About becoming a personal trainer

Kyle Aaron said:

edit - posted at the same time as hyjak, don't mean to jump ahead of someone with more experience in it! Thanks mate.

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no probs, im not that experienced i just happen to be around chains and bands and stuff when they are being used.

Hyjak, since Markos has run away, could you start a thread talking about what you've seen in chains and bands and so on? We could learn a lot.

That's excellent to hear, Bree. I'm glad I won't be alone in my approach! It's a bit sneaky but I think forgiveable.

The weights are in a separate room? That's bad. My gym is one of three run by the local council, so the staff sometimes move around. I was talking to a trainer from another gym, he commented that the thing he dislikes about the other place is that the weights and cardio gear are in separate rooms, so the people are less likely to cross over; the lifters don't walk or run, and the cardio people don't lift. Ours is mixed, which is as it should be.

Not that I ever use treadmills or bikes, I have outdoors to walk and ride in, but still if they're there then they should be mixed in with the weights.

Often when doing compound lifts, people who've stalled in the reps/weight they can use will have stalled because one part is weaker than the other. If for example you can get it off your chest but can't lock out, then often (though not always) it's because your triceps are weak relative to your pecs. So this kind of exercise builds up the triceps' strength while still working the pecs - as opposed to just doing skullcrushers to build up tris, for example.

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That's where a Pre-Exhaust system comes into play. By employing such a system you eliminate the wink link in the chain of events.

So taking a bench press as an example; you’d do flys first which will isolate the pec muscles whilst leaving the triceps relatively fresh. After a couple of sets of this pre-exhausting the major muscle (the pec), you perform your compound exercise for that body part. Now if you fail in the compound movement, it will be due to the exhaustion of the major muscle (the one you intended to train in the first place) and not the assistant muscles i.e. the triceps.

I’ve got a strong feeling everyone knew that already though. That’s why I haven’t been getting involved in such discussions Kyle.


Fadi.

I asked the Russian former kickboxer today what supplements they used in their training. He pointed to his head. "That's it."

This on the same day that one bloke was talking about "I did a supplement run, spent $400." Many of the guys in the class have started buying protein drinks from the campus gym. The gym is rather lacking in members, I think they make all their money from the $6 protein drinks and the $120 protein powder bottles

I still read, but I feel its pointless posting on this forum at this particular time, thats all. I follow this thread closely as I find it interesting.

I actually read all the threads, I'm just not commenting. I'm not interested in arguing, if someone wants my opinion, they have been pming me and emailing me.

Keep up the good work Kyle.

Fadi, while pre exhaust AND post exhaust has merits, the one thing it lacks is the OVERLOAD principle, chains have both formats covered there

Yesterday at PT school a woman was saying she wanted six-pack abs and would do zillions of crunches, etc for them. When I said she also needed to diet away fat and build up the rest of her body, and that she'd reach a limit with ab development unless she developed other parts, too... she got very annoyed with me.

Apparently she thinks that if she's crouched over from having strong abs and weak back they'll look awesome, and that they can grow so phenomenally they'll bulge through 20% bodyfat, and that the loose skin from dieting bodyfat down will somehow tighten itself without the help of other muscles' growth.

Unfortunately the course can not address these things, because no course can make up for someone going "la la la I can't hear you!" You ever have to dig up a Mallee root? That's what people's preconceptions are like.

Some people think the human body is some kind of machine where you can just take parts in and out without it affecting the rest, rather than thinking of it as a whole.

At the end of my workout today, I stripped the bar and went for a drink, and came back to get my coat. I saw a young skinny bloke who'd been watching while I squatted had put 5kg plates on and was giving it a go. I mean, really skinny. He had fairly good form, lower back nicely tucked in, though he shifted his feet a little bit around as he went up and down, and went just short of parallel but still - there he was, just someone doing a good old compound lift.

I was so happy to see someone else squatting instead of just walking for hours on the treadmill or doing endless sets of bicep curls, and a newbie at that, I broke my rule about minding my own business except with those who might injure themselves. I asked how long he'd been doing them, he said it was his first time, that he'd done them with dumbells before, and he actually asked me for advice. He'd seen me do them, he said, so he was giving them a go.

Now, as you all know, I am no expert. I have a crap back, and am squatting a measly 60kg. But there was honestly no-one else there who squats at all, and the PT was busy. So I was the guy, and to be honest I was glad to do it. It felt really good to encourage a new young person. The he said, "I'm not doing much weight, I want to learn the movement and get it right first." I wanted to hug him!

It's moments like that make me sure that training people is the right new career for me. I know they won't come every day, and that for eager and sensible kid there'll be a dozen middle-aged fat blokes who want to do endless sets of curls and slightly chubby young women who say "I just want to tone up," and that nine-tenths of them will just bail in the first three months... but still...

