The Truth About What Makes a Good Personal Trainer Part 1: Debunking the Myths About How to Spot a Bad Trainer

Qualities of a good personal trainer and how to identify a bad trainer are two topics often addressed in industry articles and discussions. However, I think many of the qualities these articles and discussions commonly identify generally lack perspective, are unrealistic, and major in the minor while missing the bigger picture issues that are far more relevant. That’s why I’m writing my own three-part series on these topics; to share my perspectives on what does and what does not make for a great fitness professional.

To kick things off, in this article (part one in the series) I’m covering common myths about spotting a bad personal trainer. In part two, I’ll cover common myths about what makes for a good personal trainer; and in part three, I’ll discuss the qualities I feel specifically are attributes of a strong personal trainer.

Before we get down to business, I wanted to let you know that you can now get access to the Brolando Experience videos. You’ll get over 10 hours of education from both myself and Alan Aragon packed into 4 videos that you can watch conveniently from your computer or tablet.

Myths About How to Spot a Bad Trainer

Most, if not all, of the articles I’ve read typically identify eating, texting and excessive talking during sessions among the signs of a bad trainer. As someone who has achieved long-term success at every level of the personal training game, including being awarded the 2016 NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year, I have no problem telling you that I have done, and continue to do, all of these things with clients. The following three sections explain why.

Eating During Sessions

These days, I only train clients part-time, but for the 15 years when I did train full-time (10 of those years as co-owner of a private gym), both the gym’s co-owner and I were booked solid, training clients back-to-back for 8 to10 hours a day. We told clients, “Either we eat during your sessions or we take your timeslot off our schedule.” Of course, none of the clients cared that we were eating because that might have been the only available timeslot we had that worked with both our schedules. Plus, as small business owners, we’re not leaving money on the table, even if it means wolfing down some food and taking bites in between a client’s sets that doesn’t interfere with the flow of their session. Many of our clients actually liked the fact that they got to see what we were eating; that we made it a point to get in our meals and were eating healthy meals in the way we were advising them to do. They saw that it is possible to eat healthy on-the-go.

Don’t get me wrong, we would always ask our clients if they minded that we eat during their session, as long as we were considerate and strategic about it. Not one single client ever complained.

Texting During Sessions

Just like eating, I’ve often thrown out a text or two during the client’s rest break or in between sets. Of course, I’m not talking about sitting there and having full-on personal text conversations. One reason this may happen, especially as a busy trainer, is because it’s my next client texting me to ask if they can come in early or late, or possibly bring another person to workout with them who could be a potential client. In fact, in those situations, I’ve had several clients get mad at me for playing the, “I-don’t-answer-texts-during-sessions” card. They’re upset because they are trying to make plans and they know it only takes a few seconds for me to reply to a text. Doing so really doesn’t take away from the other client’s session if it’s done quickly and during a rest break. And, they’re absolutely right!

Additionally, many articles about the qualities of a good trainer usually state that they write things down during the session (i.e., take notes, record sets/reps/weights, etc.). I certainly agree with this! I often take notes about the session on my phone, which could appear to an outsider as if I’m texting. That said, if one acknowledges that a trainer can take the time to write things down throughout a session without delivering a lesser value to the client, then one certainly can’t think that a trainer taking a few seconds to text, in a scenario like I described above, takes away from the value of the session.

Again, I’ve always asked the client(s) I’m training if they mind that I quickly text another client about something that is time-sensitive. Not a single client has ever even remotely had an issue; in fact, when I’ve asked they look at me as if to say, “Why are you even asking, of course you can!”

Talking Often During Sessions

An important part of personal training is relationship-building. The only way to do this is through communication that goes beyond the technical aspects of exercise programming and coaching. Now, this certainly doesn’t mean that you just talk for most of the session while not dedicating much time and effort to exercise. Creating a good relationship with clients and continuing to cultivate that relationship involves talking and bullshitting during the session. For example, I might even continue to talk to them during the first few reps of a set about something we were talking about during our rest break as long as they are demonstrating good control. Then, as they begin to fatigue, I’ll go right into coach-mode until the end of the set. This provides the human-side we all crave and the trainer-side they need without allowing the two to interfere in order to give an effective training session.

