Integrity and the importance of a clear conscience

Following on from my post about Business Planning For Independent Personal Trainers earlier this week, a little talk about integrity in business. Now... it's no secret that there's a lot of scumbags and scam artists out there in any field of business and especially in weight loss. There's certainly money to be made through having no integrity, dubious ethics and misleading marketing practices, but I'm pretty sure you're not interested in learning how to do any of that. I'd like to think most people in the PT business are genuine and actually want to help people though, and apart from having to compete with and avoid being screwed by the dishonest business people, there are a few other points that might be an issue as well.

What I mean by integrity is equal parts doing the right thing by yourself and doing the right thing by other people. We're in the business of helping people, but that doesn't mean we do so to our own detriment. This means we charge a fair rate, we pay a reasonable fee for use of the facilities, and we do the right thing by cleaning up after ourselves and so forth.

If you are dealing with people (gym owners) who also have integrity, this will be enough to foster a mutually beneficial arrangement. By marketing yourself, you are also marketing the gym. When you sign a new client, the gym also gets a new member. Maybe the client also buys a set of gloves, supplements, water before training and a protein shake after training. You are contributing to the success of the facility, and in return you have the opportunity to use the facilities to become successful in your own business.

This is a fair arrangement and provided you are doing the right thing in terms of paying your fees on time, cleaning up after yourself and so on, most ethical business owners will be only too happy to have you on board. The good ones will leave you to run your business as you see fit, and the really good ones will assist you in becoming more successful, perhaps by promoting and recommending you to potential new clients, or by actively mentoring you either in your approach to training or business development skills.

These opportunities are somewhat rare though, so as I said in the previous entry if you are lucky enough to find one treat it like gold. It is an invaluable asset. The opposite and more common people you may find yourself dealing with are the more self centred, short sighted type... who are happy for you to be there and to be making money, but only if they are making more money from you being there than you are making yourself.

These sort of people are good at painting things into a light where you being successful is unfair and something you should feel guilty about, as if you are being greedy in wanting to make enough money to pay your own bills or something, even while making a fair contribution to their business as well. Avoid these types if you can, but if you find that you're dealing with one the value of integrity is that you already know that you are making a fair contribution, doing the right thing, and are entitled to make a fair profit for your efforts. Therefore, you have no reason to give in to unfair demands due to doubting your own intentions or value.

I'll tell you some stories about a gym owner like this that I had to endure some other time.

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Effective Training Programs For Men And Women

I'm gonna do a post about the difference in training programs for men and for women. That is, the difference in effective programs for men and women; not the difference between programs marketed towards one sex or the other.

I was working in a little gym last year and I would say 90% of the people didn't really have "a program" as far as I could tell. Especially the females were mostly just doing the usual bike, treadmill, x-trainer "plus some dumbbells to tone the arms" sort of ... unproductive activities, let's call them.

So anyway I took it upon myself to put people on an actual program. Pretty much the same as the free program on Lose Weight No Bullshit, right? And people were happy because someone had finally shown them how to use some of the equipment and explained why it was useful, and they felt like they were actually doing something worthwhile that would produce results.

But you know... a few times I had to sort of explain or justify myself to people who thought they knew better. Like, shouldn't everyone get a different program? Shouldn't males and females do different programs?

Well, not really. The difference in how men and women train usually come down to not knowing any better. Once you actually have some understanding of effective training, you realise that it's not about programs for men or programs for women. It is about programs for human beings. 

Now how you put these programs together can vary a little or a lot but there are a few bases that always need to be covered, as follows:

• Pushing Movements
• Pulling Movements
• Bending & Extending At The Knee
• Bending & Extending At The Hip

You can do this with free weights, leverage machines, cable machines, body weight exercises, TRX, resistance tubes... and you have different choices of exercises from each of these options. A competent trainer will be able to choose the most suitable option, or variety of options for each client from within their preferred method and either ascend or descend them as required. That is, make each exercise more or less challenging to suit the current abilities of the client.

Regardless of age, sex, ability level, natural aptitude or even your goal. You do it by getting stronger and healthier. Sporting performance goal? You need to get stronger and healthier. Body composition, weight loss or aesthetics based goal? You need to get stronger and healthier.

Any effective training program is about making human beings, people, stronger and healthier.

And happier.

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Deadlift session from the weekend

With my main man SuperJubs aka Toast And Iron on Tumblr.

Progression was 150kg, 160kg, 165kg and 170kg... except I could quite pull the 170... for now!

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Evolution of my Progressive Power, Precision & Pump Program.

This is the training program we build up to in my Online Personal Training aka Coaching Via Email program, and it's also how I train in the gym. Generally speaking, it's pretty similar to what I'll be having my clients in Brunswick doing as well.

But that's not to say it's a "one size fits all" approach. Although it is a movement based program, and it's simply based on natural movements that make for a comprehensive and effective full body training program. Generally speaking, we have basic pushing, pulling, bending at the knee, and bending at the hips exercises that all human beings should be performing, unless they have a very good reason not to. With that being said, there are a variety of exercises to choose from when building a training program that covers all of these movements. And a different choice of exercise may be more suitable and more beneficial for different clients.

So within the Coaching Via Email program, we follow the program utilising a variety of exercises for each of these movements as well as for complimentary accessory exercises. The Coaching Via Email program culminates in the creation of a custom training program, built from the clients own choice of exercises within the basic framework of the movement based program.

