About becoming a personal trainer

My old gym was a YMCA gym, you will love it Kyle, full of fat old ladies for you to sculpt!
Posted via Mobile Device

Someone has to do it.

Well done Kyle.

Nice one Kyle.
Keep us up to date with how you go

Good luck.

Hey guys.
I have a great opportunity at the end of the year to have a career change.
Their are 2 similar, but different , paths that I'm looking at.
1. Outdoor recreation camp leader.
Take kids rock climbing, ab sailing, bush walking........ That would be fun, out in the fresh air ect....

2. Strength coach.
Obviosly I'm not the strongest guy around, nor do I know everything I need to. What I do know is, I'm keen as mustard. I currently train 6 mates from home. 3 free of charge, 3 make a "donation" to my money box. Every 6 months I crack it open, and buy some more gear for the gym. For the 12hrs I spend in the gym every week, I receive about $40. Not exactly millionaire $$$.
I don't do it for the cash at the moment I do it because its fun. So far 3 can pull 200, 1 pulls 180, the other 2 (sub 70kg) pull 160. By years end, I expect they all will be pulling 200 easy.

Id love to get paid for this.
Im moving in with the in-laws at the end of the year, in place called maleny. I'm renting a shed in town for all my gear and a place to train. It would be a perfect spot to train others.

One problem. I have no certs. Which means no insurance.
Can you get insurance with out any certs?
Posted via Mobile Device

Check out your strength and conditioning certs that ASCA do.

I actually called Greg? Gary? The guy that runs the local one in maleny. I asked him if i was employable, he then asked what my qualifications were. Obviously i have none, so he quickly changed to subject to my training. I told him i was heading down to nationals. He says he holds or had held plenty of world records with PA. In the next breath he told me to come check out his next push/pull comp. I thought it was bench and dead, but it was actually bench and BICEP CURL! I was like wtf, and could not take him
Serious after that.

I'm going up on Friday to visit the inlaws so I might check out his gym a bit more and see about prices for the course he runs. If he won't consider employing me, even if I dona course, I'll Just look at opening my own little studio.
Posted via Mobile Device

I went to the YMCA today, it was interesting. There were two people interviewing me, one the manager, the other a membership services officer, she was interested but seemed unconfident about the process, I think she might have just been grabbed by the manager, "We're supposed to have two people interview."

Apparently they work with disabled kids a fair bit, he asked how I felt about that.

"Doesn't worry me. I see it this way: any official medical condition is just an extreme version of what any of us might have day-to-day. Like a Down's kid, what are their issues? They have difficulty understanding things, have difficulty concentrating on tasks, and have trouble with social boundaries. Well, all of us at times have difficulty understanding things, or have some stuff we just never get, we all sometimes have difficulty concentrating, and sometimes we mess up social boundaries.

"And then there's functional and structural increased kyphosis, and so on. A medical condition is usually just an extreme version of an everyday condition. They're just people, they're not their condition, they're people. And each person has their capabilities and goals, you work with them with those in mind."

They seemed to like that. "That's a good way of putting it." They went through a list of questions.
"Some of these," he said, "are a bit technical, I don't expect you to know the answers to them all, this is just to get an idea where you are."
"Rightyo."
"What are the major muscles involved in the squat? I don't mean the stabilisers and that, just the major movers."
"Gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps. And in sumo squats, gluteus medius."
"And what are the muscles of the hamstrings?"
"Biceps femoris, semitendinosus, semimembranosus."
Etc, like that.

That they ask such questions tells me that some people can't answer correctly. They wouldn't bother asking questions everyone gets right. For this reason, and their generally friendly and "that's a good way to put it" reactions, I expect to be one of those they choose for a practical session.

They asked me the usual questions about strengths and weaknesses and all that. I said, "In two years I see myself potty-training my kid. Just got married in December. But for paid work, well - like I said to Arthur the other day, I'd like to have a waiting list of clients."
"Here, or self-employed?"
"Here. Self-employed you have to concentrate on sales and GST paperwork. I'd rather focus on the clients."
I said I saw my strengths as empathy and being able to explain things simply, and a weakness was that I could never just answer a question, I always had to tell it as a story. Which may not come as a surprise to any of you

Sounds like you did really well Kyle. Your point about disabled children is a good way to put it, that is how I dealt with the kids I used to work with. I knew their limitations from how they moved, balanced etc and worked on what they could do and tried to increase their ability from there. Sometimes there are some important things to know about certain disabilities but most of those you learn as you go. The important medical problems are usually well known.

"And what are the muscles of the hamstrings?"

Click to expand...

Very technical, to make it advanced they may even ask you were the insertion and origin of the muscles are...

