The link below is our new listing on Airbnb. Promotions are available on this platform but you can also contact me directly if you are planning a visit to this beautiful part of the world!
I’m also in the process of starting my new Time Trial season which will hopefully run from October to April. This will involve boot camp style training in and around the forest! Stay tuned for more on that in future posts!
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/1244820126770901900?viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76
I know lots of people who have spent (in some cases) thousands of pounds before they’ve found the right PT for them. Unfortunately, some people give up after a bad experience and this is a shame because I have seen what I and many other very good trainers can do for someone with a fitness goal.
To an extent you have to find the right personality that you are happy to employ as your PT. Basically, you need to at least like them and get on with them for you to respect what they say and ask of you.
But every good PT will have the same traits. They will listen to you, be attentive, be committed to your needs and they will give you their full attention whenever you need them (not just when they’re on the clock).
And whether it is face to face training or online coaching these traits should come across in your initial discussions with a PT.
Now that I’m moving my business to Portugal and developing it alongside a camping and wellbeing centre I will be ending my online coaching part of it. The reasons for this, and I’m only being honest, is that I don’t think that I can fulfill this criteria anymore. I have one shot for me and my family to get this move right. Currently I don’t think I can be as attentive as the client needs me to be. And seeing as I will be doing a lot of the ground work myself (both metaphorically and literally) once we get to Portugal, I’ll be busy enough.
There is an online coach that I will be recommending though if anyone asks and that is Biological Engineering. Dan Middlewood is the Trainer who deals with every inquiry and treats every one of his clients with the attention they deserve. He boasts of some impressive transformations on his social media too! All backed up with real life people.
https://instagram.com/biological_engineering?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Dan and I started PTing in a gym together ten years ago and it was our first gig. I watched him develop into a PT that was driven by getting results for his clients, but did it in a way that was friendly and not pushy. It was only a matter of time that he would branch out into online coaching too, such was his high demand.
Just like in every day situations, we soon get an idea of a person’s character once we have a chat with them. Finding the right PT is very similar. You need to know that they have your best interests. They work for you. It’s not about their ego, it’s about your fitness results. So whether you’ve been thinking about contacting a PT or you’ve had a bad experience but are thinking about giving it another go, you’ll be in safe hands with Dan’s Biological Engineering.
The extremities that I see when it comes to the lengths that one will go to look a certain way never surprises me. Training myself in ‘back street’ gyms for years and then Personal Training others in a very busy commercial gym just outside of Leeds City Centre, anabolic steroids were always a part of the culture. Needle bins were often provided in the changing rooms, the selling of steroids were openly discussed and, even those who tried to be discrete, it was pretty obvious who used them. After all, if someone looks unnatural, they probably are.
The latest drug on the market, which is illegally sold in some bodybuilding supplement shops according to a recent report, is called Sarms. The tub states that it is ‘not for human consumption’ and is for ‘test purposes only’. However, the results from using such a product seems to be a hit with those wanting to gain extra muscle mass synthetically.
Last week a 30 year old bodybuilder influencer famous on social media died of an aneurysm. Although the connection between steroid use and the aneurysm has not been confirmed, it is possible that the negative effects of steroids such as aortic dissection, hypertension and atherosclerosis could have played a part.
I’ve always thought of the poem by Alexander Pope called Epistle To Dr Arbuthnot when I think of what one is willing to put their body through in order to feel stimulated by aesthetics, fame, money or competition. ‘Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’
Surrounded by friends in the back street gyms, I saw first hand what they would do to be regarded as the strongest or the most ‘ripped’. And it had the desired effect. They had lots of attention in the bars and clubs as they bulged from their t-shirts. I should say that I dipped my toe in the world of steroids briefly only for guilt and a lack of cash to pay for it soon made me see sense. And so I remained the book end as my friends and I hit the town.
I feel that I got rewarded in later life. I am confident in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans (I have always admitted that I like to keep an aesthetically pleasing standard for my age) and I’m happy and healthy.
I just hope that my gym friends from 20 years ago can say the same.
