Trainers Talking Shop

Off Topic
161

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
NickRageSkursky wrote:
Do you think I could be a PT while in college? Or would I not have enough time for both?

Yes, you could do it if you wanted to. People “somehow” manage to have full-time jobs while attending college. [/quote]

Even if I’m throwing discus?

[quote]mon/fri
bench (pyramid)
squat (pyramid)
bar curls (3x10)
tricep pushdowns (3x10)
lat row machine (3x10)
db shrugs (2x15)

wed
incline bench (3x10)
step ups (2x15)
pullover machine (2x15)
lat pulldowns (3x10)
cleans from the hang (2x6)
leg extensions (3x10)

Instead of pushdowns, I have my group doing skull crushers.

Why? Skullcrushers and pushdowns are pretty much in the same category. You’re not really gaining anything by the substitution, it’s like swapping green apples for red apples, which is fine if that’s your preference.[/quote]

yeah, it’s just personal preference really. plus, the cable machine is hard to get on when it’s crowded in the weight room and I don’t like waiting.

[quote]I replaced the row machine with renegade rows.

Why? Renegade rows are a solid exercise, but after the bench press, squats, clean and jerks, and arm work, I’m wondering if some might be too fatigued to get enough out of them.[/quote]

Another personal preference. I’ve always done much better with these then on the machine.

[quote]I added clean and jerk (5x3) to monday and friday.

One more time, why? And why on Monday/Friday instead of Wednesday when you’re already working the clean?[/quote]

We’re deadlifting on wednesday and no matter which one is done first it will really get in the way of the other. i nixed cleans on wednesday. I also have us doing these because several of us are throwers and I think this is one of the best exercises for almost any athlete. The jerk is with it because we really weren’t hitting shoulders at all.
I realize squat will hamper cleaning too. But, since none of our guys have really trained lower back, I want to take it relatively easy on it.

[quote]I said fuck step ups and got us started on deadlifts on wednesdays,

Fuck step-ups, but not fuck pullovers or fuck leg extensions? Alrighty. Deadlifts are crucial and should probably be in there somewhere, but you removed the only unilateral exercise in the entire program. Unilateral exercises are even more important for athletes than they are for recreational lifters.[/quote]

I have us doing db pullovers for lat and core strength. we don’t do leg extensions anymore either.

yeah i forgot to add hamstring curls on mon/fri. we also do light footspeed/agility work for about 10 mins before lifting.

[quote]and I added some forearm work to finish up.

I have no problem with this.

Just realize that I’m legitimately (not rhetorically) asking why. If you can justify your reasoning, I’m fine with it. Hey, they’re your “clients,” not mine. :wink:

Plus, that’ll be another step on your path to being an actual trainer - knowing why and not just how.[/quote]

just to clarify, i’m a member of the team myself, so I do this program with everybody else. I don’t ask them to do anything i wouldn’t do.

if my reasoning is off, please tell me. it won’t hurt my feelings :wink:

162

You’re killing me, Smalls.

Okay, so if I followed all the changes, the workouts actually look like this:

Monday and Friday
Clean and jerk 5x3
Bench press pyramid ?x?
Squat pyramid ?x?
Barbell curl 3x10
Skullcrusher 3x10
Renegade row 3x10
Dumbbell shrug 2x15
Hamstring curl ?x?

Wednesday
Incline bench 3x10
Deadlift ?x?
Dumbbell pullover 2x15
Lat pulldown 3x10
Forearm work ?x?

At the end of the day, if it’s working for you guys and nobody gets hurt, then it’s working for you guys.

To me, it seems like the days are pretty lopsided, doing a whole bunch of work in one session and not much in the other. I’d rather have more equal workloads each training session, and I’d really want to see more unilateral work, or at least some more dumbbells. It also depends on where you are regarding your season, and your exact goals for the training cycle.

But, again, as long as your guys are getting bigger, stronger, faster, and racking up marks in the win column, have at it. It’s not exactly a right or wrong situation.

One more thing:

I wouldn’t exactly call two squat sessions, two clean sessions, and a deadlift session each week “taking it easy” on the lower back. Maybe look for a way to work in some direct low back and/or ab work as pre-hab.

