fitness – Page 6 – Never Give Up PT

What I have Learned From Being A Personal Trainer So Far

For 8 years I’ve been training people in helping them towards their fitness goals. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…

1. It’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. Sure, it sounds cool. Training people in something that I’m passionate about is fantastic and I get to hang around gyms and talk about football and train myself. But I also need to stay business minded. It’s about getting clients and keeping them. Keeping them by setting goals and working towards them. Their results represent my abilities as a PT and my own performance, whether with a client or training myself, will be watched by everyone else. It’s intense.

2. What a client achieves physically isn’t even 50% of their goal completed. They might think it. Great! They’ve lost half a stone. That’s good work. But how do they keep it off? And, now that they have achieved a weight loss target, do they actually respect themselves any more? Do they like themselves? Fitness is more than a PB, a marathon run or a weight loss goal. It’s how we begin to perceive ourselves. It’s respecting yourself enough to WANT to eat nutritious foods, not just because you have to. I have to make people believe that they’re worth hitting their goal, otherwise it’s just going through the motions. And eventually, motion without emotion comes to an end.

3. Chain gyms don’t care about their freelance PT’s. Ok, let me explain this one. The floor managers of these gyms might, but if you think anyone sat in Pure Gym Towers cares about a PT then think again. And why should they? If you are a newbie freelance PT the sooner that you can get into your head that you are now a business person the better. You are a contractor on their premises. It’s tough at times. You pay them rent and they can still call the shots on your business. If you leave then they’ll just replace you. But the sooner you understand that the sooner that you will either a) learn to suck it up or b) find a niche at an independent gym, online or in your own premises.

4. I needed to stay relevant to people. Over the years and with a change of gym in a new town with a pandemic to deal with, I stagnated. So in the past couple of years I started doing different courses to become equipped with reinventing my PT work. Now, armed with new qualifications, knowledge, an online training app and new business ideas I have kept myself and my business fresh.

5. I have to stay grounded. If I believe that I am the oracle of fitness then I’ll look silly. I’m not. Nobody is. If I don’t know the answer to a question then I’ll be honest and do my research on finding the answer out. People respect that.

And the most important thing that I have learned is that respect goes a long way.

False Choice

The term ‘false choice’ is used to describe a situation where we believe that we only have two options to get the answer.

Examples of this include…

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

If you want to protect the environment, you must want the economy to crash.

If you support Utd, you must hate City.

If you are proud of your nation, you must be xenophobic towards all other countries.

You like horror movies? So you don’t like comedies?

Marmite. You either love it or hate it.

All of the above gives us very little option. It is an either/or dilemma. Which is not very helpful.

And it is not very helpful when it comes to fitness goals. We often restrict ourselves to two categories. Our pigeon holes are…

A. I don’t go to the gym therefore it doesn’t matter what I eat so much because I haven’t got any time to make fitness goals.

B. I often workout therefore I restrict my diet to look and feel my best in order to reach my goals.

These two extremities are unhelpful when it comes to planning your health, wellbeing, nutrition and quality of life. It doesn’t have to be down to choosing between two options.

As much as lots of people begin their exercise routines in September and start a particular diet in time for looking their best for Christmas parties, there are more people that decide on leaving it until January when they will make it a New Year’s Resolution. Yet both options often lead to disappointment.

The September starter will find that they have hit the gym hard, restricted their calories too much and still run out of time to reach their (usually) unachievable goal.

The January starter finds it even harder. They procrastinated back in September for a reason and it’s because they don’t like exercise or they have never been shown any exercise or food that they like to sustain it. So they decide to leave it until after the summer. Then decide to wait until January where they can make a New Year’s Resolution. The cycle continues.

So what if I told you that there were multiple choices? Options that were all shades of grey and not just a black or white view. A consistent, sensible lifestyle approach that didn’t leave you with anxiety about your body and your health.

You don’t need a program that you would expect to see from an Olympian. You don’t need to spend hours each week in the gym. In fact, for most fitness goals you don’t even need a gym. And you never have to quit your favourite snacks.

When you enter a false choice scenario, it is easy to reach a dead end. The all or nothing method can leave us unfulfilled, demoralised and either ends up in quitting or never getting started.

The chicken and the egg question is a prime example of a puzzle that only becomes a puzzle because of how the question is posed. Whilst both options are correct, the only way of explaining the conclusion to this is by exploring the grey areas. This is because the original question is poorly delivered.

We ask ourselves poorly delivered questions all the time. Would I prefer the chocolate cake or the spinach smoothie tonight? If this was my only choice, then the chocolate cake would win every time. But again, if you were to explore the possibilities you would find that a small portion of chocolate cake would be great and you can have the smoothie too!