When I first started out as a PT I had absolutely no idea how I would execute my business. I wanted to be full time, that I was sure of. There are many PTs who go into PT as a side job to subsidise a full time income or as a hobby. But I wanted to jump straight in and give my clients my full attention. And from day one I encouraged my clients to call or message me at any time if they needed me. I never saw my one hour session a week as an ‘hourly rate’. It was more of a package. I was their PT 24/7, not just for that hour in the gym.
And I did get the odd midnight phone call and the messaging back and forth at unsociable hours, but that’s what I wanted. If that’s what my client needed at that time, then that’s what I wanted.
Your job doesn’t stop when you leave the gym. In fact, if you are developing training plans, replying back to messages and working on building your business, then the hard work starts after your sessions. I learnt that the hard way after a couple of years. Clients dropped off, I had no other income. I needed to become much more business savvy as a PT. I needed to be better at client retention. If times of the year were difficult to get new clients such as the summer, then I had to take good care of the ones that I had if I were to keep them.
If you go straight into a commercial gym after PT school, you’ll need to earn your credibility and stand out among the other PTs.
There were 14 other PTs at my first gym in Leeds. Although it was a busy gym it was difficult to get new clients because of this. I had to find a niche. Something that could make me stand out. What stood out was accidental to begin with, but then I made it a trademark…
To mask my nerves during my first few fitness classes, I became overly enthusiastic in my routines. I would bounce about, run around the studio, shout what would become familiar catchphrases and wouldn’t stop until the participants (and myself) were laid out on the floor in a pool of sweat. But I added comedy value too. I didn’t take myself seriously. I told crap jokes and had fun with it.
What started out as anxiety and adrenaline became a successful character in the gym. Most of my 1-1 clients started from doing fitness classes with me because they ‘wanted someone who would push them’ and ‘who had fun and energy’.
Don’t forget, I was trying to earn my stripes against PTs who were more experienced, were younger, were athletes, models and bodybuilders in their spare time. I was a 30 something year old, balding dad of two. I looked physically fit but I also looked ‘normal’. Along with acting like a deranged clown in my classes, I became appealing to a certain demographic.
I left a busy commercial gym near the centre of a major city in England to a much quieter gym just outside a seaside town. I knew early on that my style of fitness class wouldn’t catch on. The Deranged Clown would not fit in here. There was no way I could recreate the ‘theatre’ of my previous gym. And so I had to change direction. The jokes stayed, that’s just my personality , but I had to tone down the act.
Due to the closure of gyms during the pandemic, I will never truly know if my new direction worked. Gyms, PTs and how we approach fitness in general had to reinvent itself after lockdown. Not just me. But, although my enthusiasm for coaching has never waned, my enthusiasm for reinvention has. Perhaps lockdown was a final straw for me regarding commercial gyms.
And now my future still involves PT and coaching, but it will be very different again and it won’t be my only source of income. In fact I’ll have to wear many different caps if I am to pull off my next venture successfully.
My biggest piece of advice to a new PT trying to make it in a commercial gym would be to find your niche. If you enjoy calisthenics then talk about it to everyone who comes through the door. Or if training for marathons or tough mudder events is your thing, make sure that everyone knows that you’re the go to trainer for them. Be yourself. Yes, I am a deranged clown. I find it difficult to be serious and I find humour in most things. It wasn’t actually an act. Only yesterday I was on a field with 40 six year old kids teaching them how to Gangnam Style. I didn’t care what the other coaches or parents thought I was doing. The kids loved it!
And my other bit of advice is to realise that you won’t be able to stay in the comfort zone of a commercial gym forever. Not to make it a decent income long term anyway. Whether you set your own studio up, go online, coach children in schools or move to Portugal and set up a glamping site with an assault course, you will need to evolve eventually.
Yours faithfully,
The Deranged Clown.
Queuing for the equipment, sweaty people, pushy PT’s selling their programmes on the back of a beer mat. The gym might not be your cuppa tea.
Loud music or music too low, ogling men, Insta fitters, pricey membership, too far to travel or you just can’t be bothered with going today.
Let me present to you the home workout!
Ok, first of all, let me just say that not all gyms are like the above. Most gyms that I go to these days are friendly, clean and affordable. But still, it doesn’t matter how good the gym is, sometimes you just can’t make it in.