Sometimes there will come along a person who knows the value of basic hard training with good form, and who is ambitious but patient. And this person will perhaps stick with it and do really well. If I can contribute to that, well I'll be happy.

sets & reps, strength, hypertrophy & endurance
Today we learned about recommend sets and reps depending on client goals, strength vs hypertrophy (size). The claim is basically that,

• for endurance, 12-20 reps of 40-60% 1RM
• for size, 8-12 reps of 60-80% 1RM
• for strength, 1-6 reps of 80-90% 1RM

with 7 reps being orphaned. Though throughout the manual we're given slightly different figures, with up to 8 reps being mentioned for strength, and as low as 6 reps for size. That's just the poor editing of the book coming in again, though (hundreds of pages produced by one person in a rush before term starts, you can't blame the writers for that).

What's interesting to me is that when you look into this, we have as usual book knowledge and experience. The book knowledge comes from surprisingly few studies. The studies usually go something like, "23 young adult males were put on a 12 week programme, 12 with 3x 4-6 at 85% of 1RM, 11 with 4x 8-12 at 70% of 1RM, when all sets could be completed with the highest reps, 5% was added to the weight in the next session. After the 12 weeks, the first group had added 25% to their 1RM and had increased lean mass by 1kg, the second group had added 10% to their 1RM and had increased lean mass by 3kg."

So it's studies not involving heaps of people, and the results aren't usually dramatic and extremely clear-cut.

So much for book knowledge. Experience is more interesting. We have guys like Reg Park doing 5x5 (2 warmup, 3 work sets of 5 reps) of 80-90% 1RM and getting as much size as any natural bodybuilder today. And we have people like a friend of mine who's a rower, she does sessions of about 20 strokes per minute for 20 minutes, in other words something like 400 reps of 20-30% 1RM... and she has an upper back and shoulders as good as some amateur-level bodybuilders. Park should only have gained strength and not size, says the theory, while my friend should only have gained endurance. And yet...

And there's my own experience where I worked in a sheet metal factory, I had no sets or reps, I just had to shove around hundreds of kilograms of sheet steel. Or when in the Army, we had no weights we just did zillions of pushups and pullups and jumping jacks and so on. And with those jobs, I got bigger and stronger both.

I don't deny that lower reps for heavier weights build more strength than size, higher reps with lower weights build more endurance, and somewhere in the middle size gains are maximised. I just don't think it's as clear-cut as our instruction makes out.

I said as much to our teacher, who replied, "It's true there's not much evidence for what we're teaching you. But we have to give you some guidelines for what to tell clients to do."

I can understand that, but it also boils down to, "we don't really know, so we're just making it up." That's not the fault of the teacher or institution as such, but still.

As I see it, so long as you go and stress your muscles and sweat you'll get bigger and stronger. So if I've some client who really wants to do 12 reps instead of 5, or whatever, I won't worry too much. If I'm there supervising all the time then I can get them to do it my way, or the "ideal" way. But if I'm giving them a programme and then sending them off to do it until a reassessment three months later (as in most mainstream gyms), then we're both better off giving them something they'll enjoy and stick to.

Which brings me to...

The Soviet Boxer strikes again!
Well, he didn't hit anyone, but he did cause them some pain! You may remember that last week he had me supersetting leg press and leg curls, and finishing off with drop sets on the leg press, and no rest between sets, only supersets - I was sore for 3-4 days afterwards. I thought this was pretty hardcore given that in the trainer-trainee roleplay we were doing, I was supposed to be a 35 year old guy who had never trained before.

He did it again to a guy this week, supersetting lat pulldowns with tricep pushdowns, and bench press with bicep curls. And no rest between sets, only supersets as before. And 12-15 reps... when the guy's goal was size.

We discussed this in class, and the teacher said, "But he's a beginner."
"Is beginner! Is why he must do this! Get fitter! It's aerobic."
"But he won't get fitter, he'll be in pain and not come back. Or if he comes back... will he really be able to remember the different exercises, and superset himself?"
"I will help him."
"But this is a gym environment, you ask his goals, give him a programme to match them, show him through it, and then he does it on his own. And what about the reps? He want hypertrophy."
"But needs fitness, cannot get hypertrophy in first months."
"But his goals..."

I mention this not to pick on Soviet Boxer, who is a great guy and has a lot of experience, and who if he had complete control of someone's training could help them do great things. But that's the thing - in the mainstream gym environment, you don't have complete control of what they're doing, you don't get to supervise them all the time. As the teacher said, you ask them their goals, write the thing up, and have to come up with something they can and will stick to.

It's very different if you're there the whole time supervising the person, and if you can make them stay when they want to leave, or if they're highly motivated to stay (like athletes).

