Uncategorized – Page 16 – Never Give Up PT

The Emotional Workout Called Life

I didn’t know it at the time, but when I sent my application to train as a PT it would change my perspective on myself and on my life. As I looked through the prospectus to the course I didn’t see a syllabus dedicated to finding one’s self.

When should I tell him that one day he’ll have daddies hair?

I had to change my career. I have had highs and lows in employed and self employed jobs all of my adult life and I was always ready for the challenge. From supporting adults with autism to restaurant manager, I would fully commit to my work. But I knew that I could never stay somewhere that gave me that ‘sunday night syndrome’. That nauseating feeling that I’d get knowing that it was back to work again the next day. In my mid thirties, I knew I had to do something about it or live with my choices. Searching ‘how to become a PT’ seemed like a good place to start seeing as being in a gym was like a second home anyway.

I felt pretty good about myself when the course instructor told me that I’d passed. Ok, I knew a bit already and had always been interested in the human body so I didn’t struggle in passing. But simply because I did something out of my comfort zone was an achievement to me. The average age in the class were early 20’s. Every day during my course I would ask myself ‘am I too old to become a PT?’ but I convinced myself that I could do some good for a lot of people and, as it turned out, for me too. I had to create an uncomfortable environment for me to eventually become comfortable and that still remains the same when it comes to mindset changes or body transformations. The body won’t change if it is not put in uncomfortable situations. Why would it lose fat or grow muscle if it doesn’t have to?

The gym is one of the only places I can walk into and know instantly how everyone is feeling. I know because every one of their thoughts are what I have experienced in the gym at some time. The insecurity days. The feeling pretty damn good days. The depression days. The fantastic night last night days. The feeling crap in my gym kit days. The feeling like a super hero days. I can’t do that in Aldi. I have no idea how Dave on tills is feeling. Put him next to a bench press and I’d know his PB, his health and fitness goals and his ideal body fat percentage. But also, because of my own journey, I would know if he was having a happy day or a sad day. That none existent syllabus didn’t teach me that. That has become my own intuition from having to rediscover myself and also having to read my trainees mood very quickly. Moods change performance. I have to know their moods.

When I train myself I can put an entire days emotion into one session. I can control the weight. I know how to breath, when to brace and what happens next. That’s why I like doing it. Other aspects of my is not so structured. I know when I’m about to lift a PB deadlift, but I don’t know when my son is going to come home from school with a chipped tooth because another kid punched him. I never went on a course on how to deal with that. I don’t feel in control in that moment. We have to learn on the job in life. Being a good father, husband, son, friend. We strive to be better.

Wanting to change something about yourself for tomorrow doesn’t mean that you are not worthy right now in this moment. Wanting to lose a few pounds doesn’t mean that you aren’t beautiful today. Wanting to be a better person doesn’t mean you aren’t a great person today. That want to change is a fantastic attribute as long as it is a change for yourself and not anybody else. Investing in your own needs isn’t a selfish act. It’s quite the opposite. If you make positive changes to your own life then those around you will reap the rewards too!

I’m still finding myself. It helps that I keep putting myself in uncomfortable situations, whether that be a new business venture or an attempt at a new PB. Small or big, I want to create life goals that are challenging yet realistic. And I don’t expect to find them all in a course prospectus, a YouTube clip or at a squat rack, so I’ll just buckle myself in and enjoy this ride.

When will we learn?

One of the frequently asked questions I get asked is “what is the best way to train as you get older?”

If you have 20, 30 or 40 years of training behind you then the answer is easy, you train the same but better because you have learnt from past mistakes and are now a well educated veteran of how to train your body.

The problem is that the gym can be a fucked up place sometimes. It is amazing how many people I see doing the same things daily. And doing it wrong. Daily. Firstly, their programming is wrong or non existent. They lift, run or push with little or no direction but to grow muscle, lose weight or a combination of both. And these are often people over 40 who tell me of their injuries. I could tell them why they are getting these injuries and how to make training easier for them but, honestly, a window cleaner won’t clean my grubby windows unless I employ them to do so. And I only clean up somebody’s mess if they’re paying me too.