Here's now the program evolved. It started off as a very simple, 2 day, push / pull split. As follows:

• 2 day split movement based program, 
• pushing movements one day, 
• pulling movements the next. 
• horizontal and vertical pushing and pulling movements 
• with suitable accessory exercises to complement each. 
• also pushing or pulling lower body movements, 
• and suitable accessory exercises for each. 

Simple, but within this 2 day split we have two variations: as follows:

• Let's call it Split A, beginning with the horizontal movement. 
• and Split B, beginning with the vertical movement. 
• on each split, the lower body / leg exercises are in the middle of the session. 

But wait... doesn't that mean we are doing twice as much upper body work as lower body work?

• Balance that out with a new split with more leg work. 
• This time start with legs, 
• then some upper body, 
• and finish with more legs. 

At some point in time... actually quite early on I decided I wanted to do a multiple angle program, rather than just vertical and horizontal movements. Therefore:

• Split C, as described above and the upper body work is an incline press on push day, 
• and a high to low row on pull day. 
• Split D, as described above but the upper body work is a decline press on push day, 
• and a low to high, or upright row on pull day. 

It's starting to be damn complicated right? There's more though. Different rep ranges, depending on the movement and exercise:

• POWER selection, higher resistance (aka heavier weights) for less reps. 
• also, PROGRESSIVE POWER selection, increasingly heavy weights for decreasing reps. aka pyramid sets. 
• PRECISION exercises, higher reps, moderate weight, focussing on strict technique to target a specific muscle or muscle group. 
• PUMP section, highest reps for endurance and blood volume. 
• but also, a little bit of super high reps stolen from my earlier "NEXT LEVEL" program from a few years ago. 
• and we throw in some pre and post fatigue supersets as well. 

So... covering every angle on pushing and pulling movements, cycling through a variety of accessory exercises, and utilising a wide variety of rep ranges.

Why?

Because why choose? ALL of this stuff is good and beneficial. A wise strategist would use everything available to them, rather than deciding "this is better than that, so I'm just going to do this all of the time".

So the end result? I'm a little biased but I think it has to be about the most comprehensive, well balanced program you ever heard of.

And the results speak for themselves.

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Truth: It doesn't take anything special to get into shape

A couple of topics in one here today and I'll warn you in advance, if you like your blogging politically correct you've come to the wrong place.

So, getting into shape. There's a quote going around from the Pirate movies where Captain Jack says "the problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem", and I think this applies so well to people trying to lose weight and get into shape. Especially with political correctness, there's an attitude that "in shape" is some sort of elite condition that requires exceptional circumstances, and is not a realistic expectation for most people. As a result... people either give up before they even try, and accept a false belief that they are "supposed to be" fat, OR they go to extreme, counter productive lengths.

Let's clear a couple of things up early on.

Ripped abs, very low body fat, extra muscle mass... this is not the natural state of a human being and there is no reason for anyone to feel that they should look like that, unless of course that they decide that's what they want. In which case, they'll need to train quite specifically and strategically towards that goal. I've written in the past that this elite level of training is really beyond the level of activity that is natural to a human being, and so it is essential to fuel appropriately.

Let's define this as "getting into ELITE shape", and it only happens through the right amount and type of training combined with appropriate nutrition.

Just being "in shape" though... we're talking about being in a normal state, quite literally "the shape of a human being", the physical condition that you should be in under normal circumstances. There's a nice, politically correct, "feel good" notion out there that people come in any variety of shapes and sizes, all of them are fine and healthy, and it is unreasonable (and quite horrible) to think that any of them are better than any others.

Well, unfortunately it is my sad duty to inform you that that is all bullshit. People do come in different shapes and sizes under normal conditions, and they wouldn't be super-ripped... but there is a limit on this. Being in normal shape requires nothing out of the ordinary. Contrary to what those nice, kind, politically correct people will tell you, it is being excessively out of shape (aka obese or morbidly obese) that is the result of exceptional circumstances.

So let's wrap it up.

To get into normal shape, or even beyond normal shape and into GREAT shape is simple.

• Eat an amount of food suitable for an adult human being.
• Train in a manner that makes up for the lack of strenuous activity in modern life, by pushing and pulling some heavy objects around for up to an hour a day.

That's all. Some days you'll eat more, some days you'll eat less... as long as it's about right on average, your body will utilise it as fuel and to adapt to training.

Here's what's not required and is actually counter productive.

• Overly strict, starvation diets with restrictive food choices.
• Excessive calorie burning (calorie wasting, I should say) exercise.

Unfortunately, that's what most people do though. Why? Because they have been TRICKED into thinking that "in shape" is a condition that requires exceptional circumstances. Ridiculously, people have been taught that the way to get a healthy body is through unhealthy measures such as these. How does that make any sense at all?

When you excessively restrict calorie intake, while also excessively burning calories, your body's response is to conserve and store energy. This is an exceptional circumstance that leads to unhealthy weight gain, just the same as inactivity and excessive consumption would.

Bottom line: you're an adult, act like one.

A sensible adult would not over eat on lollies and cheetos, and pretend that this is normal. Neither would one expect to achieve a healthy, normal body type by starvation. 

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