But it doesn’t mean that you can’t train. So I’d like to suggest to you a couple of the most valuable pieces of equipment that you will need in your home to be able to get a good workout in without being in a gym (and it doesn’t cost a lot or take up too much room).
1. A selection of dumbbells. If you find a weight range that covers light dumbbells that you can rep for 15 plus and heavier dumbbells that you can rep for 6 then you will have a whole range of exercises that you can do. But the best bit of kit…..?
2. You. Just you. And I don’t mean you have to ‘turn up to get results blah blah.’ Of course you need to get it done. But your bodyweight is by far the most underrated piece of equipment that is available to you. A good bodyweight workout programme would prove this.
If you weigh 70k then you carry this weight when you walk, squat, lunge, press, jump and run. It is why larger people either carrying excess fat or muscle are able to lose weight faster. The more you weigh, the more energy it takes for your body to move, function and exercise.
Sure, long distance trainers and strength competitors need a whole host of equipment and venues for what they need to achieve, but if you are looking to feel a bit fitter and start the new year with a healthy outlook, you already own your best piece of kit.
Brian Clough was right about football. It is a simple game.
“All you have to do is get that pig’s bladder into that onion bag” is something I always remember my dad telling me just before a game. Maybe he got it from Clough. It sounds like Clough. Or maybe he made it up himself. As a footballer who would often get the pig’s bladder into the onion bag, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of my dad’s original mantras before entering the field. He was one of the best football players I’ve ever seen live. He kept it simple. He scored goals and won football games.
In my profession, what I try to convey to 90% of my clients is to keep it simple. Now, if you are training for a particular sport, event or for aesthetic bodybuilding purposes who make up my 10%, then I have lots of great advice on training splits and various techniques in other articles but the principal should remain the same. Keep it simple.
Just like the footballer or the athlete, they have to turn up if they want to compete. They have to enter the football pitch or athletic field. So your priority, too, is to make sure that you turn up. Turn up to the gym when you have scheduled it. I see so many missed opportunities from people which, can I be truthful? It’s usually because they found an excuse to not go as they couldn’t be arsed that day.
And life gets in the way. I understand. But this is where we begin to overcomplicate the game. If completing an exercise routine is as engrained into your life as eating, sleeping and breathing then it remains simple. You just do it.
Here are the main culprits when it comes to overcomplicating your fitness goals and how to simplify it…
You don’t go to a gym. Either you don’t feel that you can afford a membership or there isn’t a local gym to you.
Simple. Exercise is free. Training in a gym can be good motivation and it has lots of equipment, but bodyweight exercises or a few weights that you can store away after use at home will suit most fitness goals. And for general fitness, walking is one of the best exercises you can do.
You don’t have time. You work long hours. You have meals to prepare, kids to sort out and by the time everything is done you have run out of time and energy for exercise.
Simple. An exercise routine doesn’t have to be some elaborate plan that takes over your life. The general advice is to complete 150 minutes of moderate intensity a week for aerobic fitness. That’s just over 20 minutes a day per week. For weight loss, increase the intensity by taking less rest periods or adding more difficult exercises over time. You’ll find that you have more energy for your work, social life and your home life by sticking to it.
You can’t stick to a diet plan to lose weight. Everything from 5:2 to the paleo diet has failed leaving you frustrated and demoralised.
Simple. Every diet plan needs to have one common criteria…they need to put you in a calorie deficit. That is consuming less calories than you burn. You don’t need an overhaul of your cupboards and fridge contents. You just need a sensible approach to what you eat. I would recommend a calorie counter app, log your food entries for a few weeks and see where you are going wrong and where you can put it right. It could be just cutting back on a bottle of wine each week, switching to wholegrain instead of white or reassessing your portion sizes. You don’t need to completely ban any food that you enjoy.
It hurts your knees when you squat. You are put off by exercise because certain exercises hurt.
Simple. Don’t do them. I would advise that you ask a professional about your pain and either they can correct your form (which is what is causing the pain) or they will find alternative exercises that don’t cause pain.
