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When is a trainer not a trainer?

So I network with a lot of trainers and for that matter I've been rather fortunate to have become friends (online or in real life) with some truly great, successful, well known and even famous trainers around the world who I've had the opportunity to learn from. It's really great to have other people who are just as passionate as you are, to share advice, tips, motivation and encouragement with.

I'll tell you something though... you really do have to learn how to sort the wheat from the chaff. I think I've written before about how much I usually prefer just talking fitness with what you might call "successful enthusiasts" rather than industry professionals... the people I'm referring to above would be exceptions to these rules, the people who are actually knowledgeable, but also have understanding. Understanding means more than just being able to quote so called "facts" from selected articles or studies that support their chosen agenda. People with true understanding know that there are many approaches that can be taken in pursuit of a goal.

Which is not to say that any approach is as good as any other. Lots of people out there are trying to force a square peg into a round hole, with nutritional habits that don't support their training routine, or a training routine that isn't suited to their goal. For that matter some trainers are guilty of pushing these inappropriate methods as well. My point though would be that one who has knowledge AND understanding would realise that what is required for a body builder to reach competition level is not the same as what is required for an obese person to lose 20 kilos. The best approach is the one that stands the best chance of success, and simplicity and ease of compliance is a big part of this.

So you've got actually competent trainers, knowledgeable trainers who may have unrealistic expectations / poor understanding of what their clients actually require, and then you have your run of the mill well-intentioned trainer who has been let down by the industry and not actually learned how to deliver results while pursuing their qualification. There's LOTS of those, unfortunately.

You know what else there's a lot of? Trainers who aren't actually trainers. There's an absolute abundance of these, too!

I'm talking about these self branded "fitness industry leaders" who don't seem to have any interest in actually training anyone. Rather, they'll all about marketing systems, pushing supplements and other products through multilevel marketing schemes, hiring a bunch of inexperienced young trainers on poverty level wages and farming clients out to them... anything other than actually training a client in the gym themselves. These will be a lot of the same guys pushing these bullshit "miracle fat burning formulas" as well. You know, the ones with the "before" picture taken at the end of a weight gain cycle, bloated and full of water... and then the "after pic" when they're lean and carb depleted again. Often the "after" photos are actually taken first! This is a known tactic, I didn't just make it up.

So these guys bother me for a couple of reasons. One being that when I first got qualified and built my website, the constant phone calls trying to sell me their ethically questionable marketing schemes. After about 2 years they seemed to finally get the message and stop calling me. I remember I actually started telling them "i'm not in the industry any more, I have gone back to property management". So... if your sales tactic is unsolicited phone calls hounding people about buying your marketing system... that sort of thing pisses me the hell off, so it's not something I want to learn how to do so I can have other people pissed off at me, right?

The other issue I have is that PT is turning into something more like what a certain network marketing product line is. You know the one I mean. Now those actually have a reputation of being really good products, but it seems like no one's actually interested in selling them, because the money is in being a distributor and having a bunch of people below you doing the selling. PT is becoming a bit like that, except without the high quality of products. It's becoming too many people who aren't actually trainers, just trying to make a fast buck with their marketing skills.

Now there's always an exception to the rule and I'm lucky enough to have a business coach who is actually legit, wants to help people, and only uses ethical means to reach the right clients. Rather than trying to sell to anyone and everyone, without actually being concerned with delivering results. It's enough just to "get people active", right? Bah!

So those are my complaints but let's finish on a positive note with what I'd actually like to see happen in the industry, which all of the Actual Trainers I network with agree on.

  1. Qualifications that actually mean something. 
    By the time you are qualified as a trainer you should actually have the skills, knowledge and understanding to help clients achieve their weight loss and body composition goals, rather than just being taught to "get people moving".
  2. Ethical Marketing Systems
    Just like some of the ridiculous products on TV, there's a huge market of people who aren't actually looking for something that will work. I'd like to see ALL trainers pushing only the true facts about what's required to lose weight and/or get into shape, rather than sensationalist approaches about "secret formulas" or whatever other garbage.



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Is personal training too expensive?

Short answer: No.

Personal training is NOT supposed to be cheap.

A good personal trainer is equal parts sports coach, nutritionist, psychologist, business person, marketing strategist, and health care specialist. You only become a good trainer from years of study, practice, self experimentation and eventually learning to sort the facts from the chaff. If you’re extremely fortunate as I have been, you somehow manage to get noticed by / introduced to some of the best in the business (world wide) and have a chance to learn a few things from them as well, and your clients get the benefit of all this.

Undervaluing (and under pricing) Personal Training only means that you only attract the sort of casual clients who are really just looking for entertainment / an activity to do once a week when the weather is nice and they’re not too tired. You end up haggling over price with people who are happy to pay twice as much at the hairdressers or on a night out, rather than actually helping the sort of people who could most benefit from (and appreciate) your advice.

So once you know that you are actually good at what you do and have proven that you can deliver results, you start to think about which people you want to work with. You set a fair price, and as my coach would say “that’s what it costs, if you don’t want to pay that much then maybe you can find someone cheaper who isn’t as good”.
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There is no reason you can't get into great shape and stay there, IF you actually want to.

I was thinking about reasons a person might fail to lose weight, get into shape, or whatever you want to call it. I posted the other day about how the people who actually want results, get results and how lately I'm getting a lot more legit clients who actually do want to know how to achieve their goals. These people actually follow my advice and, well you can see the comments they leave me, within a week or two they are seeing and feeling a big difference.

I spent a lot of years trying really hard and not getting such great results due to not really knowing what I was doing, not understanding nutrition, listening to too much bro-science and urban myths from guys who thought they knew what they were talking about but really didn't. So now... well I got qualified as a PT, started only listening to seriously knowledgeable PTs and body builders, threw out everything that was bullshit or over complicated... and now it is actually VERY VERY SIMPLE.

