[quote]GriffinC wrote:
Calm down ladies, none of your penises will grow larger from winning an arguement. Just let it go.[/quote]
If that’s the case, then I win by default.
“LaHoo-ZaHerrr.”
[quote]Professor X wrote:
GriffinC wrote:
Calm down ladies, none of your penises will grow larger from winning an arguement. Just let it go.
If that’s the case, then I win by default.
“LaHoo-ZaHerrr.”[/quote]
Lol ok you win.
Prof X,
Yes, you are entitled to your opinion. I would just prefer it be from an educated standpoint of the subject matter. Maybe your friends practice in the manner you attribute to the whole profession, but I assure you that we all don’t.
I’m not mad at all, I just get tired of some tired old misconception being passed off as fact.
As far as your statement about coming to bat for the statement regarding MD’s not knowing musculoskeletal problems, I really didn’t think it was necessary since that was not the issue at hand.
I have no knowlege of buffalokilla’s previous posts or his background etc. I wasn’t sticking up for him in as much as I was just saying that I didn’t see any harm in doing a quick eval of a client.
I am with you in the fact that some people make way to much out of minor findings, but I don’t have a problem with the functional analysis JB’s book has in it. I don’t think it is creating an excuse for previous failings in as much as it would help to decrease the chance for future excuses, i.e I can’t squat because my knee…, I can’t bench because my shoulder… You know the drill.
So, the only point I really would like to make is not to just make sweeping generalizations based on limited experience (that applies to the post about the penises as well, lol)
By the way, what do you do?
Take care,
Ryan
[quote]Dr. Ryan wrote:
By the way, what do you do?
[/quote]
I’ll pm you. I think you missed the other thread that started this. We don’t disagree.
I’ll add my take, I think you were completely out of line for calling ProfX (and really me and a bunch of other guys that agree with ProfX) an “idiot”.
**You’re right, I was very angry after reading the original criticisms of GetLifted for following a sound program. I should have said something like “Idiotic in this regard.”
This guys is holding pencils in his hands and mapping the angle they make to his body to a 0, 1, or 2 score. Do you honestly believe that this method of self-diagnosis is the key to why this guy hasn’t made significant gains in his trainging? Get out of here.
**He has made significant gains, almost 40lbs in the past couple years. He wasn’t making excuses. As for the pencil test - it’s perfectly valid. It simply serves to show degree of rotation. I’m not sure about the scoring system, I haven’t read through the book yet.
You seem to be trying to frame the debate here. ProfX was (correctly) pointing out that this guy is going overboard here, and probably focusing on the wrong things. You’re trying to make it seem has if ProfX is saying that structural imbalances don’t matter. Please.
**Please what? ProfX IS saying that small imbalances aren’t a big enough deal to warrant consulting a professional when starting out. I’m saying they are, and should be weeded out with a pre-screening. I think we’ve established that well.
I’ll tell you what that guy is all about. He doesn’t want to believe that he just doesn’t eat enough, or just doesn’t work hard enough. He wants to believe it’s way harder than that, that it’s because he hasn’t been holding pencils in his hands before working out.
*I’d like to hear your reasoning for this. He merely agreed to do a review for the book.
That way it’s not really his fault. He also wants attention, and he wants to be able to blame genetics and Berardi in the case that he does not reach his goals on this workout plan.
**Yeah, sure, GetLifted sure comes across as a real powderpuff in his posts. He’s not blaming genetics, he’s trying to work hard AND smart.
I’ve worked out with ectomorphs, guys with fallen arches, flat feet, guys that had surgery on their knees and shoulders, etc. What do you know, but all of them responded to a good diet and squatting/benching/deadlifting with proper form. In fact, I’ve seen so many shoulder and knee problems (including my own) diagnosed by chiros and “exercise professionals” as “imbalances” that were cured by the simple protocol described above that it’s not even funny.
**You did not describe a protocol. I suspect you either incorporated exercises that fixed the problem without specifically thinking about the problem or did it accidentally. I’m not talking about a full-blown rehabilitation program here. I’m talking about screening for small defects and quickly correcting them.