Yeah well I don't know about working with disabilities, that's specialist stuff. As I understand it, they're talking more about mentally than physically disabled kids. And that's no big deal.

They could have asked origin, insertion... stabilising and synergistic muscles... you know, the stuff that anyone would know if they've passed a course. As I said, that they ask these things suggests some people they interview don't know. Which is only scary if those people get hired.

I suppose you have to remember that it's a gym instructor job they're advertising for, just Cert III, and they do seem to have a career development path of mentoring people and sending them off to do Cert IV or Dip Fit or whatever. And I imagine some clueless people do pass these courses, if the course is particularly bad.

I said in all honesty I that I think PTing ought to be like electrician, chef, etc, and be an apprenticeship system - you have a master who leads and instructs you, as well as going to school, and after 2-4 years you're ready to go. "So," I said, "in two years I hope to have finished my apprenticeship."

And that's no big deal.

Click to expand...

These words may come back to haunt you. Try having 20 mentally disabled (most mentally disabled people will have a physical condition as well) adults playing a game of netball... one does not like what happens and he is about 6'5 and 100 odd kilos... thats when the fun starts.

I guess for a cert III I would not expect too much from the applicant either especially seeing what is taught out there.

I'll be a gym instructor and personal trainer. I wouldn't expect to coach 20 playing netball - and I would expect that to be a big deal.

1 or 2 at a time is a different matter.

I'm well aware that many have beahvioural difficulties, too. My old man's a care worker for people acquired brain injuries. That's serious stuff. But that's also specialist stuff. Again, I wouldn't expect the Y to have me work with people with serious behavioural issues. That'd be unprofessional, to say the least.

What I was given to expect was simply that some of those going to the gym would be mentally or physically disabled, would be under the supervision of a professional carer, and I'd be stepping in and assisting as needed. Just as, for example, if some soccer coach with completely healthy kids brought their team in for a strength workout.

I'm quite comfortable with that.

They actually asked for Cert III and IV. But some schools...

A friend who works at management level in the industry spoke to me about my report of my interview yesterday,

"With the questions they asked, even HM qualified people rarely get them correct. Of the 300-400 people we've interviewed over the past 5 years I would say that less than a dozen would have know the hamstring answer. Most don't know what excessive kyphosis or lordosis are."

"WTF?! But this is all stuff covered in the courses... I mean fair enough if you did it ten years ago and haven't worked in the industry since, but if you are recently qualified and/or had worked recently.... I should feel smart, but I just feel scared! What happens if I'm the smartest guy in the room?!"

"You would be surprised to see what qualifies as a PT."

In happy news, I referred a client to a physiotherapist, the physio rang me to chat about the client, and spontaneously offered to pass my cards along to clients in my area.
"Medical professionals willing to talk to PTs are rare," I said.
"And PTs who realise they don't know everything are rarer," he replied.

Kyle I had this problem (if you remember) with my fellow Masters students we had a 50% pass rate for a (what I consider) basic PT overview exam. Sure we didn't just spend a semester learning it but we were told the material and had a semester to prepare. I read over the stuff the week before and got the highest mark (high 80's), it was not hard yet it seems people are just forgetting all they are learning through no practical utilisation (me included). Sadly for me getting the higher mark didn't make me feel
smart but a bit scared with the knowledge people just didn't have. It is sad that the PT manager finds a lot of people can not distinguish the Hamstring muscles from Human Movement backgrounds, you should be able to distinguish origins, insertions, actions, how to manipulate joint positions to involve muscle more etc. But I am not surprised as anatomy has been taking a back seat to physiology these days.

Great work getting in with the Physio I like his comeback both were very correct.
Posted via Mobile Device

dave said:

Kyle I had this problem (if you remember) with my fellow Masters students we had a 50% pass rate for a (what I consider) basic PT overview exam. Sure we didn't just spend a semester learning it but we were told the material and had a semester to prepare. I read over the stuff the week before and got the highest mark (high 80's), it was not hard yet it seems people are just forgetting all they are learning through no practical utilisation (me included). Sadly for me getting the higher mark didn't make me feel
smart but a bit scared with the knowledge people just didn't have. It is sad that the PT manager finds a lot of people can not distinguish the Hamstring muscles from Human Movement backgrounds, you should be able to distinguish origins, insertions, actions, how to manipulate joint positions to involve muscle more etc. But I am not surprised as anatomy has been taking a back seat to physiology these days.

Great work getting in with the Physio I like his comeback both were very correct.
Posted via Mobile Device

Click to expand...

Half the problem most things are just better learnt and taught through actual experience and practice.

For example we had a prac on tkaing blood pressure manually and a few other diagnostics the other day.. None made sense on paper, then when you do it and figure it out and feel it foryour self its such a piece of piss that its a bit embarassing you thought you sohuld read about it to start with...