Another problem with simply watching a trainer and judging them based on what you see, is that you have no idea if they’re doing what they’re doing because of specific client needs. For example, I have a long-term client who loses his breath easily, so we must take extra-long rest breaks between sets. During those rest breaks we talk and bullshit until they’re ready to go again. So, if you were watching us train and saw the time we spent just talking, you might label me a “bad” trainer, when in the case of this client, a truly bad trainer wouldn’t allow this client adequate rest and risk a severe medical incident.

How Their Clients Look is NOT a Sign of a Bad Trainer!

Another thing that is often discussed to identify a “bad” trainer is if a trainer’s clients don’t look that much different from when they started. This idea is so detached from the reality that I don’t know whether to call it laughable or delusional.

Here is the reality, the majority of clients most trainers will work with are recreational exercisers. Although many of these folks may say that they’re looking to lose some fat, they’re really after weight-management; most aren’t genuinely interested in becoming gym rats who organize their entire lives around gyms, kitchens, and bathrooms. Others will openly state that they’re not at all interested in changing their eating habits and are exercising for defense to offset all the foods they love to eat.

Generally speaking, most clients are exercising for general health and fitness purposes and will often say things like, “I don’t want to think when I’m working out.” These folks just want a great workout experience that challenges them but doesn’t hurt them. They often gauge their training success by how much they’ve enjoyed each workout, how they feel at the end of the workout, and by the fact that they’ve completed a certain number of workouts per week. Though these clients become fitter, feel better, and are more confident, these general fitness expectations explain why so many competent fitness professionals (including yours truly) have long-term clients who don’t look much different or don’t have impressive increases in their lifting numbers than when they started.

As you can see, the common myths around what makes for a bad personal trainer can certainly be debunked as long as the trainer uses discretion and stays focused on the experience of the client. Stay-tuned for my part two of this series where I’ll be debunking the myths around what many believe makes for a good personal trainer.

http://nicktumminello.com/2017/04/the-truth-about-what-makes-a-good-personal-trainer-part-1-debunking-the-myths-about-how-to-spot-a-bad-trainer/

Do You Really Need a Rest Day After Exercise?

Rest days are a standard part of exercise programs, but they’re not the only way to avoid overworking yourself. Let’s look at the difference between rest and recovery, and when you can bend the rules.

The Reason for Rest Days

Most strength-focused programs like weightlifting either work your whole body and then skip the next day, or else they have you split up your workouts so that, for example, your arms get a rest on leg day. The idea is to let each muscle recover from a workout before you ask it to do the same thing again.

But not every activity works this way. Runners, for example, often run every day, and may only take one or two true rest days a week. But within that pattern, they will alternate days of hard running (like speedwork, hill running, or long runs) with easy runs that feel less challenging to the body.

Other sports may fall somewhere in between, but nobody expects to work every body part to exhaustion every day. Even when elite athletes do workouts every day that look killer to us, it’s because our “hard” is their “easy”. You can bet their coaches schedule in just enough of the easier workouts to keep the athlete’s progress on track with minimal risk of injury.

Rest days and splits help us to pace ourselves. Too much hard running, if you’re not used to it, sets you up for tendonitis and other overuse injuries. And too much exercise of any kind can lead to a syndrome called overtraining where your body may develop flu-like symptoms and disturbed sleep because it just can’t keep up with the demands you’re putting on it.

There’s Nothing Magic About Resting for One Day

Taking a single rest day after a hard workout isn’t the only way to keep yourself from overtraining. There are a few reasons it’s a good rule of thumb, though:

 

• Delayed-onset muscle soreness often takes two days to peak. If you did a too-hard workout on Monday, you might be feeling only a little bit sore on Tuesday and think you’re okay to work out some more. If you waited until Wednesday instead, you would have a better sense of how sore or injured you are. Then you would be able to make a better judgment call about whether, and how hard, to work out again.
• Resting every other day means only half of your days will be hard workouts. The other half will be rest days or easier days, so the schedule keeps your total workout intensity manageable.
• Mentally, it’s easier to stick to a workout when you enjoy it. Hard workouts aren’t always fun, and you may need to psych yourself up to try something really challenging. It’s okay if you don’t feel up to that every day. Having some easier, almost relaxing days can help you stick to your schedule.

If you can accomplish those goals with another schedule, though, feel free to do so. If you enjoy all your workouts, even the hard ones, slowly include more hard days in your schedule. If you feel okay with that, keep doing it! But if you end up sore or fatigued, listen to your body and put those rest days back in.