And that's what I'm passing on to my clients and online clients and really just anyone who asks (if I think they're actually sincere and will follow the advice. I test 'em out a bit first!). Like I say... the ones who listen, who actually want to know how to get results, are always very successful quite quickly.
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People who WANT results, GET results!

Something kind of awesome has happened in the past 3 or 4 months. I can't put my finger on what I've been doing differently, but there's been a change in that I'm attracting more and more of the people who ACTUALLY WANT RESULTS.

In the past... not all of the time, but some of the time I'd be frustrated trying to help people who would argue / refuse to follow the advice I was giving them. For example "no, I don't want to count calories", "but bread makes you fat", "I'll just starve myself instead", or 3 months later "can you send me that program again? I didn't actually start it or even save the file on my computer but maybe now I can waste your time all over again". Not that I'm bitter! hahah - but it's frustrating when you've actually put a lot of time and thought into a program for someone, trying to make it as straight forward and simple as possible, easy to follow, and sure to get results... and they won't do it?

Anyway I'm pleased to report that those days seem to be over and what I am getting now is people from all over the world who actually follow my advice, and report back with great results almost immediately. People who are trying to get into shape for the first time, people who are already fit and active but not seeing what they'd like to see in the mirror... all sorts of people!

The best part is when people come back for MORE advice because what you told them the first time worked out so well!

Here's some screen shots of the nice things people have been saying;

Personal Training Testimonial


Personal Training Testimonial

Personal Training Testimonial

Personal Training Testimonial


The important thing to notice in ALL of these is that no one is starving or going without. I keep saying this over and over again; it's about eating APPROPRIATELY to build a great physique and kick ass all day every day.

Lots more Personal Training Testimonials are up on my official site. Go have a look. Also I have a brand new site for Free Weight Loss Advice and you'd be crazy not to check that out too.
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"Starvation Mode": fact or myth?

Quite a hotly debated subject it seems!

Well... if you've never heard of it before, the theory of starvation mode is that if you do not hit a certain minimum level of calories, your metabolism slows down and your body will start to store more fat.

It's a subject of contention because, well some would say "you cannot put on fat unless you are eating MORE calories than are required to maintain your current weight". And that seems quite logical to me.

HOWEVER there's a bit of a hole in this argument. I'm thinking when people make that argument, it's based on saying "well you're this age, this height, this weight; therefore your maintenance calories is this amount and you cannot gain fat unless you eat more than this". I don't think that's correct.

In most cases you can do the math as described above (also taking account for gender and activity levels) and predict a person's maintenance requirements with reasonable accuracy. Everyone is a little different and interpretations of activity levels can vary but still you can end up with a ball park figure that's pretty close to correct. From there, you just pay attention and tweak things a little as necessary.

Of course... here's the big problem that I think people are forgetting. This equation assumes that we are talking about human beings under normal (medical) circumstances. So, you have the rather odd logic where someone says "if you do this, it'll screw things up and you'll put on fat", and the response is "no, under normal circumstances that is impossible", and the first guy rightly points out "that's why I said 'screw things up', it is no longer normal circumstances". You guys following me on this?

So the theory goes that due to being under-fuelled the body says "ok I need to conserve energy". Metabolism slows and hormonal balance changes. Often the thyroid is affected and stops (or reduces) production of hormones that effect how we burn fat stores. Cortisol production can increase as well, which also encourages the body to hang on to those fat stores.

So at the very least... you could see that the effect might be that the body stubbornly holds on to those fat stores, and perhaps stores more fat at the expense of lean mass. That's assuming we still accept that "you cannot gain weight at below maintenance calories".... so, what we're talking about here is more fat without an increase in weight.

I actually think the human body is far more mysterious than that though. And when you mess with it and make it unhealthy (in this case by under fuelling, perhaps combined with over training), all bets are off. The rules do not apply any more. Results are completely unpredictable. That's why you get people who are quite overweight or obese, despite eating way too few calories to be healthy... or, maybe they're just lying to me about how much they really eat?

Anyway consider this. There was a story not so long ago in the news about a guy who had this massive, like MASSIVE 96kg tumour that needed removed for obvious reasons. Now, I forget where this happened but it wasn't a western country so there were issues with the medical facilities and so forth... so, I'm thinking 3rd world conditions, not an affluent society. So my point is, you're telling me this guy who is otherwise very lean is eating enough to support an extra 96kg of body weight in the form of a tumour?

I mean... I had a tumour once (thyroid) but I was a bit fat and unhealthy at the time and it was maybe a kilo or two (fist sized) not fricken 96 kg. Where the hell does the human body get the resources to grow that thing?

I dunno how it works. I'm not saying that I do. My point is, when we're outside of normal medical circumstances, usual expectations of how things work do not apply. So when you screw with your body with ridiculously low calories, I'm prepared to accept that it's possible to put on weight in the form of increased fat.

Here's the thing though about starvation mode. I'm saying I think it does exist / happen, BUT not in the way that a lot of people talk about it. It's not going to kick in just because you under eat one day for some reason. We're talking about the effects of prolonged under eating, not just skipping a meal or two.

So the bottom line here is; if you're active, training hard and expecting to see a great physique when you look in the mirror, you had better be eating right! Not too much, not too little.

I've been doing some online PT lately and also just giving advice to anyone who asks for it, and rather a lot of people have been coming back to me saying "since I increased my calories like you told me to, I'm seeing much better results already".

More on this subject? Check here: Too Much Exercise, Too Little Food?
Also: Over Training While Under Eating
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