Good luck with your trainees and clients. I guess those of us (among whom are individuals that have practiced medicine/studied for 6+ years at top 5 universities/Obtained doctorates in fields from A-Z, and have actually made the kinds of gains this guy wants to make) that suggest a simple protocol of proper diet and lifting when there’s no evidence of any kind of structural hindrance may be all this guy needs are all idiots. Hey, you’re the “exercise professional”.
**That’s the thing. There is evidence of future hinderance. Why not take care of it now for a few weeks rather than let it develop into a full-blown injury later?
**And just for the record, I’m using “exercise professional” because I don’t really have anything better to call myself. Trainer goes to Athletic Trainers, I’m not a full biomechanic or exercise physiologist yet, and Health Fitness Instructor sounds just as dorky. Anyway…
-Dan
The bitch of this whole thing is that I think everyone (including Prof. X) hopes this guy ends up huge.
I tend to lean towards the lift heavy/eat a lot camp, but that is just because I have a life outside of the gym. I could never devote 43 hours a week to measuring/tweaking the hypotenuse of my mid-back to left ass cheek ratio.
I hope this guy all the best. I personally think the best thing he could do is find a training partner who is bigger and stronger than he is and do exactly what that guy does, but if Excel spreadsheets pack on the pounds great.
[quote]GriffinC wrote:
Professor X wrote:
GriffinC wrote:
Calm down ladies, none of your penises will grow larger from winning an arguement. Just let it go.
If that’s the case, then I win by default.
“LaHoo-ZaHerrr.”
Lol ok you win.[/quote]
Please, guys, DON’T post the pics from that competition in the physique forum 
[quote]doogie wrote:
The bitch of this whole thing is that I think everyone (including Prof. X) hopes this guy ends up huge.
[/quote]
I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. You have people who are against some advice because it isn’t complicated enough? Your advice about training with someone stronger is great. I did that when I started and there is no other point in my life that learned more over the same time period. Most people who ride motorcycles will tell you the same thing. You learn more by riding with other more experienced riders than you ever could in a classroom or reading a manual. If you really want to push your limits, train with others who have made more progress and who are very serious. The sad thing is though, there seem to be fewer and fewer of those types of people around lately and more than enough guys ready to pull out a calculator rather than put their heart into the effort as if their life depended on it.
The guys I trained with were not the most eloquent and probably never sat around worrying about whether their gluteal muscles were 6 degrees inwardly rotated during the negative portion of a squat. They were, however, making more progress than some on this site seem to be. Amazingly, I have yet to walk into the gym and have someone give me a calculus exam. Hell, I ran away from finals by going into the gym in the first place. That doesn’t mean stop learning either. It means that when it comes to weight lifting and bodybuilding, trying to show off your IQ or your ability to be the most analytical and anal retentive bastard on the planet does not equal progress.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
doogie wrote:
The bitch of this whole thing is that I think everyone (including Prof. X) hopes this guy ends up huge.
I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. You have people who are against some advice because it isn’t complicated enough? Your advice about training with someone stronger is great. I did that when I started and there is no other point in my life that learned more over the same time period. Most people who ride motorcycles will tell you the same thing. You learn more by riding with other more experienced riders than you ever could in a classroom or reading a manual. If you really want to push your limits, train with others who have made more progress and who are very serious. The sad thing is though, there seem to be fewer and fewer of those types of people around lately and more than enough guys ready to pull out a calculator rather than put their heart into the effort as if their life depended on it.
The guys I trained with were not the most eloquent and probably never sat around worrying about whether their gluteal muscles were 6 degrees inwardly rotated during the negative portion of a squat. They were, however, making more progress than some on this site seem to be. Amazingly, I have yet to walk into the gym and have someone give me a calculus exam. Hell, I ran away from finals by going into the gym in the first place. That doesn’t mean stop learning either. It means that when it comes to weight lifting and bodybuilding, trying to show off your IQ or your ability to be the most analytical and anal retentive bastard on the planet does not equal progress.[/quote]
Ah, I think this might shed some light on why we disagree about the importance of checking deviances early on.
I’ve had the chance to train in one of the strongest gyms in America, and believe me, I did learn a lot. I now know what hard work really means. The only thing is, now I see many of the guys there fighting constant nagging pains and stagnating on lifts because little issues have developed into problems that truly are limiting their progress. They also use some movements (such as rounded back safety bar goodmornings) that are simply unsafe, but won’t stop using them because someone said they “make you strong.”
