Posts Tagged ‘Education’
I co-wrote the following list with Jason Ferruggia in mid 2006 for EliteFTS.com. Five years later and it’s still pretty good career development advice – check it out:
1) Set benchmarks of success that you want to hit. If you work in a club, maybe you want to become the head trainer or the busiest trainer? Perhaps you just want to have a full client load or charge more money? Maybe you want to go out on your own or open your own place? (Keep in mind that although it seems like a goal, opening your own place or even working for yourself is maybe not the way you want to go. There are some GREAT trainers who have made a name for themselves working for someone else)If you’re just starting out, seek out a mentor to help you. Offer to assist them for free or even pay them for their time. It will put your experience and education on the fast track to a level far beyond any financial investment you may make.
2) Establish a level of excellence in everything that you do. For example – How’s your exercise technique? How’s your client’s exercise technique? What if you’re not there? Your client’s exercise form, without your supervision, is a window into your abilities. If you took a vacation and Dave Tate was supervising your AVERAGE clients’ squat workout (not your star client!), would you be proud of their form, or would you have the excuses lined up? Think through your communication skills too, your customer service skills, phone scripts etc. Revisit EVERYTHING.
3) Create a replicable system of program design. There has been a backlash against formal program design recently. The attitude has been “I don’t know what I’m doing exactly until I get to the gym.” This is acceptable when it comes from an experienced trainee, but in business, systems are everything. We should be able to write a program exactly as you do, without your input, by merely following your directions. This is the first step into hiring staff or increasing your business.
4) What are the results of your TYPICAL client? We all have the superstars that we can hold up and say “this is our work!” Well, guess what. ALL your clients are your work, even the “athletically challenged.” It’s easy to show us a picture of a pro athlete who you work with or a Men’s Health cover model and take all the credit (even though these guys were pro athletes or models before they even met you). Your reputation is built on improving the average client, getting Johnny off the bench and into the game, getting 30 lbs of fat off of Suzy. Raise the standards of your results across the board. We have a basic rule that if you’re not getting 10-12 inquiries or referrals per month – go back and work on your skills because you’re not good enough yet.
“People who are cocky and arrogant say, “I know that” and move along.People who are confident and positive ask themselves, “How good am I at that?” and seek to improve”-Jeffrey Gitomer
5) Think about the type of clients you want. You may want to train baseball players exclusively but right now only 10 percent of your clients come from that niche. How can you target more in that market? Maybe it means offering your services to some local kids for free to build your reputation?
6) And what kind of clients do you have? If you were to classify them as A, B, C, or D, with A being a highly motivated client in your target market, who trains hard, never cancels, is a great ad for your business, and refers other clients, and D being “you need the work to pay your bills,” how would you classify them? (You can use any system of classification that you want but hopefully you get the picture.) Every three months, you should be able to “trim the fat” and get rid of the bottom tier of clients. If this isn’t the case, then it’s doubtful that your skills are where they need to be.
7) Start studying the ancillaries of your profession. For example, if strength is your forte, then make sure you have a basic understanding of nutrition, mobility, energy system work, flexibility, and injury prevention/rehabilitation. The goal is NOT to become an expert in all of these areas, but to build a basic level of competence so that you can communicate on the topic and establish who the experts are in these areas. You want to look for THE expert and also the LOCAL expert. This helps build a network for you to consult. (It has basically been the impetus behind the EliteFTS advisory team). To be quite honest, until you are good at what you do, no one cares about your ability to write about it or wants to view your new DVD on it!
8) Magazine writing and product development all hinge on your abilities as a trainer. Getting good is not a step you should want to skip. If you want to get away from training and coaching, then maybe this field is not for you. Coaching is why we all do this. Don’t be in a hurry to get past that stage.
9) Similarly, if you want to write, STUDY writing. Some of the top journalists in this field, such as Sean Hyson, Adam Campbell, and Lou Schuler, have spoken to more top trainers than anyone else. These guys know a great deal but NEVER pass themselves off as trainers – they never disrespect our field so don’t be disrespectful to these guys and think you know how to write. Learn your craft.