If soreness is your problem, be aware that skipping one day may not be the best way to deal with it. Soreness peaking at 48 hours is just an average, and the true timeframe can vary. Your muscles might only feel sore and weak for one day, or if you tried something new and difficult, you might feel it for a week. At the beginning of a new workout routine, you might even need three or four easy days.

Recovery Doesn’t Have to Mean Total Rest

Some people prefer the term “recovery” to “rest” days, because total rest isn’t necessarily your goal. After all, lifting a fork to your mouth is a similar action to a bicep curl, so if you just did a heavy arm day, would you be unable to eat? Clearly, some amount of activity is fine on a rest or recovery day.

This is where you have to calibrate your own sense of effort. If you’re new to exercising and you just did a day of heavy squats, a five mile bike ride is probably not a great choice for the following day. But if you bike five miles to work every day, you should be able to keep doing that even on your “rest” days.

When I did push-ups every day for 30 days, a few people suggested that I was setting myself up for injury by not taking rest days. But as I wrote in that article, I ramped up my fitness very carefully. A few sets of pushups every day is my new normal, and it’s no more taxing to me than a bike ride is to a bike commuter. Some days I might try a more challenging type of pushup or I might do more reps than usual; but I balance out those harder days with, you guessed it, easier days that are closer to my baseline effort level.

As you learn your own strengths and limitations, you too can alter your workout schedule according to what works for you. That might mean you only take one or two rest days per week, or it might mean you do mega-hard workouts and then lay low for a few days. If you’re getting a reasonable amount of exercise in total, and if you aren’t getting sore or injured, you’re probably doing okay.

http://vitals.lifehacker.com/do-you-really-need-a-rest-day-after-exercise-1792349953

GET SIX-PACK ABS IN 6 SIMPLE MOVES

Try these 6 quick exercises to get the washboard abs you've always wanted.

The hallmark of fitness is a nice six pack, because it not only represents a certain level of effort in the gym, but also maintaining a relatively low bodyfat percentage.

THE WORKOUT PROGRAM

Perform one set of each exercise 3 times a week. These exercises are of sufficient difficulty that one set will be a good start. Shoot for a rep range of 8-12. Once you can consistently get 15 reps with good form, and still make it through the workout, add another set.

Rest: 90-120 seconds

1) THE PIKE

Lie faceup with your legs straight, arms at your sides, palms facing down. Raise your legs and torso 45 degrees off the floor. (You should look like a "V".) Reach your hands alongside your legs as high as you can without rounding your back.

Key Point: This one is tough, but focus on contracting the abs to move your body.

2) CABLE SIDE BEND

Attach a D-handle to a low-pulley cable and stand so your left side faces the weight stack. Grasp the handle with your left hand, keeping your arm by your side, and place your right hand on your hip. With your head facing forward, slowly bend to the left. Return to standing, repeat for reps, then switch sides.

Key Point: Granted, obliques aren't abs, but this movement is an integral part of any ab workout.

3) WEIGHTED CRUNCH

Lie faceup with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Extend your arms toward your knees, holding a lightweight plate with both hands. Keeping your arms extended, slowly lift your head and shoulders off the floor moving into a full crunch.

Key Point: Again, focus on contracting your abs to do the work. Use a light weight and anchor your feet if needed.

4) OVERHEAD CRUNCH

Lie faceup with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor and arms extended overhead with your hands clasped together. (Your upper arms should be alongside your ears.) Keeping your arms straight and alongside your head, curl your torso forward, raising your shoulders off the floor. Pause, then return to the start.

Key Point: Another great way to hit the abs with extra overload. Perform shortly after the Weighted Crunch for a deep burn.

5) BALL PLANKS

Get into a push-up position on an exercise ball: hands shoulder-width apart on the floor and your legs extended behind you, feet up on a ball. Maintain a straight line from head to toe, and push back slightly such that your arms are out in front of you. Hold this position for up to 60 seconds.

Key Point: This ain't your grandma's plank. Your abs and entire midsection will be screaming by the end of this.

6) WINDSHIELD WIPERS

Lie faceup and tuck your hands under your pelvis, palms down. Keeping your legs straight and feet together, raise your legs so your heels point toward the ceiling. With your head and shoulders flat on the mat, lift your glutes off the floor and lift your feet toward the ceiling. At the top of the movement, twist your hips to the left (your feet should point to the left). Lower your legs back to the start (feet suspended off the floor), then lift up and twist to the right. Alternate sides for reps.

