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About becoming a personal trainer

Not at all, Dave, not at all. You're mistaking piss-taking for serious. Sure you're Aussie?

He only hates me during the sessions. He's signing up for more. He takes a long round trip to come here, he's looking at getting a car, though.

Tonight he chose the More Weight workout. He did well.

Good bloke. It's not easy to start off on physical training when you're 150kg or so. Takes courage. Everything is hard when you're that big, let alone weight training.
 
It's kinda hard to work out a tone of a conversation on the internet. Good to see he is putting in the hard yards.
 
Kyle Aaron said:
I have a client coming, last session he said, "I hate you."
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I would usually interpret that as "I love you dearly", (for making me work so hard etc). Unless there's more to it of course then I could be wrong. There's always an exception to the rule.


Fadi.
 


Eating is the only thing easy then i think..
 
Fadi said:
I would usually interpret that as "I love you dearly", (for making me work so hard etc).
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Something like that, I think, yes. I think it's just another case of hating the process but liking the result. The process is more thorough if you have a trainer, coach, or training partner. More, more and more is very hard to do on your own - for most of us, anyway.

n00bs said:
Eating is the only thing easy then i think.
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The bummer - as you'll know from your own experiences, and your studies - is that a person can get quite large without actually eating up big time. Just a little surplus every day for years adds up, then once you're that big you just maintain, and don't even have to eat heaps to do so.
 

Of course.. This is the hormonal effects. That take place...

I would reccomend all overweight clients DIM to help with their oestrogen metabolism as this is what is helping them stay the way they are.
 
Interviews
I went out to the place for an interview yesterday and talked to TS, gym supervisor there. The actual guy in charge of PTs, FD, he'd done his back and wasn't there. I was very glad to not get HR-esque questions. No, "what is your major weakness?" "That I hate stupid questions." They were quite sensible and made me think.

"What to you is the difference between a gym instructor and a personal trainer?"
I tried not to think of the gym instructors I'd known. "Personal. The PT gives a personalised service, there's some empathy."

"How would you grow the PT business here?"
"Get out on the floor and talk to people. Get to know them, help them out a bit. I'm not the hard-sell type, I can do it but I don't like it. I'd rather just present a service, let them know what it's like, and see where we go from there."

"What are your thoughts on complimentary sessions?"
"I'm not sure. I don't have the experience to know if they work. I've asked and read around and there are a lot of different opinions. I'm happy to do them, I'm just not sure if they're worth it - people tend to value what they pay for. Perhaps - I'm thinking out loud here - if the person is paying in some other way. Instead of "let's have a free session now," get them to make an appointment at a time which is slightly inconvenient to them. If they have to make an effort, they'll feel they've paid in some way and value it."

We had a chat about this last, he commented that you have to know who to offer it to - he'd seen people giving 20 free sessions and only 2 or 3 signed up, the others just accepted it because it was free.

Of course I talked much more than that. Maybe too much, I dunno. But that's me. You ask me a question, you get an entertaining story. That's good and bad. TS never laughed but he didn't seem offended.

He asked me to summarise my work history. I thought of what the teacher had said, about people's resumes and what they said not adding up, I wonder if that was a test? As I was telling the truth that wasn't a problem

Anyway it was interesting. The place is really big. Main gym area is 350m2, though perhaps 2/3 of it is treadmills and the like, they've two power cages. Lots of group fitness rooms. A big pool. A stadium for volleyball and basketball. And so on. Impressive. And apparently expanding, too.

He said, "Maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but -" and gave me a Declaration of Injury/Condition form to fill in (some Council requirement), said the next thing was a police check. He'll talk to FD and call me tomorrow about "coming in next week for some prac." I didn't ask details but my impression is I wouldn't be on the gym floor or anything like that, Frank or Tristan would play client while I play PT.

Seems promising.

Update
I was called this morning by FD. Tomorrow (Friday) is his day off, but still he's coming in to interview me for half an hour, then there'll be an hour of roleplay with TS playing... someone. Maybe a 45 year old obese diabetic woman, who knows. So I'll be presented with a scenario, do the health screen and so on, then take 'em through a workout.

Whether I get the job or not, this is an interesting experience which might help others looking at employment in the industry.
 
very cool.

what hours would you work there? do you just come in for personal training clients or do you do some gym floor stuff as well?
 
At this stage, I've not discussed it in detail with them. One step at a time. I know there is gym floor work and that they want to grow their PT business. So my impression is that there'd be a base of 10-20 hours a week of casual or part-time gym floor work, and then I'd be responsible for scoring myself PT clients in sessions outside those hours.

Remember, this job was not advertised. They just had a general advert up for "casual staff", which could have been PTs, receptionists, cleaners, anything. So it's possible even they're not sure exactly what they'll do, I might be the first of a new bunch, might be able to have some input on the arrangements.