Maybe run your program by the guys in the Strength Sports forum. Pretty sure there are some football guys there.

163

I’ve got a bit of a challenging situation: pre-menopausal and menopausal women.

I have one client who is 50 years old, and it seems that no matter what we do, we make no progress. Her strength and endurance went up tremendously, but there is no change in her body composition, which is what her goal is. Both her diet and training is in order.

I know that this is fairly common, particularly around that age. So how do you guys deal with that? Do you explain to them that due to the hormonal environment, the body tends to hold on to its fat? Or have you found some way to actually get the fat loss going?

There seem to be a lot knowledgeable and experienced people posting in this thread, so I thought I’d throw it out there.

164

bump

165

[quote]kligor wrote:
I have one client who is 50 years old, and it seems that no matter what we do, we make no progress. Her strength and endurance went up tremendously, but there is no change in her body composition, which is what her goal is. Both her diet and training is in order.

I know that this is fairly common, particularly around that age. So how do you guys deal with that? Do you explain to them that due to the hormonal environment, the body tends to hold on to its fat? Or have you found some way to actually get the fat loss going?[/quote]

If her doctor has confirmed that she’s pre-menopausal, then you definitely need to explain that, as “she becomes a woman” or “enters this next, fascinating stage of life”, or however you want to phrase it, her results are likely to be harder to come by, but not at all impossible.

Krista Schaus has some awesome articles about training this exact demographic:
http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/article/features/the_secrets_of_fabulously_fit_fiftysomethings_1&cr=
http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/article/training/five_training_principles_for_fitness_at_fiftyplus&cr=
http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/article/features/slim_strong_sexy_and_over_fifty_case_studies&cr=

You have to know what the client can handle, but training-wise, I like to include heavy, lower rep work (not below 5-6RM) on a regular basis to improve bone density. I’ve also found that including some “old fashioned” slower, long distance cardio (30-45 minute quick walks) can spur on fat loss.

166

Thanks Chris!

I’ll definitely give it a read-through.

167

Great thread with very positive contributions. And I will add that the figure athlete links are dead, even though I would like to read those articles.

Quash how about a Ballys update now that you’ve been there a few months!?

168

[quote]anthropocentric wrote:
Great thread with very positive contributions. And I will add that the figure athlete links are dead, even though I would like to read those articles. [/quote]

Weird, I just checked them and they worked fine.

They’re all by Krista Schaus. Maybe you can see them in her Archive on FA.
http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/ALSAuthor.do?p=Krista%20Schaus&pageNo=1

Good question. Always curious to see how the next crew is doing.

169

Anyone had experience with info products? I’m premiering my blog/sales site and my first DVD in about four weeks. Should time well with my first boot camp and small group training kicking off.

170

[quote]Vash wrote:
Anyone had experience with info products? I’m premiering my blog/sales site and my first DVD in about four weeks. Should time well with my first boot camp and small group training kicking off.[/quote]

Cool, man. If you’re looking to do a DVD, I want to say either Jim Labadie or Ryan Lee have something for that specifically, but I’m not 100% sure of it. (But they’re safe bets for all-things marketing.)

It could be as simple as recording a session of the boot camp you run (from two angles, if possible, so you can edit them together and have a better overall look in the end). Maybe come up with a companion e-book/written piece, maybe a nutrition guidebook. Just tossing out ideas.

You also might want to ask Nate Green in his Locker Room. He had great success putting together Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, an audio series.

http://www.thenategreenexperience.com/blog/Standing+on+the+Shoulders+of+Giants/
Fantastic interviews, by the way, full of killer info. Definitely recommended to trainers.

A while back I was in the early stages of putting something together, but got sidetracked with other, more important stuff. I’ll likely go back and finish it up at some point.

171

I figured I’d mention this here because the other threads talking about it are driving me nucking futs… Waterbury’s Heidi Montag Workout.

Absolutely congratulations for him, man. Really. Should a “personal trainer” (or whatever we call ourselves) not try to improve his skills, develop a broad clientele, and make their way towards earning a significant living?

Hell, eight or nine years ago, Waterbury was a schlub around here like the rest of us (relatively-speaking). He writes his first article, about some grip training routine of all things, and then fast forward just a few years later; he’s got two published books and he’s training a young millionairess for her Playboy shoot. Life is not bad for this man, my friends.