Working hard is a big key towards making progress, don’t get me wrong. When starting off and every once in a while afterwards, though, taking a step back and looking at yourself will keep you healthy in the long run. I’d rather have someone set records as a master than set them at age 30 and not be able to walk well at 50.
-Dan
I am kinda late walking into this, but I believe that I have some pretty valid things to say about this subject. I have been a personal trainer for the last 5 years having done about 7000 1 hr sessions with sedentry (sp?) people:
- If people slouch-work back muscles
- If knees go in or out with squatting-tell the client to stop doing that and then strengthen up their butt. Have them squat more.
- People have a week core-do stomach exericses along with a regular exercise routine.
I have found the need to do all these assesments to be a waste of time with beginners. They really aren’t valid. Most people don’t need special assesments when they aren’t at a high level of fitness, they just need to workout.
You have got to think simple, most people sit too much, don’t move enough, and they are weak and lack muscle mass. I have found that if I get 95% of the people that come into my gym just to move more and eat more protein and vegetables, everything seems to fall into place. Glute’s get strengthen, muscles get flexible, and deep abs and “core” gets going again.
I find these complex assesments to be very valid for people who have been working out for a while, like brad cardoza (sp?) simply because they are so god damn powerful and muscular, that often times the small muscles simply cannot be expected to naturally work at the same pace as the bigger muscles (think hamstrings and quads versus glute med/glute min/ gemmellus superior etc.)
concepts don’t have to be complex to work, that is unless you want to justify charging somebody a couple of grand to listen to you speak, then all of a sudden simple things become very complex.
Just get out there and exercise, become trained, put on some muscle, and in most cases, if you are an avergage person, everything will take care of itself.
The problem is that you have a lot of weak, skinny guys who refuse to eat enough and stop doing the things they are good at (i.e. cardio) who bitch and moan that they are “hardgainers” who can’t gain muscle mass, so they look for secrets when there really aren’t any.
If you have been lifting for a while (think decade not months) some of these assesments will have value to you, or if you have had major surgery or an injury, then there is also some value.
On one of the other threads, some guy posted that he was reading a new book and was going to test it out to let us know if it worked or not. I believe he stated that he has a lot of these type of books, most of which have been relegated to a pile of concepts and ideas that don’t work. I would challenge that most every training system works to some degree, and the problem is not with the system, but with the guy who is doing it. You could have god himself write a program for this guy and it still wouldn’t “work for him”. When I hear people in the gym tell me that they have tried all these differnet workouts and diets and yet “nothing works for them” I tell them to stop thinking that something should “work for them” because nothing is going to work for you. The concept almost screams of a lack of self reliance and self exploration.
Charles Staley always says that if you want to be good at something you have to become very comfortable with not knowing things. You have to become very comfortable with being around people who are smarter then you, and you have to become comfortable with being very confused from time to time. what I have found is that if I read a good book I actually leave most of the time with more questions than I do with more answers. That is the true price of learning, something of which I believe most people have neither the patience or desire to do. So what they do is pick up a book and expect it to give them step by step all the answers. Learing can be a painful and difficult process sometimes. Most people aren’t willing to pay that price so they whine that workouts don’t work for them and are always waiting for the next big thing.
[quote]MikeShank wrote:
I am kinda late walking into this, but I believe that I have some pretty valid things to say about this subject. I have been a personal trainer for the last 5 years having done about 7000 1 hr sessions with sedentry (sp?) people:
- If people slouch-work back muscles
- If knees go in or out with squatting-tell the client to stop doing that and then strengthen up their butt. Have them squat more.
- People have a week core-do stomach exericses along with a regular exercise routine.
I have found the need to do all these assesments to be a waste of time with beginners. They really aren’t valid. Most people don’t need special assesments when they aren’t at a high level of fitness, they just need to workout.
You have got to think simple, [/quote]
Great post. You would think some here think everyone needs a professionl work up before they ever set foot in a gym. No wonder there are far fewer extremely muscular bodybuilders lately and an overabundance of smaller overly-analytical trainers who think they know enough to correct everyone else who has made more progress than them.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
MikeShank wrote:
I am kinda late walking into this, but I believe that I have some pretty valid things to say about this subject. I have been a personal trainer for the last 5 years having done about 7000 1 hr sessions with sedentry (sp?) people:
- If people slouch-work back muscles
- If knees go in or out with squatting-tell the client to stop doing that and then strengthen up their butt. Have them squat more.