10) Business book number one has to be The E Myth by Michael Gerber. Your goal should be to read this book ASAP. A good goal is to read a business book a week, alongside studying training. The second book to read is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It has about 15 chapters. Keep reading this book. Read a chapter a day every day so that you basically read it twice a month. While we’re on the subject of reading, a competent trainer should be reading Entrepreneur magazine, Fortune Small Business, Inc, Fast Company, etc. You should also be reading all the fitness magazines and websites. You can make fun of the fitness magazines all you want, but it’s what your clients are reading and you should know what’s out there. And face it, there’s not a single trainer out there who wouldn’t love to have a column or article in a national magazine. Read the magazines.
11) Attend any and all seminars in your area. You’re not that good that you can afford not to attend. We’ve never got dumber from attending any educational event. In fact, the networking alone is worth more than the seminar fee. And don’t limit yourself to only training events. You want your butt in all the business seminars in your area also.
The fastest shortcut to career success? You just need to have a methodical plan to improve your skills and therefore your business, and do everything in your power to execute that plan.
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AC
Tags: Training and Detraining Effects of the Resistance vs. Endurance Program on Body Composition, Body Size, and Physical Performance in Young Men
Lo MS, Lin LL, Yao WJ, Ma MC.
J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Jul 8
This was an interesting look at the effects of two different training programs and the results after the participants stopped training.
There were three groups - a control group (who did nothing), a resistance training group and an endurance training group that both trained three times per week for 24 weeks. The resistance training group performed a circuit of machine exercises - seated chest press, seated lat pull down, seated shoulder press, seated biceps curl, seated triceps extension, seated leg extension, lying leg curl, seated back extension, seated abdominal curl, and standing calf raise. (WHY? Why do researchers focus on this type of training so much? Are there any GOOD “in the field” practitioners still using single joint fixed axis machines?), and the endurance group performed running (30 mins at 70-85% of max heart rate).
After the training period, both groups improved aerobic fitness and lower body strength.
Upper body strength and lean mass increases were significantly greater in the resistance group than the endurance group.
This is the cool part – both groups were then instructed to stop training for the next 24 weeks (not entirely realistic mind you)
The strength and lean mass of the resistance training group were still greater than the start point after 24 weeks of detraining. The interpretation that we can use is that some of the gains from strength training stay with you a lot longer than endurance gains.
The authors concluded:
“Therefore, resistance training is a better choice than endurance training for young men to stay fit. It is thus plausible to hypothesize that resistance training is also more beneficial than endurance training for long lasting positive muscle adaptations (strength and lean body mass) in young men. Therefore, for coaches and personal trainers who are training young men to gain and maintain strength for specific sports, even after training has stopped or to lose weight, resistance training must be incorporated into their training programs.”
As usual – my question is what results would we see if we used a full body, free-weight program that more illustrates what clients are doing today? In other words a program that didn’t have people sitting or lying down for 9/10 exercises :)
What if we combined resistance training and endurance?
Periodized and progressed?
With a good nutrition program? Targeted Supplementation? Great coaching and social support?
Actually these aren’t really my questions. I know the answers. It’s what we do at Results Fitness. We get better results with our clients than almost any study shows (because we combine so many variables). Obviously if you don’t train at all for six months, you lose some of the gains, regardless of what you did to improve, but certain protocols appear to have longer lasting results than others based on this study.
Take home message: resistance training remains the undisputed king of all exercise. Even if you don’t do it at all for six months, , you still keep some of the benefits that regular resistance training gave you.
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AC
One of the most requested things I am asked is “what is your favorite exercise for X?” or “if you could only do one exercise what would it be?”
You asked. We responded with the Results Fitness Exercise Library DVD Set
These are the most commonly used exercises at Results Fitness.