I used to PT in a gym bro gym. I had to wipe my feet on the way out type of place. It had a needle bin in the changing rooms. One thing I was taught at PT school was that I should engage with people by correcting their form and giving them tips. The members of this particular gym would give me advice too. It ended in ‘off’. They wouldn’t listen to a fresh faced PT like me. But the more I learnt I knew that I’d end up training them when they’d recovered from a torn pec or a shattered knee. They would need me then. They eventually respected my knowledge because I could help them do what they wanted to do again. Once recovered, some of them would go back to their bad habits but many had been steered into a training habit that was more sustainable and a nutrition plan that extended beyond chicken and rice.

A gym visit should be a time to educate yourself. Learn what to do but know WHY you are doing it. Know the muscle groups you are using. Research the foods to eat to provide the right nutrients for your body and when to consume it. We can all take a slimming pill to lose weight and we can all inject ourselves to grow muscle. But as we get older our body becomes much more vulnerable to injuries and disease. So we need to know what to do now, whether you are reading this at 20, 40, 60 or 80 years old. Learn now.

So there is no set rule for training differently as you get older. You just need to keep getting better at it and knowing how to do it better each gym visit. This way you will see the best results with less injury and you will be the one still training long after those who didn’t want to learn.

Coffee Cream, anyone?

At Christmas our eating and drinking habits often change. I know mine does. I keep my alcohol intake to the weekends these days but at Christmas I do allow a few weekday drinks to creep in. I’ve been known to have an Irish cream on Christmas morning too! (We left it out for Santa and he didn’t want it, so…)

I’ve talked about the ability to train the mind as well as the body before to my trainees and around Christmas time it becomes important to use your mental strength. I know that training less, which I will do, and having a few extra calories won’t destroy what I have achieved throughout the year. You need this mindset to relax at certain times. You’re not quitting your goals and you’re not even putting them on hold. You’re letting your mind and body celebrate it’s achievements for a brief moment before you crack on again. And that’s absolutely fine!

It’s half time. You’re winning. You’re giving yourself a team talk until it’s time to enter the arena again. That’s not letting yourself down. It’s just clever planning and giving your well-being what it needs.

I’m lucky in that I haven’t got a sweet tooth, so the Quality Street tin is safe with me…until Christmas. The annual event of sorting out the coffee creams while watching The 20 Most Embarrassing Celebrity Moments on Boxing night is bound to happen. I have no interest in them at all until Christmas. I start eating things I wouldn’t usually have. Turkey and stuffing flavoured crisps. Pigs in blankets. A festive slice from Gregg’s. And what the heck is advocaat?! It doesn’t matter. It’s Christmas, I’ll drink it.

But I know that I have now got a mindset and a body that is working with me, not against me. I’ve looked after it. Given it the TLC. I haven’t abused it with fad diets or training regimes that don’t work. I’ve had a plan and my mind and body will let me off for eating a bit of crap at Christmas. I don’t just design fitness plans for others. I know they work, so I design fitness plans for myself too. So I know that I’m good at it. And I’m not boasting about that. You’d expect a mechanic to say they can fix your car or a builder to say they can build you a wall.

So as long as you have put the ground work in and you have a plan for the new year, a little Christmas indulgence won’t interfere with your goals. You have to own what you eat and drink and move on. No guilt. The arena will be waiting for you in the second half.

I’m Not A Grinch… Honest!

I have typed out this first sentence a dozen times. I know what I want to say, but there’s nothing I can begin with that makes it sound sincere. So I’ll type it and you can judge…

I like Christmas, I really do.

…are you buying that? Ok, so the truth is I could probably go without the bloody fuss this year. Or any year really. But I know that this ‘bloody fuss’ I call Christmas is the highlight of my kids year and my wife was putting the tree up in November so I guess I’m strapped in and ready to go.