Should you begin an exercise routine for weight loss or not? Once again, this question is poor. If you find yourself motivated in that specific moment, you might answer yes. Tomorrow, you might feel differently.

To get your answers, first you need to discover why you should exercise more and why choosing nutritional meals is important to you.

My answer is easy. I don’t want my kids to have to bury me when they’re just young men and if I do live to be a ripe old age I want to be as independent as possible. I want a certain quality of life. So yes, I do want to exercise and I do want to choose healthier options.

However, I don’t want this to dictate my life. I enjoy not moving too. I enjoy laying on the sofa watching four episodes of Better Call Saul back to back with a glass of wine. But I can rest easy knowing that I walked the kids to school instead of driving, or I took the stairs instead of the elevator, or I went to the gym or… whatever I did, I moved. I had an active day and I made sure that I had nutritional meals.

I’m not training to run a marathon or for a bodybuilding competition. The only event I’m training for is in the event of old age I can get in and out of a chair, that I can play football with my grandkids, that I can get to the toilet in time. That doesn’t require me to hammer the gym for two hours a day.

Your false choices will kill your goals if you let them. If you look closer, you have many options to choose from. You just need to start answering them honestly.

I’m An Athlete…My Doctor Told Me So

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on a doctor’s appointment that I had made. This was my first visit to see a doctor in over 3 years. With a dash of procrastination and a good sprinkling of Covid lockdowns I had created a recipe of anxiety and paranoia regarding going to see my GP.

I was prompted in making this long overdue appointment because I had noticed a few aches and pains in my abdomen that seemed new. I had to do it.

Anyway, yesterday I saw my doctor who prodded and poked, asked me lots of questions and took readings. He surmised that my discomfort was probably musculoskeletal pain which was down to my job and the work I do in the gym.

Now, DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) is a pain like no other. I know this pain and I can confidently identify this in my clients. But musculoskeletal pain such as sprains, strains or tendon and ligament damage due to overuse and over stretching (or under use) are pretty common too. The doctor booked me in for blood tests just to be safe but he was quite satisfied with what he’d heard and seen for it to be nothing more than musculoskeletal pain that will heal over time.

With the self diagnosis and Dr Google keeping me awake at night, I was happy with his verdict. It was much better than what I’d imagined in my irrational mind.

But there was something else he said that, well, quite frankly I wanted the very words framing and hanging on my sitting room wall. He called me an athlete.

Yes. As he listened to my heart beat he referred to me as an athlete.

Images of Jessica Ennis hurdling to Olympic gold came to mind. Mark Spitz swimming towards breaking another record. Mo Salah sprinting through the opposition defence to score a goal. And then me. I’m not a record breaker or an Olympian and I’m not a Golden Boot winner in the Premier League. But I am an athlete. The good news is that, if you exercise regularly, you might well be an athlete too.

The doctor went on to say that due to my exercise routine I have shallower breathing because my heart is pumping oxygen to my working muscles. To cope with this demand, my breathing increases to remove carbon dioxide from my body. And depending on the intensity of my training, breathing can become shallower but with an increase in my breathing long after the exercise routine.

This regularly puts my body in the ‘fat burning zone’ due to the work I am expecting my body to do for its recovery.

Ok. I jest when I put myself into the same category of professionals and those who dedicate their lives to their sport. They live and breathe it. What they eat, their sleep patterns and the years and years of practice. They get sponsored and paid to do it too! As a PT I’m dedicated alright, but I’m also an average gym goer who has a life outside of the gym.

But isn’t it amazing what the average gym goer can achieve with the right routines and intensity? We can be athletes too. We can achieve goals by knowing what our bodies are capable of and fine tuning it to do what we ask of it.

A lot of what an athlete must do is what we need to do too, of course. We need to be mindful of what we eat. We need regular sleep. And we simply just need to turn up even if we don’t fancy it sometimes. Yes, even on a cold and windy night in Stoke. We can’t pretend to be athletes. We need to play the part and become one. And even at 43 I am one. My doctor told me so.

Overcoming A Training Plateau: Introducing The Mechanical Deload

I’m currently around 6 weeks away from beginning a new program. One which will see me add weight to the bar for shorter reps. Oh, and I’ll be eating in a slight calorie surplus again. Yesssss!

I’ve been keeping the reps high and the weights at around 50% of my 1 rep max since the ending of March which is a good time to be in a slight caloric deficit. This ensures that I look trim in my summer clothes without feeling heavy or bulky.