- People have a week core-do stomach exericses along with a regular exercise routine.
I have found the need to do all these assesments to be a waste of time with beginners. They really aren’t valid. Most people don’t need special assesments when they aren’t at a high level of fitness, they just need to workout.
You have got to think simple,
Great post. You would think some here think everyone needs a professionl work up before they ever set foot in a gym. No wonder there are far fewer extremely muscular bodybuilders lately and an overabundance of smaller overly-analytical trainers who think they know enough to correct everyone else who has made more progress than them.
[/quote]
You can’t necessarily gauge a trainer on their size, Prof… geez, it surprises me to hear you say that. It’s one thing to criticize a fat slob -it’s another to dismiss a trainer because he hasn’t made quite as much progress as you.
I’m curious how you know there are fewer muscular bodybuilders lately. Could be because many of them are switching to strength sports like strongman and powerlifting.
I wouldn’t hire you as a trainer Mike, nor advise any of my friends to do so given what you wrote. Have you talked to any of the people you’ve trained a few years down the road? Do you look for any problems in posture and form aside from the obvious ones?
-Dan
[quote]buffalokilla wrote:
You can’t necessarily gauge a trainer on their size, Prof… geez, it surprises me to hear you say that. It’s one thing to criticize a fat slob -it’s another to dismiss a trainer because he hasn’t made quite as much progress as you.
-Dan[/quote]
No one would dismiss a trainer based on progress. Anyone worth much at all, however, would question what has held someone back. If your explanation for why many in the gym seem to be lifting much lighter weights and generally acting as if weighing over 180lbs is a negative is because they are all strength training or attempting to become powerlifters, I will say you are about as clueless as the advice you gave the poster who asked about his chest muscles and posted the picture of them (also, based on that advice, I would never send a patient to see you either since you want to judge so critically). I think powerlifting is great, but I see even fewer actually getting into that. Of course, I have not trained “everywhere”, but I do hit up some pretty large gyms and do travel. There seems to be a large influx of much less serious trainers. If you disagree with that, I will be greatly surprised and would like to know where you train.
Every exercise is an assesment first off. Watch somebody move, if something is significantly wrong with them, you Can tell from a general observation. This idea of measuring every inch of somebody doesn’t really work because it doesn’t take into account that some of the movement patterns you think are abnormal, may be normal for that persons skeleton. Dan, who are you certified by, NASM, CHEK? Being that these two organizations base their entire model and it’s following programs on overly complex assessments, I would imagine that you have a vested interest in believing they work. If you are not, then I would wonder what it is you are going to do with the information you get from your tests. You do a 15 minute posture examination on a guy-then what? He slumps forward, great, I could have told you that in 10 seconds. I don’t need to know that this or that is short or “overly facilitated” and that his tonic phasic external rotator and thoracolumbar stabilization systems are suffering from synergistic dominance. that may impress the lay person with all that scientific jargon, but to me it is all “look at how smart I am so that you don’t pay attention to how out of shape I am or how I am charging you a fortune for a basic program”. People sit too god damn much, they need to move.
I have a good working relationship with almost all of my clients from the last five years and all of them are doing very well.
I wouldn’t need your rec’s, I do very well on my own. I have worked in a very small town, for over half a decade. If all my clients were dropping like flies as you seem to insinuate, then I wouldn’t have done as many sessions as I have for so long. Even if somebody were to come out and say that my methods are faulted because I don’t do tons of tests, my results speak for themselves. I think it would be a bad idea anyway for you to refer to me, cause people just might see how simple this stuff really is, and would realize that alot of the mumbo jumbo out their in this field is just self gratifying b.s.
People do not need complete biomedical workups before they step into a gym, get them moving and like I said, in 95% of the cases everthing works itself out just fine.
If problems do arise, I would refer out to a qualified professional, not a glorified personal trainer.
I have never been a proponent of the movement in this field of trying to turn trainers into “corrective specialist’s” or pseudo physical therapists. I think too many people, like chek and mike clark, have financial interests vested in these complex assessment methods, you have to pay them a lot of money to take their courses to learn to do them right or god forbid you might kill one of your clients.