So much time has been lost. My kids schooling, money lost through lockdowns and my mental and physical health has taken a battering over the past 2 years, I just wanted a period of normal. But Christmas isn’t normal. The look on my kids faces on Christmas morning and the smile on my wife’s face as we sit down for our lunch will brush all of my anxieties away. I know how lucky I am. But just because we are lucky or privileged it doesn’t mean anybody should feel ashamed about feeling anxious sometimes. I’m a PT. I motivate people. But I would rather motivate people through honesty rather than an abs selfy on Insta everyday.

Christmas can be a wierd time for most people. Although I lost my mum to cancer in February a few years ago, I knew that my visit to her at Christmas would be one of the last times that I would see her. I’m not sure she would have remembered any of my visits after that. So this time of year, like for so many, can be an emotional time.

Being a PT for me was never about just shouting at people in a gym. I do that pretty well too! But I also appreciate talking to people and finding out what makes them tick. This talking to people thing is powerful, y’know? That’s what really helps me find their goals and how to achieve reaching them, not how good their squat is. A person trains for one hour of the day, but it’s the other 23 hours that make us.

I’m bracing myself for the kids breaking up, eating and drinking too much and not training enough. I have a strong family and I know that we’ll have fun. Even if it is at my expense as they watch me ice skate for the very first time.

But, and this is the absolute truth…deep down I really do love Christmas. Every bit of it.

The Importance of Reps

When I was starting out in the gym at 18 I would usually go with 3 or 4 friends. We all had one thing in mind…to grow muscle. We were young lads wanting to be as attractive to the opposite sex as possible, but really we had no idea on how to do it. Looking back, we probably looked like The Inbetweeners.

I stand by the notion that muscle, or defined, toned physiques on men are generally seen as an attractive attribute, but I was wrong that it is all that I needed. A personality, a sense of humour, being kind and driven are things that I had in patches when I were a teenager, but it was mixed in with the cocky little prick that I probably came across as. I was always East 17 rather than Take That. Oasis not Blur. Anyway, back to my point.

So as each member of the group of friends waited for their turn, one thing became embarrassingly obvious. We would always try and ‘outlift’ the previous person. ‘They pressed 85k, I’ll go 90’, was my mindset. But it is only through training regularly in my later years, talking to professionals, researching and reading numerous articles on the subject that I realized that repping a ridiculous weight a few times would never get me my goals. I lost out on reaching years of training targets from lifting heavy to gain muscle. Now I follow the science and I look like I wanted to look at 25…and I feel fitter too at 43.

Higher weights with less reps will get you stronger. No doubt. Think of the world’s strongest men competition. Huge guys lifting giant bolders. If that is what you want then that is what you should do! But most people who I talk to want to look lean and feel good in their clothes, but then proceed to break their back with a one rep deadlift. It’s known as an ego lift, but it won’t trigger much muscle growth. Muscle needs repetitive movement. Lots of repetitive movement. I mean, like, years and years of repeating the same things for a muscle to grow back bigger. And most trainees are pissing in the wind when they try.

What most people will find after a workout is a pump in the muscles. This is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Fluid has pumped into the muscle and it’s a great photo opportunity in the gym changing rooms. But myofibrilic hypertrophy comes from wearing the muscle fibres down, they repair and they grow back bigger as the muscle adapts to the workload that it has been put under. But, like I say, this comes with lots of dedicated hard work to cause this adaptation.

And something else happens with the correct rep range. With a complete programme schedule you will use up more energy. Energy=Calories. Your body becomes a fat burning furnace long after your workout. 24 to 48 hours to be exact. Lose the fat and the muscle becomes even more visible. We use terms like toned, ripped, difined. Whatever, it means that you are doing something right!

For hypertrophy or muscle growth that gives you a lean, fit physique, think about your reps, weight and sets. This, along with a balanced nutritious diet, could be the key to your gym goals.

To Train or Not To Train?

Firstly, I need to make this clear. I became a PT because I trained often. I don’t train because my job says I need to. My mental health and my fitness goals along with the usual aesthetic appeal that training brings told me that I had to. So hopefully there won’t be any doubters saying ‘but you’re a PT’ from now.