On a very related note, I did pick up a copy of the Heidi Montag workout plan. Partly out of sheer curious, and partly because I wanted to see just how off-base people throwing around “sell-out” accusations were.

It might not be anything ground-breaking for a consistently-training, regular TMUSCLE reader (although some of the circuits are interesting), but here’s the thing… it’s not supposed to impress or be useful to us.

It’s a solid, useful, effective introduction to smart eating and smart training specifically aimed at beginning or frustrated women, and the program has a real chance to swing the typical cardio bunny away from cardio-salsa class and towards some seriously productive work.

If a gal’s looking to drop some fat, I’d much rather she pick up a copy of this plan rather follow a poorly-designed Fiction Fitness magazine workout.

172

I’m going to employ the power of “to the top” on this bad boy.

One thing which is often overlooked by new (and even some experienced ) trainers is the act of marketing the business. Chris gave me some simple, easily implemented and damn effective ideas which got me on the right track.

Now, my enterprise still lacks a self-sustaining client base (the plans I had a few posts above kinda atom-bombed due to family illnesses).

Here’s what I’m implementing over the next 28 days which I am sure is going to get me where I need to be:

  1. “Opt-in” cardboard ballot boxes at my partnered health and beauty locations. They will have the pads and pens to acquire name/phone/email, with a header and box sticker detailing a client’s before/after, a brief headline describing a certain promotion, and my contact info.

  2. An opt-in box and video header on my website.

  3. Facebook adverts. I’m bombing with CTR/PPC on Google, but have good response history with the FB stuff. With the changes from #2, this will make a huge impact.

That’s all I have right now, but I’m certain these things will make a huge impact on my bottom line.

173

[quote]Vash wrote:
I’m going to employ the power of “to the top” on this bad boy.[/quote]
Ha, nice. Seems like this thread was just about due for its once a year bump.

Sorry to hear that, man. Hope everyone’s okay.

This reminds me of something Cosgrove wrote a long while back. He was saying that, overall, if you want a good marketing template to follow, watch how small town martial arts schools are doing it. A) They’re selling the results, not the process. All the talk is about “Build self-confidence and self-discipline,” it’s not “learn how to punch, block, and kick.”

And B) It seems like 90% of delis, Chinese take out places, or pizza places have these ballot boxes for the dojos to capture leads, so they must really work to some extent.

It’s something that I definitely think can pan out pretty well, and should generate some solid leads. I think Eric Ruth had some info somewhere about how to maximize ballot boxes. I’ll have to check.

'Ya know, I just got on Facebook this summer and only really started “promoting” (quite passively) my training over the last two weeks.

But I was recently watching a video from Bedros Keuilian that spoke highly about Facebook ads (nice ROI, high turnover, very targeted market, etc.), so it’s something I’ll be implementing soon, likely within a month or so.

Networking note: Dude, definitely friend me up - Redirecting... - yes, dammit, I am The Chris Colucci. :wink:

174

I know these might seem like some dumb questions but being a 27 year qualified gym instructor and Pt over in England , it seems that over in the states it is all “freelance” pt’s that have to do X amount of hours a week in Pt to cover the floor rent of the gym that you are at .

I currently work in a gym that has 12 country clubs in the group , we do a 6 week monitoring stage for new memebers and then if they want it monthly/weekly/daily reviews for the member at any time they want , is there any thing similar over in the States ?

as i would love to work over there as a gym instructor but i have a feeling that the work permit is hard to get and then finding a gym and a good area to work in is very difficult for a “foreigner”

On an other subject i do believe that how you look body wise has a major impact on how many clients you have and who will come looking for pt from you .

175

So, figured I’d asking something to help myself haha

How did all of you trainers get your start and what would you recommend for someone to get their start? Besides getting certs and what not of course.