We often form some long elaborate web of plans to reach a fairly simple goal. Most of it is highly unnecessary, leading to over thinking and a target that becomes impossible to reach. We forget the simple things. You can’t lose two stone without losing your first kilogram. You can’t run a marathon without running your first mile and you can’t put the pig’s bladder in the onion bag without entering the field of play.
If you’re struggling with your fitness goals, have a think about how you might be able to bring it back to being simple.
The last time I counted there were over 30 different variations of the deadlift. Many of them are spin offs of original lifts and if you are a deadlift enthusiast then you are probably intrigued in what these different lifts can achieve.
But it’s worth explaining my relationship with deadlifts if you’re not already aware. Basically, deadlifts saved me from a life of back pain, poor mobility and quitting playing all the sports that I love. And because of that I believe that it sorted out my mental health too.
A decent footballer as a teenager, I knew that I might not be able to continue playing the game I love with a passion due to the terrible sharp pains that I would get. This would sometimes be during a game but I could garauntee the pain for two or three days after the match. Playing against other 16 year olds who could train harder than me, move better than me and recover better than me was demoralising. My skill and application was there, but my back and the sharp pain that would drive down my butt and leg was excruciating. I simply couldn’t compete against them. They were fit kids. And even though I were the same age as them, I felt like an old man.
I quit playing football when I left school. Cigarettes, alcohol and the opposite sex didn’t give me extra back pain. That became my new sport. But the pain remained. Trying to put socks on, especially in winter when my back seemed to seize up more, was a task in itself.
As a young man in my late teens I began going to the gym often. I realized that I could still remain active by doing controlled movements, my running (which was always impressive in school competition) was still good and I found a zest for life again outside of nightclubs. This even lead me to want to join the army. I wanted to put myself up against their physical demands. I also needed a career and I was drifting at the time. A weekend at Penikuik barracks saw me fly through their trials. With hundreds of applicants I was one of the first to finish the cross country and I came first in the sit up bleep test. My competitive spirit meant that I’d probably be still completing the sit ups now had I not been told the test had finished.
However, in the back of my mind, I knew that the physical demands that I put on my body would catch up to me. On the Sunday evening, trying to hide the limp that accompanied the back pain, I walked into the Major’s office. He slid the contract in front of me. I had passed and he wanted me to sign into the army. I was desperate to sign. I didn’t know what civilian life had in store for me. I felt secure in army life. I had a purpose. My back pains had other ideas.
Back at home I managed to get a good, rewarding job within the Social Services, I continued with my gym training and I started to enjoy life. I thought that I had to live with the pain so it didn’t frustrate me like it once did. I just had to get on with it. But my training was all wrong. I know that now. The lure of the aesthetic training like my friends were doing was strong. I wanted the biceps, pecs and abs. This made me feel good, but it never addressed my injury. In fact I added to my injuries by chasing the aesthetics.
I began talking to trainers and gym owners. My mates were decent lads who trained hard but I had to ask professionals for advice. It took some time to convince me that deadlifts would help me. My thoughts were (even though it was me who approached them) that they just wanted my money. Also, just watching someone perform a deadlift triggered the shooting pain down my leg.
Over time we worked on my form. I got stronger. I built muscle in the affected areas. I moved better. After a year or two I could stand out of a chair without a grimace. I could put my socks on. I even started kickboxing. Surely that would cause my back pains to start again? I started playing golf. After my first tee off I fully expected to feel pain. But no. It felt good. Even just 3 years ago I played a full football match for the gym where I train. In my 40’s, I managed something that my teenage self could not physically do…play football and recover without pain.
Deadlifts still play a big part in my training. I know that my back injury is still lurking and ready to pounce. During the recent lockdowns when the gyms were closed I could feel the niggle was there. But the muscle that I had built over the years weren’t going to let me down.
I do exactly the same now as what those trainers did for me. I advise others on how to overcome their injuries, I enable them to perform exercises safely and productively and they become stronger and happier people. That’s my aim, because that’s what happened to me. Living life with pain is demoralising. It doesn’t just destroy your physical capabilities, but it affects the mental health. At times I felt useless.