Key Point: A great way to finish off your abs. Start with your hips on the ground if needed and progress to the exercise as described.

http://www.muscleandfitness.com/workouts/abs-and-core-exercises/get-six-pack-abs-6-moves?page=2&utm_source=outbrain2&utm_medium=cpc

Why Are Muscles Sore After A Workout?

Explaining the Effects of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

We’ve all had those days after an intense workout where all you want to do is curl up into a little ball and never move. Your muscles feel tight, stiff and make getting out of bed feel just plain terrible. So what causes our body to become sore after a workout?

Soreness results when you workout or do physical activity that is greater than normal. It is known that you body’s eccentric muscle contractions, cause more soreness in the days following the workout than either isometric contractions or concentric contractions. Okay, that was a quite the mouthful! So, what do those things even mean? Let’s take a step back for a moment and break it down.

• Eccentric Muscles: The muscles that lengthen when you are lowering a weight for example.
• Isometric Muscles: The muscles that does not change length. For example, like when you are holding a weight.
• Concentric Muscles: The muscles that shorten like when lifting a weight for example.

You’re probably asking “why do your eccentric muscles cause the most pain?” I’ll be getting to this in a moment, first, let me explain more about what you are experiencing. The soreness you are feeling in the days after your intense workout can be referred to asdelayed onset muscle soreness or “DOMS.” Your muscle mass is always being broken down, and is also always being synthesized at some point. When you work out, the stress that you are putting on the muscles activates chemicals that causes your body to build up your muscle tissue. If you feel soreness or the “tearing” as some refer it as, you are noticing one of the signs of this chemical process. There are many other things that affect the way your body responds to physical activity. Some of these include metabolic, hormonal, and dietary changes that function in various ways.

If you’re currently looking for ways to massage your muscles or relax them after an intense workout, I’d suggest checking out the Trigger Point Total Package. With the Trigger Point Kit’s patented design mirroring the feeling of a human hand, you are able to massage almost any part of the body safely and effectively on your own. If you’d like to learn more about this product, click the image on the left or visit the Fitness Town website.

“No Pain, No Gain” Misconceptions.

One of the biggest misconceptions is the saying “no pain, no gain.” Some believe you need to workout until your muscles feel sore or exhausted. I definitely disagree with this belief, I believe you do not need over-do it for them to grow. While working your muscles until they’re achy means you technically did tax your muscles, which helps them get stronger, it’s actually not beneficial in the long run. So why do eccentric muscles hurt more than others? DOMS tends to begin 24 to 48 hours after exercising and you can feel the discomfort peak between 48 to 72 hours. Studies have shown that eccentric muscle activity, which is actively resisting lengthening of the muscle (like raising or lowering a weight), gives the most discomfort. When overworked, DOMS could be due to high tension on muscle fibers and connective tissues which is less common in isometric, concentric, or static tension activity.

Consistency is Key!

At Fitness Town, we believe that keeping active on a daily basis is important. Pushing your muscles past your comfort line on one day means your muscles are going to feel extremely exhausted for days after. This means when you go to workout the following day, you’ll be more likely to skip your routine. I find more often than not that many people struggle with keeping up with their fitness routines overtime. This is why it becomes a very big issue! Why? Well, because when getting back into shape, consistency and determination is key! Personally, I believe it is about developing and learning how to maintain a different lifestyle. It is easier to do this by working out less intensely every day, than to go all out on one day and dread every second of the few following days. Ultimately, if you dread the effects of your workout, you are going to be less motivated to continue on with your fitness goals. If you’re looking for something that will speed up your recovery time and give you that extra “umph,” I suggest looking into PurePharma.

Cons of Over-doing It.

Picture this, you have overdone your previous workout to the point you feel like you’re in a full-body cast. You then decide to lay on the couch while muttering all sorts of “I-hate-exercise” and swear words. Like I said previously, you can’t justify to yourself “I went hard a few days ago so I’ve done my time for the week.” Unfortunately for some, working out requires commitment. You can’t be a couch potato for the following 6 days of the week, that’s like one step forward and two steps back! Your muscles will respond better when they’re being constantly worked which allows them to gradually get used to your workouts. By doing this method, you’ll find that is will prevent your muscles from becoming weak and sore.

How Can You Tell You’re Over-doing It?