This 2 DVD set contains over 180 exercises with coaching cues, tips, instruction, and explanations for why we use certain exercises.
The exercises are presented in order of difficulty, from the most regressed version of an exercise to the most advanced version.
The most commonly used exercises are recorded and given to you in a easy to understand, technically accurate video that will give you the tools you need to be confident in coaching clients and athletes.
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AC
PS – this will give you an insight into the most used exercises at Results Fitness and allow you to replicate what we do in terms of exercise selection and coaching cues
Pick it up here
Designing Successful Semi-Private Training Programs DVD
Semi-private training is the hottest trend in the fitness business right now. This year for Perform Better I presented on the practicalities of designing programs for these small groups and tips for easy implementation -something that we have considered to have revolutionized at Results Fitness
We go over
- How to integrate assessments – including how we use the Functional Movement Screen at Results Fitness,
- How we select appropriate exercises based on the screen,
- Dynamic warm-up
- Corrective exercise, – how much and what to do
- Core training – the difference between top-down core training and bottom up
- Stabilization training vs Dynamic Stabilization
- Metabolic work – why traditional interval training is dead and rarely used at Results Fitness
The DVD also includes some footage of the hands-on sessions including practical examples of how to put into action the lecture material.
We managed to implement the semi-private system with 100+ participants in a one hour session.
“I’ve never seen a trainer control a room the way Alwyn Cosgrove does. At first glance it just looks like a great workout – but when you’re truly engaged – you see all the subtleties in what he’s doing with the programming”
- Fraser Quelch.
Director of Training and Development
Fitness Anywhere Inc.
You can pick it up here -
Designing Successful Semi-Private Training Programs
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AC
Ok that’s the cheesiest blog title ever…. but here’s another study:
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Apr;43(4):624-31
Exercise Intensity Influences NEAT in Overweight and Obese Adults.
Alahmadi M et al.
The researchers compared “non exercise activity thermogenesis” (basically all the calories we burn unrelated to exercise, sleeping or eating) in two groups following exercise: A medium intensity exercise group and a high intensity interval exercise group.
The moderate group walked at a constant pace of 6km per hour. The high intensity group walked at 6km/h at 10 degree inclines for 5 mins, followed by a recovery period of 5 mins at 5kmh and zero degrees. I’m not sure I would call that “High” intensity but it’s definitely higher than the other group. Both groups exercises for one hour.
Here’s the interesting thing – there was no difference in non-exercise activity for two days following the training. However on the third day afterwards, the high intensity exercise group had a 25% higher NEAT compared to the exercise day, and 30-33% higher than pre-exercise days. The medium intensity group showed no change.
So the higher intensity group actually moved more three days after training than the medium intensity group. For whatever reason, (the mechanism that regulates NEAT is unknown), the higher intensity program not only burned more calories during training, but actually had people move 25% more than they did outside of the exercise session on the training day and 33% more than usual a few days after.
My interpretation: we know that higher intensity exercise burns more calories during exercise. We also know that high intensity exercise burns more calories after exercise (through EPOC and anaerobic calorie burns). Now we know that for some reason it also increases non-exercise activity thermogenesis VERY significantly.
The researchers noted “A longer-term intervention is needed to determine the effect of accumulated exercise sessions over a week on NEAT.”
A lot of researchers/internet writers have speculated that higher intensity exercise would leave people too tired to move much afterwards, and perhaps result in them burning less calories overall as a result. This study (while not really “high intensity” in my opinion) actually showed the opposite – people moved more.