However, as winter kicks in I want some extra fat to keep me warm and, let’s face it, there’s no need to be going outside in shorts and a T in the UK winter so this is my usual ‘bulk’ season. It’s where I work on my strength and conditioning, put on a bit more size but expect that size to hit my belly too!

But this is still a few weeks away and, to be honest, repping out the low weights has become a little tedious. My body isn’t feeling the challenge and my mind is thinking about my pesto pasta for dinner during lat raises. I sense a plateau.

There are a number of ways to beat a plateau. The worst one is to quit your program and go straight into your next one or, even worse, quitting training altogether! And I have seen plateaus have this effect before. A trainee can become disillusioned by their progress stalling. They become bored. They give up.

Yet switching a program because of a plateau is also a form of giving up. To get the results you want, the process must be followed and completed. This will test your muscle, your mind and your attitude towards your goals. It’s character building. It’s satisfying. It works, as long as you know how.

Enter the mechanical deload.

There are several variations to a mechanical deload, but my current method to beat my plateau is to complete a triset (3 exercises in one set) or a quadraset (4 exercises in one set) which use the same muscle groups for each exercise. Here’s a step by step guide…

1. Choose a muscle group you would like to train.

2. Choose three exercises that use the same muscle group but which have varying levels of difficulty.

3. Choose a moderate weight for each exercise.

4. Begin with the most difficult exercise and rep for 12-15. Then go straight into the easier exercise for 12-15 and finish on the easiest for 12-15.

5. Then reflect on how you thought it would be fairly straightforward but seeing as you’re shaking like a shitting dog and have another 4 sets to go, you know this will break your plateau!

Today I incorporated a chest mechanical deload into a full body workout. Here’s what I did…

Barbell bench press 50% 1rm, 10 reps

Dumbbell bench press 50% 1rm, 10 reps

Smith press 45° bench 50% 1rm, 10 reps

Press up, 10 reps

And because a push workout is great for working the triceps I also added kickbacks, 10 reps, 5 sets in total.

Now, we know that DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) doesn’t necessarily mean muscle gain or a superior workout, but my pecs and triceps are satisfyingly throbbing. Something that I haven’t experienced for around ten days. My plateau, due to experiencing a new kind of stress but remaining within my set task of high reps at moderate weight, seems to have disappeared. I can now utilise this routine for my back, shoulders, legs and arms for the remainder of my program.

A tweak in your program can help you overcome a plateau. Maybe that tweak is a mechanical deload for yourself when you need it.

AMRAP

Have you ever heard of the training term ‘AMRAP’?

It is an acronym for the phrase ‘as many rounds as possible.’

Let me explain. AMRAP is a technique which enables the trainee to rep as many times in a set time frame. This could be typically done as a circuit, for example, and there are no rules to what equipment to use, how long or how many exercises.

This technique allows those who find themselves short on time to still manage a quick workout. Even 5 minutes can get the blood pumping and body weight is absolutely fine. In fact, the break for adverts during Coranation Street can see you rack up over 100 reps.

My point here is that I will never accept that you don’t have the time to exercise. Perhaps you didn’t know it or you just couldn’t be bothered and work, kids, cooking meals, feeling tired or clearing out the guinea pig hutch took all of your time up.

But AMRAP has news for you. You DO have time to train. Let’s use my example of Coranation Street as an example…

Coranation Street is an hour long. It has four ad breaks lasting 3 minutes. Imagine completing an AMRAP every break? So your task would be to work continuously for three minutes each time. In just one episode you have 12 intense minutes of exercise.

Coranation Street is on three times a week. That’s 36 minutes of time you didn’t know that you had to exercise. 36 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot but I observe people who are in the gym for one hour but only actually exercise for half of that time. If my estimation of a 100 reps each ad break is accurate, that’s almost a 1000 reps a week.

No amount of time is pointless as long as you do it right. There are many ways to complete an AMRAP. Squats during the kettle boiling, press ups during the Countdown clock or Burpees waiting for a bus. Whatever floats your boat!

Just make sure you float it somehow.

I Became The Lion

Something changed when I stopped listening to the generic body building and weight loss sites and I reassessed my own fitness goals. I took charge of what I had to do. This led me to becoming a PT and helping others. I became in control. I became the lion. And I teach others to be the lion too.

It is said that “until the lion learns how to write, every story will praise the hunter.”

I used to follow a narrative led by muscle magazines, gym bro websites, diet books and all of the other mediums that generate billions of dollars from selling their latest trend.

For most of my adult life going to the gym was about ‘lift big or go home’. That’s what I was told. I had to eat chicken and broccoli every day. It’s what the experts told me. I got it so wrong.

