Alwyn Cosgrove - Fitness Coach
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Eleven Years Ago…

What it’s like to be reborn
By Vickie Girard

We cancer patients receive a unique gift. Yes, we know what it’s like to come too close to death, but we also know what it’s like to be reborn. I remember vividly the day I stepped outside the hospital -released at last from weeks of undergoing a bone marrow transplant. Oh, if that wonderful rush of the senses could be bottled, it would be worth a thousand times its weight in gold.

It was a beautiful summer day, but beautiful is inadequate. The colors that day were turned up, as if I had been seeing with poor reception before. The scents in the air were almost overpowering. I could smell fresh-cut grass, growing flowers, traffic, food – I could smell the time of day. Morning smells different than evening or midday.

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Private Facebook Group

As Bob Dylan once said – “The Times They Are A Changin’ ”

So for right now at least – I’m no longer here – I’m over here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlwynCosgrovePrivateGroup/

Come join us for live video, webinars, articles and Q&A.

—
AC

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Business Coaching with me…

I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from trainers right now about business coaching. I think probably because we just finished our last event so the “buzz” is definitely there from the attendees.

Honestly, though, it’s been a lot of “tire kickers” who are never going to invest in anything to solve their issues and get to a higher level of business.

But if that doesn’t describe you, I might be able to help.

As a reminder (bonus tip – never assume people know your background):

*I’ve been involved in training people for 30 years (started teaching Taekwon-Do in 1986)

*Have operated a gym for 17 years (And expanded 3 times) — BTW – 5 of those 17 years where when I was battling cancer and couldn’t be at the gym. Yet still the gym grew. So I’m not going to accept too many excuses as to why you “can’t” 🙂

*Have 22 staff working under me, and 300 members

*Work with over 80 gyms worldwide on their businesses

*Written/co-written 10 best selling fitness books, including 5 in the New Rules Of Lifting Series, and last years hit book STRONG!

* Former columnist/contributor to Mens Health, Mens Fitness, T-Nation and too many other publications to mention.

*Consultant to Nike

*Presenter on the MF Athletic/Perform Better tour for over 10 years.

*Currently invest $80K per year into my own education to stay at the front of my field.

If that sounds like I might be able to help you with your fitness business, and you’d like to work with me directly, and you’re serious and prepared to do the work – then fill out this application and we’ll set up a phone call and see if you’re a good fit.

==>https://resultsfitnessu.wufoo.com/forms/vip-platinum-level-coaching-application/

—
AC

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Most fitness pros don’t “get” this…

To be honest – most of my business guidance for trainers starts with changing mindset and looking at things differently. In early to mid 2017 we will be running a one-day “personal trainer success” seminar, where I’ll reveal several business success methods and practices.

But the first session will be about mindset shifts — it’s that important.

Let’s set the scene: You are a personal trainer. You currently train 25 one-on-one sessions per week at a very low $25 per session. You  do a phone consultation or a series of consults with me. We could cover program design, how to implement a session, billing practices, switching to semi-private training and critical mistakes to avoid.

As a result – you implement 2-3 changes to your business. You are now able to improve your skills and business practices enough that you are able to generate just two extra dollars ($2) per session and pick up ONE more client session per week.

That’s $50 more from your current training and another $27 from the extra session per week. That’s $77 extra dollars per week.

Within 6 months – you will have generated $2002 in extra income.

Within a year, $4004.00

So that phone call alone will make you over $4000 return in only a year- never mind the possibilities 2-3 years into the future.
And consider this – what if you picked up two clients? Or four?

Or your results got so much better that because of demand you were able to add just one single client doing just one single session per week to your business every single month.
That’s 12 clients in a year. 12 extra sessions per week.
Your weekly income inside of a year will have leapt from $625 per week, to $999 per week.
You took the knowledge gained from a consultation, applied it, and translated it into an extra $526 per week. An extra $27,000 per year.

How much should the phone call “cost” then based on that type of return?
It’s easy to see that it “costs” nothing. It’s an investment. An investment with a great return.
Going back to the low numbers for a second ($2 extra per session, one more client) – is $2000 a fair investment for a 100% return inside a year?
There isn’t a stock or mutual fund that would give you such a good return in that time frame.
Even a $3000 investment is a great deal – 33% return in 12 months.
How many times would you invest $2000 if you always got $4000 within a year? Or $2500? Or even $3500? You’d never stop.

It’s easy to see how this works.
That’s how I’ve thought about seminars/books/products my whole life. That’s how you need to think.

It’s a mindset that most fitness professionals lack though.

Make that shift – from an educational purchase being an expense – to it being an investment, that you will make a return on and your business will grow by leaps and bounds.