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AC
Guest blog from Michael Boyle
A few recent events have made me realize that all strength coaches will eventually evolve to the same place. Like many of us, I listen to and read a great deal from the internet. One trend that I have seen is that some of the previously “hard core” guys are gradually embracing the corrective exercise/ functional training side of the coin. This made me realize two things:
1- Why I think the way I do
2- Why others make fun of me
The reason I think the way I do and the reason lots of the “hardcore” guys make fun of me is because I am old. I am further along the evolutionary trail of the strength coach. You see, we all start at about the same place and we probably all end up at the same place. I just started my journey sooner. In fact I am in year 32 of my evolution. For me phase 1 of the Evolution of the Strength and Conditioning Coach, The Bodybuilder, was actually in the 1970’s. I saw Boyer Coe guest pose at a show in Connecticut and wanted to be the next Frank Zane. If you don’t know who those guys are, it’s OK. You are just too young.
The truth is almost all male strength coaches and personal trainers go through the evolutionary process listed below.
Stage 1- The Bodybuilder.
Face it, we all started here. Maybe we wanted to get better at sports but what we really wanted in our teens was to look better for girls. To do this we picked up a muscle magazine, joined the local gym , copied the routines and began bodybuilding. The beauty of this stage is that we knew it all. We bombed and blitzed our way to success as Joe Weider looked on from the pages of Muscle and Fiction.
Stage 2- The Powerlifter
At the onset of stage two the bodybuilder realizes that the really strong guys in the gym don’t give him the time of day. In fact, the truly strong guys laugh at him in his tanktop as he admires his arms in the mirror. The young bodybuilder and future strength coach is determined to get some respect so he really works on his bench press to gain that respect. What he then realizes is that these strong guys don’t respect anyone with no legs and a big bench. The bodybuilder soon evolves to the powerlifter. As in stage one we still know it all but what we know is different. We realize that what we thought we knew in stage 1 was not quite as true as we thought. At this stage we never admit any mistakes though. Stage two last for 2-3 years or until the first major injury. In this time period you really fall in love with the weightroom. You become diligent about diet and not missing training days and you get stronger almost every week. Your training partners cheer you on. Your technique is not perfect but you are moving big weight. Usually in stage 2 you also decide to enter a meet. A meet is great reality therapy. Your 315 bench done in “all you” form with just a bit of an arch and bounce becomes a 275 pause bench. Your “parallel” squats suddenly expose your lack of knowledge of geometry. Usually you bomb in the squat in your first meet and resolve to return a much better lifter. In stage two you are at your most macho. You laugh at anyone doesn’t do back squats and deadlifts and you post frequently to internet forums. All posts mention how strong you are and usually some line that belittles those who don’t lift heavy iron.
Stage 3- The Injured Powerlifter.
This stage begins with a bad back or a sore shoulder and usually lasts through one or two surgeries. Stage three is like denial in the substance abuse world. You realize that your days of lifting huge weights are coming to an end but you refuse to say it out loud. Your searches of the internet now focus on healing your wounds. You vow to make a comeback. Often, you have surgery and attempt to lift in a meet again. Like a guy repeatedly slamming his fingers in the car door, you can’t wait to get back under the bar.
You learn about ART, MAT and a bunch of other therapies that seem to have guys names. You also begin to sneak a few looks at books on injury prevention and heaven forbid, you begin to explore things like warm-up and mobility. At the end of the injured powerlifter stage you begin to apologize to those older and wiser that you made fun of and called names. You realize that much like your parents the guys you taunted on internet forums were just older and wiser.
Stage 4- The Functional Training Guy.
Most of us end in stage four. Usually we have a few scars from our time in stage three putting off the inevitable. In stage four we realize that we can still train however, the days of trying to pick up the heaviest thing you can lift goes by. You become an innocent bystander watching car wrecks as you see the young guys move from stage 1 to stage 2. You try to warn them but they laugh at you and go into their chat rooms and make fun of you. All you can think of is “call me when you are fifty and we can talk”.
The truth is evolution and development are both inevitable. Young men will always want to impress young women. They will also, in a very primal way, want to impress other young men. We can only hope to speed the evolution and save people some pain. As you read this hopefully you will see yourself in one of these stages and intervene. Next time you get ready to “lay it on the line” ask yourself why.
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For more from Mike, check out StrengthCoach.com
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AC