I really don’t like digging into paul chek that much anymore, because I really believe he thinks he is doing the right thing, but I think the NASM guys just want to think that they are better than everybody else.
As the esteemed professor has already stated, our field is now overrun with guys who lack any muscle mass and are weak and can’t even deadlift their own bodyweight, but are supposed experts in strength and conditioning. How are you to trust a guy to design you a training program who cannot even design one for himself. I have had direct experience working for a couple guys in my area who were just like this. Their people didn’t get any results that were much better than the average person would get reading a program out of a book. Both of these guys were skinny and weak. First they were shoved up tom purvis’s ass, now I think the one guy is a chekie, and the last time I saw him he was still skinny and weak. These guys had every excuse in the book why they weren’t in shape:
I am too busy
I am a hardgainer
I am not in shape now, but I will be soon in the future when I get this or that going in the right direction.
They could talk your ass off about stabilizing this or that and tva this and each one of them were self proclaimed “masters of the joints”. “we go home and study the joints for hours” the one guy would tell me, however, he never developed a chest that was in proportions to his giant cranium. All talk and no action.
How this whole thing works is that they convince everybody out there that they are broken and that it would be impossible to start an exercise routine without one of their “assesments”. They really dig into people’s primal fears of becomming injured as well as people’s lack of knowledge of how the body works. You need me, you can’t start without me, so before the person has even gotten moving, they have already gotten a couple hundred bucks out of them doing tests to which the trainer is neither qualified nor knowledgable enough to even interpret.
If you have to assess somebody, you probably shouldn’t be working with them in the first place.
[quote]MikeShank wrote:
How this whole thing works is that they convince everybody out there that they are broken and that it would be impossible to start an exercise routine without one of their “assesments”. They really dig into people’s primal fears of becomming injured as well as people’s lack of knowledge of how the body works. You need me, you can’t start without me, so before the person has even gotten moving, they have already gotten a couple hundred bucks out of them doing tests to which the trainer is neither qualified nor knowledgable enough to even interpret.
If you have to assess somebody, you probably shouldn’t be working with them in the first place.
[/quote]
Well said.
things I look for:
- do you slump because you sit all day?
- do your shoulder blades move when your row or are you completely arm dominant, do your shoulders hike up?
- when you squat, do your knees buckle in or out, do you bend over too much at the waist.
- when you bench, does the bar favor one side?
- when you do any exercise, is there pain?
- when you do low back or hip extension exercises do you move from the hip, or do you overly compensate from the low back.
- When you create rotation, can you control rotation? When you rotate, are you creating that motion from the abs or are your creating that motion from the spine. It is pretty simple to see.
- do you eat enough protein, vegetables, and healthy fats, or too much grain? do you sleep enough. this often explains away half of todays musculoskeletal problems.
- when you lunge, does your knee buckle in, do you bend forward, do you take huge strides because your hips are tight. If so, regress the movement to a split squat with support if need be, then work a couple simple exercises to strengthen the butt and get the body into the correct movement patterns-gray cook has a good book on this called athletic body in balance.
that’s only about 9 of them, most of the stuff I do without thinking about it. none of this requires a special test. I think the buffalo killa himself said that people have forgotten how to move, the problem is, it doesn’t take much to correct that. A lot of times I will work with somebody whose trainer told them they will need a ton of sessions because when they squat their glutes suffer from rec. inhibition from their overly facilitated hip flexors (blah blah) and they have dominant torso flexors which are too strong for their under facilitated spinal flexors (blah blah) and they have overly fac. lateral hammies.
Get gray cook’s book, you can pretty much correct most of these movement problems in a couple of minutes with it. there really is no need to design a overly complex corrective exercise program to help these guys out. You spend months stretching this and strengthening that when in a couple of minutes you can be on your way to other stuff.
People don’t move enough nowadays, when you start to get them moving and give them a little knowledgable coaching along the way, they do fine.
I am still going to read dr. johns book anyway, despite the fact that I am not a big fan of these assesments. maybe his stuff is just being mis represented here. Almost all of these tests seem to be borrowed from gray cook anyway.
MikeShank, great posts mate, rising above and nicely so!