If you “get” this success is inevitable.


—

AC
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The Final Quarter

So here we are again…Today marks the 75% point of the year.

An entire three quarters of 2016 have already passed- we are now only three months away from 2017.

93 days to go.

Are you on track with those New Years Resolutions (remember those)? Are you on track with your goals?

If you wanted to lose 20lbs this year – are you down 15lbs already?
If your goal was to do 250 workouts – have you completed 188 ?

It’s amazing how time passes so quickly. If you need a “do-over” then I’m going to give you one.
You can REDO your New Years Resolutions right now and get started all over again.
That’s right – I’m letting you off the hook – but don’t waste a single second.

If your goal is fat loss – start today
If your goal is muscle building – start today
If your goal is (insert anything here) – start TODAY !

75% of this year is gone forever. Will you make changes TODAY or will another 25% pass…..

I meet a lot of people in my job, and get a lot of questions via email. I’ll talk to guys who track every single macronutrient that passes their lips, and have tried just about every program out there. When I ask them how things are going — they’ll tell me that it’s great, or that the program is working well.

However, very few people actually measure and take stock of their efforts. If you are following a plan to lose fat – are you actually losing fat? And I mean at a rate that is acceptable for your efforts? Or are you blindly following a plan that doesn’t work, and essentially ignoring that?

I know where my progress towards my goals stand because I measure it.

When I was in the hospital for a stem cell transplant – the medical team took measurements of temperature, blood pressure and blood samples every 4 hours.

When we implement a marketing campaign at the gym — we track the results. We know for example how many direct mail pieces we send out, the cost of each mailing, how many inquiries we get, how many appointments are made, and how many people join the gym as a result. We know exactly how effective the plan is, and whether the return we are seeing is worth the investment.

We can see that for $X invested, we receive a return of $Y.

We need to know where our membership stands – how many inquiries, how many new members, renewals etc and when our busiest times are – everything is measured and tracked so we can continue to grow and serve our members.

If you remember “SMART” goal setting — one of the keys is ‘M’ – Measurable. Measure your results.

As we enter the final quarter of 2016, it’s time to take stock of your efforts. Has your current return been worth the investment?

Again — 75% of this year is gone forever. Will you make changes TODAY or will another three months pass, then  before you know it — it’s 2017…..

Don’t waste a single second. Start TODAY.

Where will you be at New Years Eve – Dec 31st? That’s 12 weeks away. Will you be 12 weeks leaner – down 12, or even 16lbs of fat?
Will your business demonstrate 12 weeks further growth – will you be 12 weeks closer to your goals?

The time will pass anyway….

—
AC

Uncategorized

Training Comes Full Circle

“Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch and a kick just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch and a kick no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.” –Bruce Lee

I spoke with Jim Wendler of EliteFTS.com about programs a couple of years ago. Jim is of the position that all programs suck because most Elite lifters don’t have more than an inkling of what they are going to do when they go into the gym. They know it’s a lower body day, but they aren’t sure if they are going to work up to a 5RM, a 3RM, or a heavy single. If they feel good, they’ll take a short rest period between sets. If they feel tired, they’ll rest longer. They may not even be sure what exercise they are going to do. They definitely don’t know how many sets they are going to do or what other exercises they may or may not do.

All Elite lifters perform different programs. Although there are similarities, they are different enough that it seems that an actual exercise prescription is an irrelevant part of their success. I can see Jim’s point. Programs are probably not needed for these guys.

However, I started thinking–that’s what most beginners do, too.
They just go in with no plan at all. That’s what I did. That’s what all of you probably did, and after a point, made no progress at all. I made better progress once I had some kind of a plan. So why doesn’t “freestyle” training work for a beginner but works really well for advanced guys?

Think of it this way. An Elite kick boxer may not know what he’s going to do exactly when he arrives in the gym. But if you’ve NEVER kick boxed before, do you really think that you’ll instinctively know how many rounds of jumping rope, shadow boxing, pad work, shield work, bag work, and sparring you should do? Or what techniques you should work on? Of course not.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a full circle. Beginners did whatever they wanted. Then they progressed to more structured programs. At some point, they evolved to less structure and went back to a more “freestyle” plan once again.


Level one: Training freestyle

This is where we all started. My first exposure to the weight room was in high school. My first program? I just went around the machines and the free weight exercises in the order that they were laid out. It looked something like shoulder press, bench press, leg press, hanging knee raise, low cable, high cable (I did curls on the low cable and triceps press downs on the high cable and the next time around I did rows and lat pull-downs by changing the handle), and leg extension/leg curl (I did leg extensions the first time and then laid flat down and did leg curls the next time). Essentially, it was a universal multi-station with some other machines or dumbbells off to the side.