I beat myself up daily just to try and lift heavier than some guy who I didn’t even know.

But then I discovered a better way. I could still get results and train without causing injury and anxiety. I realised my ‘why’. And I didn’t find it on YouTube.

Sure, I wanted to be happy and confident with my body but I needed to know how to love myself in the present moment and not just focus on loving what I wanted to be. I began to imagine the future me. What would the future me thank the present me for? I started to do my homework. To save my physical and mental health it became so important to me that I acquired so much knowledge on the matter that I qualified as a PT and successfully made a business out of helping others pretty quickly.

I became the lion. And this lion learnt how to write his own narrative.

I now recognise that training is how I have energy for my kids. It is what keeps me focussed in my marriage and in my work commitments. It is giving me a chance to have a better quality of life. I like myself at last.

I don’t punish myself for not making it to the gym every day. If I can’t get there then a walk with my family is a great way to exercise and surround myself in nature with the people I love.

I don’t regret eating something that is ‘bad for me’ because I enjoyed it at the time and I can have an occasional snack. I enjoy life without living in fear of ‘losing muscle’ or gaining weight. I am free of fads and confusing information.

I am free.

Dig The Well

Just a short message for you today for us to have a little think about our health and wellbeing.

First of all it is important to note that beginning a fitness journey is never too late. Also, finding happiness and peace in your life can be discovered at any age. But searching for it is important and necessary. Very rarely will something fall at your feet.

I’ll use my profession as an example. Just in the space of a few weeks of attending a wedding, a few BBQ’s and kids events with my two boys, as soon as somebody knows that I’m a Personal Trainer I often get comments such as ‘I could do with losing a few pounds’ as they tap on their belly. Or on a couple of occasions I’ve had people say ‘I need to start going to the gym again’.

Of course, you might think that is my cue to sell them PT sessions or a fitness program. And I have often replied ‘well, you know where I am!’ But a social event is not the appropriate place to sell my services. A PT can clear a room when they start handing out business cards.

We often complain about our physique or our mindset without doing anything about it. I meet some acquaintances who I see very irregularly who complain every time about their weight or their injuries every time i see them. And, yes, there have been times where I have offered to help. I’m still waiting for their reply.

And yet with each day, week and year we age. With age comes more challenges in regards to our health. If we don’t feel ready for the battle today, how will we cope with tomorrow?

My clients understand that I’m not going to get them a quick fix. They will progress with me on the journey that it should be. This will help them in later life. I don’t promise a longer life, but I can give a pretty confident argument for living a better quality of life by making simple adjustments to their lifestyle.

Two reasons right here on why I need to keep working for a healthy future.

As the Chinese proverb goes…

Dig the well before you are thirsty.

Be prepared for the future by putting in the work today. Happiness, peace, health and wellbeing can all be discovered with the right course of action.

And that action, however small or subtle, should begin today.

M.O.T

I dread the day that my car goes in for its MOT. It’s the day I get to find out how much more out of pocket I’m going to be. However, the grand old Juke seems to have a bit of life left in it yet! It got the all clear.

But this isn’t an article about my car. Although, I wish that I was as prepared to get myself checked out as regularly as I do my car. The difference is, the car legally needs to be checked for road worthiness, but I can continue my life blissfully unaware without being stopped and penalised for not going to the doctors. That is until I break down. And then the penalties for my ignorance could, in fact, be my life.

The journalist, Bill Turnbull, adds to the long list of well known people who were diagnosed with a terminal illness who came out and said that they wished that they’d gone to the doctors earlier. This week he lost his fight. In a 2018 interview he said that he felt his bones ache and had pain in his hips which he put down to old age instead of going to the doctors. He left it too late, but he would speak out until his death about others going for their regular check ups so that they didn’t make the same mistake.

In the UK, the NHS Health Check is for people turning 40 and it is advised that we have one every 5 years. At 43 I’m still yet to have one. Indeed, I can’t even remember my last doctor’s appointment. I can blame Covid restrictions, sure, it has had an impact on health appointments.

But if I’m being honest, the older I get the more reluctant I am to see a doctor.

No. Let me rephrase that last sentence…

Being a dad of two beautiful little boys, I am reluctant to face the thought of being told that I might not see them grow up or that they and my wife have to go through the grief of losing me.

I know there’s no logic to it. If anything was discovered where I had to act on my health regarding treatment, the earlier the problem is found the better. But fear doesn’t always appear with common sense or rationale. It just bites and we act in whatever way we can. Usually to sweep it under the carpet.