Also before I continue I should define what training is to me. How I define this to my clients is a set time where we dedicate to moving. It doesn’t need a gym. It doesn’t need equipment at home. You just need to move. Everybody will have goals in mind that will then determine the best sorts of movement, but training is just moving in a set period of time.

Making positive decisions on your health, lifestyle, gym goals or nutrition can seem like a difficult task. It can be daunting. But it is important to realise that making the right decisions is still easier than making the wrong decisions. Training should be challenging yet rewarding. Training isn’t meant to be easy. The human body was ‘designed’ to be tested, both physically and mentally. But it should be YOU who decides what those challenges are. Not friends or family, not your boss, not a cover of fitness magazine, not a government and not a God. Making decisions for yourself is empowering and instead of thinking that it is selfish, try taking the view that a healthier, empowered you becomes a much nicer son or daughter, mum or dad, friend or work colleague, husband or wife.

To Train or not to train isn’t even a question. Not when we define training as positive movement in a dedicated time frame. You don’t have time? Yes you do. You are lying to yourself. You don’t have energy? Then your diet is not balanced. You need to change what is stopping you from finding just 20 minutes a day dedicated to moving. Watch the binge programmes, play Xbox, enjoy a pizza now and again. Do all the things that you enjoy! But don’t tell yourself that you haven’t got any time to exercise. Tell yourself this often enough and you will believe it.

So, I have had messages a couple of hours before a PT appointment saying that a client feels a little under the weather. They don’t want to come to their session. (Covid guidelines aside) I will encourage them to meet me still and get them to do something once their session begins. Nobody has ever left their session feeling worse, in fact it is very much the opposite. It’s like saying that you won’t bother going to the trouble of making a tasty nutritious meal because you won’t be able to taste it with a heavy cold. You are giving up the one thing that can help you feel a little better.

Small steps is all you need. I’m not saying you need to start with 100 Burpees a day and let someone scrape you from the gym floor. I’m saying that you can park your car further away from the gym entrance, take the stairs, go for a walk, squat or lunge during the adverts, stretch or yoga. You need to start telling yourself that you will train, rather than looking at the excuses of why you can’t. I guarantee that you will feel so much better for it.

Shouty dad has gone…

I’m interested in self reflecting. I’ve done it since being a kid and I always found it as a monkey on my back at the time. I didn’t want to think too much about how I reacted to certain situations. I wanted things to wash over me a bit more. Now, rather than be tortured on my behaviours and if I said or did the right thing, I use it as a tool to improve.

I reflect almost daily. Just a quiet time where I can replay back certain situations in my head. And it’s no surprise to those who know me, seeing as I’m there so often, that a minute or two between sets in the gym is a good time for me to think. The gym is my therapy. My meditation. A time for self reflection. Who am I? What am I becoming? To answer this I need to reflect on what I have done.

My thoughts often turn to my kids. I’m very hands on in their lives and they are pretty much my world. But as I rest from my latest set and I smile when I picture my kids faces, my heart begins to sink at how I snapped over their latest bickering with each other or my ranty voice when they didn’t listen to my instructions. I can be a shouty dad. I hate that.

I can’t just recognise my faults, click my fingers and change. Nobody can. But, much like training a muscle, I believe we can train our behaviours to become what we actually want to be. Sure, I’m a caring, loving dad. My kids love me. We tell each other often that we love each other. We hug daily. But I knew that I had to train away shouty dad. Sooner or later, my kids would come to resent me and I would be in a state of anger forever. I had to reflect daily on what I could do better in these tense situations. And I think I am getting better. But I need to keep training my behaviour and keep checking myself. If I become complacent then I lose my consistency. And consistency, again, just like training the body, is key.

Shouty dad has gone. I’m not saying that shouty dad won’t make a visit the next time my youngest draws on the curtains again. He might make an appearance. But I firmly believe calm dad will tap him on the shoulder and tell him to sling his hook. Calm dad has got this one under control thanks very much!