No plan. No progression. No record keeping. I just picked whatever weight felt good and did some reps. I usually went three times around and then my friends and I would have a sit-up competition.


Level two: Chop-shop programming

When I decided to start training seriously, my friend Terry and I used to go to the local gym in a town called Broxburn. The program that the gym instructors gave us was actually pretty solid. But of course we changed it!

Anyway, we went on Sunday evenings and trained upper body. (We didn’t do legs because I was doing Taekwon-do, Terry was playing basketball, and we were both running. That’s all the leg training you need, right?)

The first exercise we did was the flat bench press. The second exercise was dips and then we moved on to back exercises. Only the couple of bodybuilders and the one or two powerlifters that were there at that time decided to take us under their wing and teach us some things. They’d see us bench pressing and tell us that we should add incline bench pressing to our routine. Or they’d mention that we should use dumbbells and that we should finish with a superset of dumbbell flyes and push-ups. Terry and I listened. And we took their advice. All of it!

Pretty soon, our upper body workout started with flat barbell bench, incline barbell bench, and decline barbell bench followed by all three positions repeated for dumbbell pressing. Then we finished with incline and flat flyes and push-ups. Then we moved on to dips. We did ten exercises for chest for three sets of ten (of course) each! We’re lucky these guys left before we started the back exercises or who knows how long our workout would have taken…

To be fair, the original program that we were given was actually useful. And the intentions of the other guys in the gym were great. They were just trying to help us. We made progress. All of -our lifts were increasing regularly despite training only upper body. The problem was our inability to filter the information and use it effectively. We were reading Muscle and Fitness and adding in stuff all the time. I’d bring in exercises that we did in Taekwon do class and Terry would show me exercises he’d done in basketball training.

It was a step above freestyling but at least we had some mentors. The exercises were shown to us by coaches. We were just mixing and matching it. I remember we read about “breakdowns” where you did your max set of six, cut 5 lbs, and repped out and repeated this for a triple drop set. Oh yes, we did that one for a while.

But we were making progress at least. In fact, if we’d have been on our own in the gym, Terry and I might have made better progress. With less information, we wouldn’t have been overloaded.


Level three: Exact recipe programming

I think this is the next progression for most of us. We are tired of making sporadic progress and want to know exactly what to do. The key phrase is “exactly.”

My programs from those days looked like this:

A1: Barbell bench press at 15-degree incline, 14-inch grip to mid-chest, 4 sets of 8 reps at 4110 tempo with 80 seconds rest

or

A1: Close stance squat (18-inch stance), heels raised two-inches, toes turned out 15 degrees, perform 7 one-and-a-quarter reps at a 4120 tempo, 75 seconds rest while consuming 3.5 g of BCAAs per pound of lean mass

To be fair, these programs work well because progression is built in and they’re generally sound. The problem comes when you’re so busy measuring your stance and counting your tempo and reps that you forget to actually train and push yourself hard.


Level four: Template programming

For me, this was a big breakthrough. I guess the Westside Barbell crew and Louie Simmons were the first people I saw implementing this strategy. The guidelines were “max effort upper body” and you slotted in various exercises and assistance exercises within that template without an exact prescription.

I think this is where most of us really start to understand training. If your goal is to lose fat, what does a fat loss program look like? What does a strength program look like? You start to realize that maybe the loading parameters and the template are what determine the results, but you have flexibility within that template. If you do your warm up sets and you feel on fire, you get after it a bit. If you’re flat, you back off.

I think most top bodybuilders, powerlifters, and Olympic lifters are at this level. In terms of sports practice, most athletes are certainly at this level as well. They have a “plan” perhaps, a rough idea of what they are going to do. And they understand some type of long-term periodization. But they are experienced enough to be flexible, yet disciplined enough to do the exercises they know will benefit them the most even though they may not be their favorite ones. They instinctively know when to push and when to back off. At this point, training really becomes an ongoing process rather than a prescription. It’s almost more of an art than a science.


Summary

I think this is like the road to mastery in any field. It’s a natural evolution of learning. And it’s almost full circle.

The founder of Judo, Dr. Jigoro Kano, had beginners start by wearing a white belt, which signified innocence. He gave out colored belts before the black belt with the idea that the belt “darkens with knowledge.” However, the highest rank of Judo master (above tenth degree black belt) wears a white belt. Kano believed that if someone achieved a stage higher than tenth dan, “one transcends such things as colors and grades and therefore returns to a white belt, thereby completing the full circle of Judo as of life.”

Maybe training is the same?

—
AC

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