It doesn’t really matter the age or background of a potential client. Within an hour of a consultation or a 1-1 session with me they will have performed some sort of deadlift. It could be a 20 year old wanting muscle hypertrophy, a 40 year old with back pain or an 80 year old trying to keep their independence. They will perform deadlifts with me. Weights, rep ranges, set and rest periods might differ, but they will be deadlifting.
Thanks for reading guys. Take care.
Shay PT.
I like to think that I have a group of motivated and enthusiastic trainees who are focussed on their goals. At the moment there seems to be a buzz of excitement in what we are achieving, but it comes with a big red flashing light of caution.
As early as the consultation stage I like to prepare my future clients for the reality. Yes, they will succeed. They can reach their goals. But only if they become comfortable with the knowledge that it will be a case of not if, but when they have to face the feelings of failure.
Failure comes in many different guises. To some it’s a disappointing week with nutrition. To others it could be not seeing the results as quickly as they expected. It could be that they feel that they haven’t dedicated enough time to the gym or their weekend binge has set their progress back.
Even in elite sport the athletes will face failure. Djokovic might win Wimbledon, but he will drop sets. City might win the league, but they will lose games. A boxer might win the fight, but it doesn’t come without a few blows along the way. Real Madrid lost a whopping four times during their Champions League campaign in 2022 and yet went on to win the final. Being a Liverpool supporter I know that stat all too well!
The above sports people are trained to deal with the highs and lows of sport and competition. And let’s not hide away from the fact that your goals are a competition. If you set any type of target or goal, you begin to compete against yourself. Today, you compete against the yesterday’s you. Find that mindset and you make a big step towards your success. Acknowledge that sometimes the yesterday’s you will defeat you, then that’s an even bigger step.
But if you allow yourself to get bogged down on the low days then your journey will be so much more difficult. For many people it becomes too much and they give up.
The low days are the ones that you can look back on and embrace. These are the days when you learned something about yourself and you responded. It becomes an education. And in many ways you learn more on these days than you ever will on your good days.
Giving up on your goals is like slashing your three other tyres because you got a flat.
Sometimes you will get a flat tyre. Acknowledge it, know what to do or who to ask when it does, fix it and move on.
Scarborough is a small town. It’s the sort of place that if you go into the town centre you will probably know somebody to say hello to. Train in a gym with almost 3,000 members and the chances are that I will definitely see somebody I know.
Had they seen me in a bar this lunch time they would have found me with a large gin and tonic and some ‘dirty fries’. When I ordered them I imagined some chips with a sprinkling of grated cheese. What I actually got was a bag of potatoes, a pack of bacon and a block of cheese squeezed into a good sized pasta bowl. This wasn’t the amuse bouche that I had visioned in my mind, but it was one my belly was happy to try.
I wished a client of mine would’ve walked in as I slurped the stringy melted cheese into my mouth. If only to keep proving my point. I keep reiterating my point regarding food and weight management…eat it. All of it. If it fits your daily calories, eat it and enjoy it. But there’s a slight caveat. Just one little rule.
If you aren’t going to cut out the low nutrition foods, then you must keep the nutritionally dense foods high. Whether you are very active with fitness goals or more sedentary, keep the nutritionally dense foods high.
You see, I don’t believe in banning food types. If you want to stop off at a bar and order a truck full of McCain’s Chips then do it, as long as your weekly macros are met. Yes, weekly. Some days your carbs might be up, but if you keep the nutritionally dense and high protein foods a priority over the course of the week then your calories and macros will average out. Judging your Journey on just one day will serve you no purpose.
I knew that I could eat some greasy cheesy chips today. I count my calories.
Now, if you read the newspapers you might gasp in horror at the knowledge that I count calories and I also endorse it for others. The one exception being anybody suffering from an eating disorder. In which case they don’t need me, they need professional medical support.
But the media seem to be very negative towards counting calories. Which is interested, because they print lots of other methods such as 5:2, Intermittent fasting and promote large dieting companies who count ‘syns’.
My conclusion is that counting calories isn’t sexy. It isn’t a buzz word or trending on Twitter. And if it isn’t a large company paying a newspaper to advertise their diet or a book publisher paying them to flog Michael Mosley’s new fad diet, then it gets demonized as wrong.
If I go into a shop and see something that I want to buy I will check my bank balance before I purchase it. That’s just simple accounting.