There will always be things that you need to do not read...

dave said:

I read over the stuff the week before and got the highest mark (high 80's), it was not hard yet it seems people are just forgetting all they are learning through no practical utilisation (me included).

Click to expand...

Yep, I can understand that, as I said if you've not worked in the industry, I can see you forgetting it. I mean, I did calculus and chemistry in HSC, do I remember integrals and valence pair bonding or whatever the hell it was? Of course not!

But if you're going for a job, surely you'd bone up on the stuff in the days before, just in case. I thought they'd ask me something obscure like what the teres minor or the serratus anterior do, or how to focus on the vastus medialis as opposed to the quadriceps as a whole. The most obscure he got was how a lat pulldown differs from a seated cable row - and I think he made that up the spot, not from his little list.

Great work getting in with the Physio I like his comeback both were very correct.

Click to expand...

Definitely a good professional contact to have, yes. He is an Army Reservist physio, I think it might've been that establishing the trust.

n00bs said:

Half the problem most things are just better learnt and taught through actual experience and practice.

Click to expand...

Actually, what educators say is that most things are best learned through a diversity of methods. That's why we have textbooks, and lectures, and tutorials, and prac sessions. With all the different stuff going in, some of it should stick. That's the theory, anyway.

I have a terrible memory, I could never just memorise all the muscles, I sat in my exams waving my arms and legs around as I tried to remember which muscle did what and was where.

I have a prac interview at the YMCA next Wednesday. It'll be much the same as the one I did at the other place. He cautioned they wouldn't tell me the scenario ahead of time.

"Um... I didn't think you would."
"Well some places send out an email saying, this is the scenario, a client who is this age with this health condition etc."
"Clients don't do that, though. So why would you in the prac session?"
"You're right. I guess they want to give them the best chance though."
"Fair enough."

Down to 2 or 3 people now, apparently. I wonder if we all knew the muscles of the hamstrings?

Good luck Kyle. I'm sure you'll do well, after reading how you've been going so far

Good luck mate.

Today arrived in the mail the paper registration from Fitness Australia, card and so on. I'd sent it in on 2010-06-24, so it took basically a month.

I went for the practical interview at the YMCA today. The scenario was a fit 61 year old woman wanting to get stronger for tennis. As with the other place, the first part was the health screen and initial assessment, the second part the programme showthrough, and lastly a quick PT session.

My good points, they said in feedback afterwards, were very good rapport and good exercise coaching, my bad points were going into a bit too much explanation - not too technical, just too long. Nobody would suspect this of me, I'm sure. I think that's a good point with certain clients, but this was feedback for an interview, I wasn't going to argue the point.

In terms of programme design, of course I did legs, push, pull - no corrective was needed. The bad points mentioned in feedback were two, first that I didn't have a general warmup. The client was beginning with bodyweight squats - I viewed that as enough warmup, they wanted 5 minutes on the treadmill or something. I know of no studies showing that it reduces the incidence of injury, only that it improves performance a bit - but makes no difference to beginners. But if it makes them happy and feel secure, well it does no harm.

The second was that I gave the client an inverted row with her knees up. This, they said, was "too advanced" for her. I thought but didn't say, "she performed the exercise correctly, without pain or injury, it wasn't easy but was hard - so it was exactly right."

However, on thought I recalled that this was a gym instructor scenario, not a PT scenario. A gym instructor is going to give the person exercise then send them off to do them alone, a PT is there watching the whole time. So a PT can give them stuff just on the edge of what they're capable of, a GI has to err on the side of the easier exercise.

There were a number of obviously experienced and intelligent trainers there. In fact my "client" turned out to be an Older Adults Trainer. So I feel I could learn a lot at this place.

So I went for the prac interview at 1300, finished 1425, got called up and offered the job just now at 1705. Admirably fast work. Tomorrow morning I go in for the induction. They'll do a Working With Children check, too.

Now I have two jobs. Both are currently part-time casual. There's a third job I've been considering applying for, it's closer to home. I couldn't juggle 3 jobs, but it can be good to have 1 more job offered to you than you need, in case 1 of them falls through for some reason, or you decide you prefer one the least, and so on.

My impression is that the council run gym will give me a lot of freedom to train people as I wish, and I'll learn a bit from other trainers; the YMCA will give me less freedom, but I'll learn more. So the two jobs complement each-other in many respects.

Wow and here I thought inverted rows were the easy method to get to pullups!

Maybe next time just put them on a machine you know that is easy and completely safe

Good work on the offer, who would have thought that you could ever give long winded answers to questions, NEVER! Remember to keep it simple for your trainees, kinda like you are talking to nOObs