This really is the heart of things in the course, and it's something many are finding difficult to grasp. Which doesn't surprise me, because as we all know, when you do go to a mainstream gym... they give you whatever they reckon is the best workout, rather than what would be best for your stated goals.

I'm really seeing why one teacher was saying that communication and empathy are the essence of being a competent trainer in a mainstream gym.

Good luck with your study.

It´s a very challenging but fun profession

Today we partnered up for training. We were told, "Teach each-other, afterwards I'll ask what you each learned from the other."

I grabbed Noodles. "Teach me how you got so strong!" I said.

"Well it wasn't anything in the gym. Martial arts stuff."

I asked him about it, it was heaps of bodyweight stuff. Pushups, leaping pushups in a circle (where you jump up and see how many pushups it takes you to move around in a full circle), quick squats, and so on.

After the gym session, I said, "I learned that you don't need bars and plates to get strong, you just need to work your muscles really hard and sweat a lot. Which bars and plates are good for, but..."

At lunch the lads were sitting around swapping broscience as usual, one of the guys didn't know what fibre was. "Makes you do nice poos," I said.
"What?"
"Makes you do proper shits, instead of protein powder brick shits," said another guy, "cleans you out."

We haven't had our nutrition class yet, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Kyle,

You got to admit though, the broscience must be entertaining right?
Bodybuilding would be pretty boring and non-unique without it.

Oh, definitely. I love it, it gives me a good laugh every lunchtime and about half my gym sessions are cheered up with it.

My favourite is still,

"The concentric builds size, the eccentric builds strength."

Said by a qualified PT, of course.

For those unfamiliar with obscure latin terms:-
Concentric:- When you contract your muscle and it shortens, eg in the up-phase of a bicep curl
Eccentric:- When you contract your muscle and it lengthens, eg in the down-phase of a bicep curl.

I think it would be a good idea if we posted a thread on the best, most ridiculous, funniest, etc broscience you have ever heard...

But someone will mention isolating lower pecs or or upper biceps or something like that and the defenders of that particular bit of broscience will pop up.... and thus flames. That's a fire I won't start a thread for, I'll just toss an ember or two into my own threads now and then

Keen Katie was complaining that a whole day or something had gone by without an update. Well, I was wondering about depictions of personal trainers in the popular media. The only movie I could find with PTs in it was Burn After Reading, in which Brad Pitt plays one and is really, really stupid.

I think this is where Shrek gets his image of PTs.


That's me after I've graduated Cert IV.

Are there any other depictions of trainers in the popular media? Apart from football coaches and stuff, I mean.

He's not a PT, he's a dweeb, lycra wearing fairy.

P.S - Yeah, I guess he is a PT then.

Who cares if a man is an idiot if he looks like Brad Pitt?

All the PTs in the media are a bit hardcore and mostly connected to The Biggest Loser.

Haha, I saw Burn after Reading. Good stuff

Hmm, depictions of PT in the media? Have to agree with Bree there...

I prefer the Brad Pitt depiction to those in Biggest Loser. I'd rather be stupid than an arsehole offering clients utterly unrealistic expectations and give them training likely to cause injury.

Biggest Loser sucks because they begin with freaks. They're not freaks because they're so obese, they're freaks because they're so obese and yet have no major health problems. Most people that size will have some combination of adult onset diabetes, severe back pain, knee problems, liver and kidney dysfunction, and so on. But if you have those problems you can't get onto the show - they don't want anyone dying on them. Even so, there are always two ambulances waiting just out of camera shot.

Ordinary people won't have that.

Biggest Loser sucks because of the nutrition aspect. It's made theatrical with people being offered huge plates of chocolate cakes and the like. What's not mentioned on the show is that the people have trained nutritionists overseeing the preparation of all their meals for the months of the show.

Ordinary people won't have that.

Biggest Loser sucks because they have the people lose fat too fast. This risks damage to liver, kidneys, endocrine system and so on. If you're grossly or morbidly obese, yes you can lose a few kilograms a week for the first month or two. But in general 0.5-1kg a week is the most you can healthily lose.

Biggest Loser sucks because they put the people through training likely to injure them. A 200kg person should not be running. When a person runs, a force of up to five times their bodyweight goes through each knee as they put their foot down. So that's a tonne through their knee each time, not to mention their back, hip and so on. There's a reason the contract says once the show is over the client accepts full responsibility. These stupid ideas have spread. I've seen PTs having clients carry truck tyres down beaches in the morning.

Altogether, it gives people unrealistic expectations. "Well, I can be fat for a bit longer, when the doctor tells me I really have to change, I can do it in just a few months, easy." Biggest Loser is as an accurate depiction of physical training and sound nutrition as MASH is of the Army. And less funny.