So, how can you tell when you’re overdoing your workout? If you are into weightlifting and find yourself starting to shake, twitch, get restless, or numb during your reps, that’s a sign you might be hurtin’ tomorrow! If you do find yourself in this situation, I suggest you step farrrrrr awaaay from the weights. Instead of continuing to workout that area of your body, move on to a different area of your body. As soon as you start feeling noticeably exhausted, I would suggest you end your workout session. This way you ensure that DOMS does not get the best of you and instead, you can workout comfortably the following day or so. Remember, the key to successfully reaching your fitness goals is to…

http://blog.fitnesstown.ca/muscle-soreness

HOW TO BUILD MUSCLE?

HOW TO BUILD MUSCLE: THE BASIC GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS

Want to know how to build real muscle quickly? That all depends on whether you want to get big or get strong. Both involve lifting weights and getting the right nutrition, but the ways of going about them are slightly different. Here, we’ll let you in on the right methods for you, whether you’re just looking to increase your overall size or strength.

LIFTING WEIGHTS TO MAKE GAINS

People often expect that they’ll have to spend all day and night at the gym in order to get big. That’s not really true. Experts recommend training just two or three times a week to make decent sized gains, but a lot of routines out there are based on a five-day program. Shorter bursts of more intense training are better than prolonged periods of light exercise when it comes to building muscle.

Intensity is key to getting bigger muscles quickly. The quantity or sets and reps you do is of paramount importance: the more intense and rapid the workout, the faster you’ll see results. Your muscles begin to grow whenever their cells are placed under “metabolic stress”- and if you’ve ever felt your arms bulging after a workout, that’s exactly what’s happening: your muscles are producing the extra chemical by-products needed to lift the weights. So, what does all this mean? Basically, you’ll need to do a whole lot of lifting. A good example of
a routine would be 3 to 5 sets of between 8 and 15, where you’ll be struggling to compete by the end but could maybe manage one or two more. You need to push yourself hard, but not to the point of failure. And getting rest between the sets if extremely important- though it shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes- because muscle tiredness if what we’re looking for.

This brings us back to the question of: “how often should I be training?” The five-day routines mentioned above- where one day is for your chest, another for your legs, etc.- is still the preferred way of gaining muscle, but you can definitely get enough done in just three days if the workouts are intense enough.

Below I’ve included an example of a chest routine that I prefer when making gains:

Around 4×12 reps of:

Decline press

Incline press

Bench press

Remember not to break for more than two minutes between sets. This is vital to increasing muscle mass.

LIFTING WEIGHTS TO BUILD STRENGTH

The only way of getting your body to become stronger is to show it that it has no other choice. That means, unlike lifting to build muscle, you need to test your body to breaking point. You’ll be using much heavier weights with far fewer reps, and expecting to fail a few times as you push your body to the max. Of course, you’ll need to take longer rest periods between these exhausting exercises, but your body simply won’t be able to recover properly without them.

For this type of routine, you should be using rep ranges of around 3 to 6. Your weights should really push you hard, so that you can’t lift anymore after completing your set. Because the workload is so much more, you’ll need to give yourself at least four to six minutes between each set, giving your body enough time to get ready for the next challenge.

Because you’ll be lifting a lot more weight at about half the amount of reps required for building muscle, you should first use some lighter weights in order to get used to the movements involved. This practice could be used as part of a warm-up routine before you start increasing the loads. When it comes to reps in a set, you should start off with, for example, 3 reps, then move down to 2 and so on, as your body becomes more and more tired.

Resting periods are crucial if you’re looking to build strength. That’s because your muscle groups need to fully recover before you start training  them again. Typically, you’ll need one or two days for your muscles to get back to normal, but you definitely shouldn’t wait more than three days to start training again if you want to see real gains.

Strength training really requires you to use all your muscle groups in coordination rather than just isolating one or two at a time. For this we’d recommend doing upper/lower body groups on different days, either that or back/front groupings instead. We’d recommend doing this four times a week but you can definitely get away with just three.

Here’s a quick back workout that focuses on the whole body :

(All have a rest period of 2-3 minutes between sets)

5 deadlifts (5, 5, 3, 3, 1)

5 T-bar rows (4-6)

5 single-arm dumbbell rows (5, 5, 3, 3, 1)

5 seated cable rows (4-6)

5 Hammer Strength rows (4-6)

BY AMY ROBERTS http://clik6.com/how-to-build-muscle-the-basic-guide-for-beginners/

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