.

The other day I had a meeting with the manager to discuss improving my PT. He said, "Two observations come to mind. The first is that you're the most organised PT I've ever seen. The second is that I've never seen a PT who's fired so many clients."

 

[The Hamburgler]

Well they're both good points (imo anyway) lol.
It's a bit depressing that my friend is so weak I'm buying the 8kg Iron Edge bar because she can't press the 20kg (I was planning on getting one with the 2.5kg training plates anyway so worked out well).

Ah well so how we go. Think I might be hanging out with her Saturday night so I'll be able to give her a second strike pretty quick if need be

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Mate, heaps of women will be unable to press the 20kg bar to begin with. Or they can press it, but it's a solid work weight for them, and adding just 2.5kg will take ages. That's why we have dumbbells and kettlebells.

Just look at my sessions with Gina. Barbell squats, barbell rack pulls, Tabata thrusters (squat & press). Legs, pull, push - or legs & push. The thrusters will improve her pressing strength as well as her fitness.

 

[leachy]

Kyle, if you can manage to get money out of the people or for the shitty clients that do turn up, why not just milk them and make some money?

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Kyle, if you can manage to get money out of the people or for the shitty clients that do turn up, why not just milk them and make some money?

Integrity.

In fact, everyone I have fired has been unreliable and lazy during sessions They weren't coming regularly or working hard anyway, so were getting little or no benefit from the sessions. I cannot charge people for nothing.

 

[The Hamburgler]

Mate, heaps of women will be unable to press the 20kg bar to begin with. Or they can press it, but it's a solid work weight for them, and adding just 2.5kg will take ages. That's why we have dumbbells and kettlebells.

Just look at my sessions with Gina. Barbell squats, barbell rack pulls, Tabata thrusters (squat & press). Legs, pull, push - or legs & push. The thrusters will improve her pressing strength as well as her fitness.

Thrusters?
I have enough trouble getting her to squat with her own BW haha.
I'll be using the bar for Olympic lifts, complexes and circuits anyway so it'll come in handy

 

[leachy]

Integrity.

In fact, everyone I have fired has been unreliable and lazy during sessions They weren't coming regularly or working hard anyway, so were getting little or no benefit from the sessions. I cannot charge people for nothing.

Hmm I have recently learnt that sometimes to have to sacrifice a little integrity to get places. If they kept paying but did shit the workouts I would keep them. At the end of the day your running a business to keep food on the table.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Hmm I have recently learnt that sometimes to have to sacrifice a little integrity to get places.

Two responses to that:

1. Not really. Moving up without integrity is quicker than with it, but it's more fragile. As soon as word gets around, you're in the shit.
2. You don't have integrity for the sake of reward. That's what integrity means. You do the right thing even if it disadvantages you. Because you have to live with yourself.

 

[The Hamburgler]

As someone who has had plenty of knee problems all from playing footy. Squats help my knees, the stronger my squats get the better my knees feel. Endless running would cause many more knee injuries than squatting.

I'm exactly the same
Got told I couldnt ever squat or lunge in feb '10
Went to hell with that in september, pushed through the first few which were kinda painful and haven't looked back since

 

[eje]

Kyle,with the utmost respect...everytime you talk about firing clients my skin crawls.
Sometimes its more complicated for the client than likeability reliability and trainability.
I got fired because my first trainer was 'taking home your stress to my family' and because 'i dont believe you can do it anymore'
I just hope you understand the influence you have in the postion you are in.
It seems that you do tho, your comments regarding integrity show that.
If my first trainer had demonstrated his integrity after 8 months instead of the attempt he made at 15 months, my life would absoultely be in different place now and i would be many thousands of dollars richer. He walked me from 40kg to 45kg then back again to 40 and left me in the worst place i had ever been in my life.