If I go to the carpet fitters I will take the measurements of the room that I wish to have carpeted with me. That is just common sense.
If I take my son to buy a pair of shoes I will ask the assistant to measure his feet first. Efficient.
And if I want some dirty fries washed down with a gin and tonic I will make sure that my meals around this tasty treat are low in calories and high in nutrition. No anxiety or concerns.
I get what I want now and again and I also get to keep my body on track with my fitness goals. And a part of my fitness goals is my mental health, therefore stressing at banning all of the foods that I enjoy is not something that I consider healthy. I have a good relationship with food. I don’t want to feel anxious about being in a social environment and seeing half of the food on the menu to be cancelled for me.
I don’t develope programmes or challenges for my clients if I wouldn’t do it myself. So occasionally doing my own Balanced Plate Challenge works for me. My clients succeed, why shouldn’t I enjoy my own methods too?!
And so it’s time to make my smoothie. With plenty of spinach and fruit in there my body will still know that I love it. And it might even get another bowl of dirty fries again next week!
You have this cool programme that you developed/got off YouTube/received from a trainer about 6 months ago and it was fantastic.
It excited you, gave you a new purpose in the gym and got you some kick ass results. For the first time in a long time, you had a new belief in reaching your goals.
It was amazing. WAS.
But now, 6 months on, it all feels like a slog. The thought of going to the gym isn’t exciting you any more like it did. The results are slow if any at all and you’ve started to feel the injury niggles from repeating the same old exercises. Day in… Day out.
>sigh< “here we go again” you say as you enter the gym doors.
You start to blame yourself. Are you tired? Is your mind just not in the game anymore? Is it just an age thing? Are you eating right?
The odd day off creeps in where you would usually have gotten to the gym. A few mates are having a pint after work. It’s tempting. The gym bag gets thrown back into the boot of the car. Or the early morning start where you once jumped out of bed to get a workout in before work has gone. Now the snooze button seems like a better option.
If any of this sounds familiar then the chances are is that your programme has run its course. I’d estimate that it’s probably a good four months out of date.
Not only does a progressive programme last over months and in some cases years, but keeping a check on the finer details like rest periods, weights, reps and sets becomes essential to a trainees goals.
If you have a workout plan that you repeat every week without a direction beyond that plan then it will become stagnant. You become demoralised and you give up. Or you become demoralised and injury gives you little option but to give up.
Internet workouts perplex me. They appeal to people because they are free. I’ve been there. The free option was like finding a cheat sheet. A short cut that didn’t cost a penny. And the guy posting it was jacked. ‘That’ll be me soon,” I thought.
Programming isn’t a one size fits all. And if you are lucky enough to find something that works to begin with, then eventually, without auditing, you will be forever treading water. It will become a tired workout. You’ll become tired.
Assessing your progress every 6-8 weeks should be as much a part of your training as perfecting your squat or your bench. Knowing how and when to tweak your workouts is a skill. I only acquired this skill when I was studying for my PT qualifications. Since then I’ve written thousands of programmes.
If only I’d have known how to audit my fitness 20 years ago when I was at my physical prime. In truth, I didn’t have a clue back then.
I don’t blame myself or anyone else for not auditing and following a progressive programme. There’s so much confusing information out there and, as I say, it’s a skill. A skill that I learnt and became qualified in.
Why wouldn’t you try out free workouts online? After all, I wouldn’t trust most PT’s in mainstream gyms anyway. I honestly can’t tell if they’re giving the gym member an induction or a training session, such is the lack of passion in their approach.
But very good PT’s do exist. Ones who are fully self employed are generally 100% committed and knowledgeable to their clients. They have to be. If they fail then nobody will pay them. If they don’t get paid they don’t have a job. I literally go to sleep at night thinking about programmes or tomorrow’s sessions. I have to. I’m the one who will help my clients audit their workouts. I need to know every tweak for over 20 programmes at any one time.
The Bottom Line
Any new workout usually works for a time. They often work muscle groups that haven’t been worked before and muscle soreness feels intense but satisfying. But the body adapts and with it so must your programme. How you adapt it is what will keep getting you the results.
Never Give Up PT