This morning I booked my Health Check and I’m relieved now to have the appointment. I feel healthy. Sure, I don’t live a totally clean lifestyle in today’s definition of ‘clean’. But I exercise regularly and eat with an 80/20 rule where 80% of my diet is of nutritional value.

This, however, gives us no certainties. I might be giving myself a better chance to not just live longer, but to have a better quality of life. It doesn’t earn me guaranteed immunity though.

If I could, I would urge everyone who reads this and who has procrastinated in making their doctors check up appointments to do it today. I know that it isn’t as easy to get an appointment these days in some parts of the UK, but your appointment will take even longer if you don’t attempt to make one.

We would be quick to book our car’s MOT or service. But we have a vehicle that we own for life. Make sure you look after your body.

Last Of The Summer Wine

Over the past few weeks there’s been parents queuing up at the booze isle so that they can choose their poison for the evening when they’ve put the kids to bed.

How do I know? Because I’ve been one of them. And although it hasn’t gotten to fisty cuffs just yet, there’s been a few near misses as I hurdle the crates and boxes placed by the staff in the centre of the isles to get to the last bottle of Montepulciano. I almost straddled Big Dave’s back to reach for this particularly fruity red but luckily he was headed for the stout section. Just as well. If I had to challenge him for my favourite tipple I think I would’ve lost.

Of course, it’s not just the parents heading for the booze section. A study published by The Lancet in 2017 found that global alcohol consumption had gone up by 70% from 1990 to 2017. Notice the dates. This was pre-pandemic. I can’t imagine the consumption of alcohol to have gone down.

People are finding work stressful. They turn on the news to wars and political unrest. The economy is a mess. Social media can be addictive but toxic. People are having to hang on in there. The daily grind leads to an alcohol unwind. I just made that up. It rhymed.

But anyway, my job as a fitness coach isn’t to analyse the many studies made on our society. But it is my job to know how to deal with the many different issues that our society brings up. Body confidence, work life balance, injuries, physical health, mental health and food anxieties are all things that I deal with regularly in my work.

But I’ll tell you why I am particularly good at what I do. Everything I have listed above I have had to deal with in my own life at some time or another. Some are more prominent than others, but damn, it hits you like a ton of bricks and knocks you off course pretty quickly. Alcohol, perhaps, becomes a crux for some. For others it might be over or under eating. And then there’s a whole myriad of people who self harm in other ways. There isn’t much I haven’t seen.

My weight management programme has been tweaked to what is now a well established offering to my clients. Why? Most people don’t even know they’re on a programme. It simply becomes a journey of self discovery. It deals with becoming stronger both physically and mentally. It is designed to challenge the body and the thought processes that we have. I not only wrote the programme, but I lived it first.

Adding a summer sports school for a hundred kids two days a week to my list of work commitments this summer has had me spinning those plates to the extent that, just maybe, Big Dave wouldn’t have stood a chance had he made a grab for my bottle of Montepulciano.

But come September, I’ll be back to dropping the kids off at school and having a focus on developing my online coaching programmes and my gym work.

And seeing as the kids go back to school next week and I’m about to open this bottle of Montepulciano right now, it could be the last of my summer wine.

Change The Formula

We’ve all heard of the expression ‘Stuck in a rut’. Typically I see this with workouts that gym goers perform day after day.

‘Shay, I’m just not seeing any more progress’. This is regularly said to me. In some cases, I have people tell me that not only do they stop seeing progress, but they see regression.

This isn’t new or something that is confined to our fitness. We get stuck in a rut in life too. Our jobs can be like Groundhog Day. Our social life gets tedious. Yes, listening to John in the Nag’s Head complain about VAR for the third time this week gets boring. And our relationships can lose their spark.

Change is not a bad thing. It doesn’t need a whole reinvention of yourself. But it does need a bit of thought on how you can adapt to today’s you.

Last year’s you might have got excited about a 5k run, but today’s you doesn’t.

Your job might have challenged you when you started it 5 years ago, but today’s you isn’t.

Going to the pub at the end of your shift was a way of unwinding ten years ago, but today’s you doesn’t.

And your partner used to love watching a Steven Segal boxset on an evening with you when you first got together, but be careful, they might have changed.

Change the formula.

You’re not stuck. You’re just committed to certain patterns of behaviour because they helped you in the past. Now, these behaviours have become more harmful than helpful. The reason why you can’t move forward is because you keep applying an old formula to a new level in your life. Change the formula for a different result. Love and respect the person that got you here, but have the same love and respect for the future you too.

Thank you for reading my article. Speak soon!