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise. You have people who are against some advice because it isn’t complicated enough? Your advice about training with someone stronger is great. I did that when I started and there is no other point in my life that learned more over the same time period. Most people who ride motorcycles will tell you the same thing. You learn more by riding with other more experienced riders than you ever could in a classroom or reading a manual. If you really want to push your limits, train with others who have made more progress and who are very serious. The sad thing is though, there seem to be fewer and fewer of those types of people around lately and more than enough guys ready to pull out a calculator rather than put their heart into the effort as if their life depended on it.
The guys I trained with were not the most eloquent and probably never sat around worrying about whether their gluteal muscles were 6 degrees inwardly rotated during the negative portion of a squat. They were, however, making more progress than some on this site seem to be. Amazingly, I have yet to walk into the gym and have someone give me a calculus exam. Hell, I ran away from finals by going into the gym in the first place. That doesn’t mean stop learning either. It means that when it comes to weight lifting and bodybuilding, trying to show off your IQ or your ability to be the most analytical and anal retentive bastard on the planet does not equal progress.[/quote]
X marks the spot! This one hit good, nice mix Professor and the ending hit me in the face nice and hard, very well timed. BAM! A good point is always a beautiful thing.
MikeShank wrote:
things I look for:
- do you slump because you sit all day?
- do your shoulder blades move when you row or are you completely arm dominant, do your shoulders hike up?
- when you squat, do your knees buckle in or out, do you bend over too much at the waist.
- when you bench, does the bar favor one side?
- when you do any exercise, is there pain?
- when you do low back or hip extension exercises do you move from the hip, or do you overly compensate from the low back.
- When you create rotation, can you control rotation? When you rotate, are you creating that motion from the abs or are your creating that motion from the spine. It is pretty simple to see.
- do you eat enough protein, vegetables, and healthy fats, or too much grain? do you sleep enough. this often explains away half of todays musculoskeletal problems.
- when you lunge, does your knee buckle in, do you bend forward, do you take huge strides because your hips are tight. If so, regress the movement to a split squat with support if need be, then work a couple simple exercises to strengthen the butt and get the body into the correct movement patterns-gray cook has a good book on this called athletic body in balance.
that’s only about 9 of them, most of the stuff I do without thinking about it. none of this requires a special test.
**Didn’t say it necessarily would.
I think the buffalo killa himself said that people have forgotten how to move, the problem is, it doesn’t take much to correct that.
**Didn’t say it did take much.
A lot of times I will work with somebody whose trainer told them they will need a ton of sessions because when they squat their glutes suffer from rec. inhibition from their overly facilitated hip flexors (blah blah) and they have dominant torso flexors which are too strong for their under facilitated spinal flexors (blah blah) and they have overly fac. lateral hammies.
Get gray cook’s book, you can pretty much correct most of these movement problems in a couple of minutes with it. there really is no need to design a overly complex corrective exercise program to help these guys out.
**Again, didn’t say it would need to be very complex. I’ll be sure to take a look at Gray Cook’s book, sounds like a good read.
You spend months stretching this and strengthening that when in a couple of minutes you can be on your way to other stuff.
**If a couple minutes is all it takes for an individual, that’s fantastic. Go on to heavier/harder training. I’m saying some take more than a few minutes, and it’s important to identify that early on before larger problems develop.
People don’t move enough nowadays, when you start to get them moving and give them a little knowledgable coaching along the way, they do fine.
**Many will do fine with this, you’re right. Others need to correct some things first; these are the cases I’m worried about.
I am still going to read dr. johns book anyway, despite the fact that I am not a big fan of these assesments. maybe his stuff is just being mis represented here. Almost all of these tests seem to be borrowed from gray cook anyway.
**After reading your subsequent posts, I want to apologize for my reaction to the first one. We appear to be saying exactly the same thing; have someone who knows how movement should happen and how posture should look oversee someone’s training at first, teaching them how to move correctly and how to maintain proper posture. I don’t know if I communicated it poorly before, but you fit the bill as one of the “qualified professionals” I was referring to before. You appear to know how the body works, and how to quickly fix small problems that may exist. It doesn’t have to be complicated necessarily (as you said), unless a major malfunction is detected. I feel like the Prof is blowing things out of proportion. I’ve said the initial appraisal might take 15 minutes. It might take 5, or 10 seconds like you said. I was also including explaination of appropriate stretches and exercises (if needed) in that time, I do see I wasn’t making that clear.