No advertisement. My old teacher pointed me the way to someone he knew there. Having someone who knows someone always helps you get your foot in the door, and it means they think well of you before hearing anything from you, but also... if it were like a dozen others I was competing against I might be worried, but since it wasn't advertised I am only competing against myself

So long as I don't do anything stupid tomorrow I should be alright, I think. I would normally not speak so soon, don't want to jinx myself, but as I said, whether I get it or not others can learn from my experiences. Part of that is ups and downs
 
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Good luck big fella, be yourself, dont be nervous. You know what you need to do tomorrow, be confident, make sure the interviewer can see your confident.
 
Cheers, fellahs, confidence shouldn't be a problem.

My wife said to me recently, "the only time I've ever seen you unconfident was after you'd done CPR on that guy who choked in the street." I must bluff well
 
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I went in for my second interview and prac session this morning. It was interesting. FD showed me around the place a bit more, there are lots of spaces for PTs to use if they want to take clients out of the gym. FD seems a good bloke, obviously enthusiastic about the industry. I saw a bit of joking around between him and the gym staff, so it shows the place is fairly friendly. TS laughed when I cracked jokes this time, he must have just had his professional face on the other day.

TS then sat down and played a 19 year old Aussie Rules player who'd been told by his coach to buff up or get out. FD looked on taking notes. Remarkably for someone playing since 7 years old, he'd not had any major injuries, and the minor ones had healed up. He was open-minded about what training to do.

I used their questions. These asked about various illnesses, including mental illness. I said, "really?" and FD said, "It's commoner than you think."
"Yes, I realise that," I said, "but would anyone answer honestly?"
He shrugged. Perhaps it's a council-created thing.

It didn't have specific questions about previous injuries. I think it's probably better to go through body parts and ask, people always forget some ankle break or something they had years ago.

There was no postural assessment.

After that I was supposed to do a programme showthrough for him. Well, that was easy enough - bodyweight squats, pressups and chins to warm up, then squats, deadlifts and bench press. I coached him through the lifts, he did the common sorts of things people do of leaning forward into a squat, letting the bar drift out with the deadlift, that sort of thing. FD made no comment, but I did notice that he was putting a thoughtful finger to his lips at one point - I put my fingers under TS's toes to make sure he put his weight through his heels. I don't know if the thoughtful finger was "WTF is that idiot doing?" or "Hmmm, interesting, I never saw that before."

It was unclear, perhaps we were supposed to just look at the person's posture during the showthrough. Or perhaps it's as I said earlier, it seems that not many PT schools cover posture in any detail. TS had a bit of an anterior pelvic tilt, relatively weak abs, tight hip flexors and was quad-dominant, as well there was some lumbar rotation, left foot forward and right back, suggesting a relative weakness on the right side. Squats could not go to parallel without lumbar flexion.

I didn't mention the postural stuff, on the way home I kept thinking I should have. Really I think this is something I could add to the place. I thought of writing an email to mention this, but my instinct says to leave it alone.

A second scenario was that TS was a 30 year old banker wanting to lose fat, no real health issues. This time I was supposed to actually work him, not just a showthrough. I actually worked him. FD made plain he wanted to see variety, whether that was a genuine idea about how people should be trained or simply that he wanted to see I could offer and coach a variety of exercises I don't know. I just gave him varieties of a deep knee-bend, a pull and a push, with no rest in between, kept him moving.

FD said that they'd talk to each-other and get back to me early next week. It's my birthday on Tuesday, a job there would be an excellent present. Can't beat last year's of my woman proposing, but still

I also saw PA, the guy my old teacher had referred me to, he remembered our conversation but I didn't get to talk to him, though he seemed a good bloke.

As I was walking out FD chased me to ask if I'd given them references. I went back and checked the phone numbers on my resume, I had. This suggests that at least it's not a definite "no".
 
Somewhat related to this topic.

I was made aware of a PT job becoming available, one that I reckon could be one of the best around. Its not your typical PT.

No bikes or treadmills, only functional training, video making skills, public speaking, travel to US, Asia, Europe, NZ.

What really got me though was he wont accept ANY resumes.

Your application needs to be in a written essay. He gives the guy 3 topics, pick one. It needs to be at least 500 words.

Article and blog writing was another skill.

Its a dream job. I honestly dont anyone on here who could do it, otherwise I wouldve pm'ed you, just thought I'd mention a different approach some companies take.

If I didnt have my own business....................

Another comment that interested me was that he wanted an very good lifter with excellent technique.

He said he wanted a "star"

Its 4 months too early for Max unfortunately, he needs to finish VCE, although he is super excited about it.

Good luck Kyle, I'm as keen to find out if you get it as you are.
 
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