To answer your certification question, I’m sitting for the ACSM HFI exam in a few weeks, and I’ll be doing the NSCA CSCS cert. next fall when there’s a close test location and I have a chance to brush up on their specific recommendations and protocols so I can regurgitate them on the test.
I’m not familiar with the CHEK cert or the NASM; sounds like you’ve (or some people you know have) had some bad experiences with overly complicated examinations and gauging for extra sessions without results. I disagree with this type of practice as well; unless a major structural defect is present, it shouldn’t take long to fix small problems. Having been through an exercise science undergraduate degree, I’ll be the first to admit if I don’t know how to fix a problem. I do know how to fix some, though, including some that might be considered major. I’ll tell them to get it looked at by a doctor, too, before we start anything though.
I also agree about throwing around scientific terms with the layman; I was only using some of them here because they tend to flow off my tounge more easily right now (finals week). I wouldn’t do that with clients, I’d just give a basic synopsis of what the small problem might be (ie your hamstrings are a bit tight) and what we’re going to do to correct it (focus on stretching them more carefully and making sure you move at the hip on appropriate exercises). I wouldn’t try to impress them by throwing out the reason for a specific stretch and every little thing it does, there’s no reason to. I would just want to make sure they achieve and maintain good flexibility.
Again, sorry for any animosity my initial reaction contained, something was lost in communication. I’ve had some bad experiences with trainers who’ve been at it as long as you and still don’t pay enough attention to movement mechanics. I certainly would recommend someone to you knowing what you’ve said (I know you wouldn’t need the referrals, just a means of expressing respect for your abilities).
-Dan
[quote]Professor X wrote:
buffalokilla wrote:
You can’t necessarily gauge a trainer on their size, Prof… geez, it surprises me to hear you say that. It’s one thing to criticize a fat slob -it’s another to dismiss a trainer because he hasn’t made quite as much progress as you.
-Dan
No one would dismiss a trainer based on progress. Anyone worth much at all, however, would question what has held someone back. If your explanation for why many in the gym seem to be lifting much lighter weights and generally acting as if weighing over 180lbs is a negative is because they are all strength training or attempting to become powerlifters, I will say you are about as clueless as the advice you gave the poster who asked about his chest muscles and posted the picture of them (also, based on that advice, I would never send a patient to see you either since you want to judge so critically). I think powerlifting is great, but I see even fewer actually getting into that. Of course, I have not trained “everywhere”, but I do hit up some pretty large gyms and do travel. There seems to be a large influx of much less serious trainers. If you disagree with that, I will be greatly surprised and would like to know where you train.[/quote]
I currently train at the general fitness facility on campus (they actually have some good racks and dumbbells up to 140), my old high school gym when at home (designed by one of the trainers for the St. Louis Rams), and at Total Performance Sports when in Boston. I see tons of kids and adults alike who have a lot of drive to work hard, but just don’t know what to do or where to find out how (not at TPS, Bob and Murph do a great job of helping people).
“I will say you are about as clueless as the advice you gave the poster who asked about his chest muscles and posted the picture of them (also, based on that advice, I would never send a patient to see you either since you want to judge so critically).”
God, I tell one guy he might want to get a major difference in his chest musculature looked at and you jump down my throat. I don’t understand why you’re harping on this. I didn’t say it was an emergency and he should stop training. He also never responded in regards to strength deficits or any pain, so we don’t know what the problem was. Like I said in the post, I might be right, I might be totally wrong. It’s worth exploring, though.
“If your explanation for why many in the gym seem to be lifting much lighter weights and generally acting as if weighing over 180lbs is a negative is because they are all strength training or attempting to become powerlifters”
You asked why there are fewer big strong bodybuilders around. I meant that many big strong guys aren’t pursuing bodybuilding goals as often as they used to, and thus aren’t training in the same sort of facilities as you. Thus, you’re left with a higher concentration of the “I don’t want to get too big, just look good” guys at the places that used to have a greater number of accomplished bodybuilders. I see plenty of hugely strong people at places like TPS, Art McDermot’s place in northern Mass, Willie Wessel’s gym in St. Louis, Diablo as posted on this site, etc.
-Dan