I’ve had an interest in training people for a while. I’m still working on myself, trying to lose weight, gain muscle, all that jazz. Getting decent but slow results. My plan was to, once my body shows my knowledge and I get my cert, I wanted to start training clients. In order to get some experience and some creditability and testimonials, I offered to train two of my friends who wanted to lose weight. Failure…

One told me right off the bat that she didn’t want to follow the diet I wanted to put her on, which wasn’t very restrictive at all. When she told me that, I said I wouldn’t train her and she begged me, so I said I would but she wouldn’t see results. Told her it wasn’t going to be ‘easy’ and that she couldn’t complain or anything. By our third session, she got emotional and got pissed at me bc it was to hard…only workout that day was 30 seconds jumping jacks, 30 seconds mountain climbers, 30 seconds rest…repeat four more times. So after that, told her I wasn’t going to train her anymore.

The second, was actually doing well. Following the diet, doing the program, seeing results (lost 15 pounds in one month). Then she started seeing an ex again. Me and this guy never got along. After they got back together, he told her that he didn’t like her spending time with me and she had to pick. And well, she chose him, so I haven’t seen her since. Her loss imo. But yeah, second client down.

So now, I have no idea what would be the best or ideal or whatever way to get into the industry. As said, my original plan was to begin looking the part and then use referrals from those two friends and maybe post some fliers up with a website and testimonials, but now, know idea…Any opinions.

176

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

This reminds me of something Cosgrove wrote a long while back. He was saying that, overall, if you want a good marketing template to follow, watch how small town martial arts schools are doing it. A) They’re selling the results, not the process. All the talk is about “Build self-confidence and self-discipline,” it’s not “learn how to punch, block, and kick.”

And B) It seems like 90% of delis, Chinese take out places, or pizza places have these ballot boxes for the dojos to capture leads, so they must really work to some extent.

It’s something that I definitely think can pan out pretty well, and should generate some solid leads. I think Eric Ruth had some info somewhere about how to maximize ballot boxes. I’ll have to check.

'Ya know, I just got on Facebook this summer and only really started “promoting” (quite passively) my training over the last two weeks.

But I was recently watching a video from Bedros Keuilian that spoke highly about Facebook ads (nice ROI, high turnover, very targeted market, etc.), so it’s something I’ll be implementing soon, likely within a month or so.

Networking note: Dude, definitely friend me up - Facebook.com/TheChrisColucci - yes, dammit, I am The Chris Colucci. ;)[/quote]

Facebook . . . yeah . . . I’ve heard of that. I’ve been meaning to set one up, a professional-personal one, at least. I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow.

I’ll send a friend request once I have one set up :slight_smile:

PS: Have you gotten any of Bedros’ products? I’ve gotten the Close Clients DVD, and despite my history of ass-kickery in sales, I increased my non-training sales by exactly 31%.

177

[quote]Mr PT wrote:
it seems that over in the states it is all “freelance” pt’s that have to do X amount of hours a week in Pt to cover the floor rent of the gym that you are at[/quote]
At the first gym I worked at, we were required to work shifts of so many hours (at an hourly salary) and any clients’ training was done as additional hours (at a different hourly rate). For example, I started off working, I think, Saturdays 12am-8pm and Sundays 10am-3pm, but I would come in for clients throughout the week as needed.

Sounds like we might have something kinda-sorta-almost similar. Every new gym member (at least in the gyms I’ve worked in) will get an one-time “orientation” with a trainer.

It’s basically a half-hour introduction, “This machine does this, that one works that. You might want to try doing this sets and those reps, etc.” That’s the trainer’s chance to connect with the client, initiate a relationship, and ideally, sell more sessions.

[quote]benos4752 wrote:
How did all of you trainers get your start and what would you recommend for someone to get their start? Besides getting certs and what not of course.[/quote]
Double-check the advice that Livefromthe781 and Qaash were receiving around pages 4-5. They were both trying to get started, so we were talking about it a lot. The same stuff still applies.

[quote]In order to get some experience and some creditability and testimonials, I offered to train two of my friends who wanted to lose weight. Failure…

One told me right off the bat that she didn’t want to follow the diet I wanted to put her on
…[/quote]
Sounds like both your friends flaked out, and they’re the ones that failed. That’s not on you, it’s just what sometimes happens when people take free services for granted. “Meh, it’s free, so it’s not really worth trying for.” You did the right thing by firing that first client.

This is a valid issue that comes up occasionally, and it’s worth addressing here with the group.

I had a similar issue when I first started training and my gal was a little uncomfortable with me training female clients. It didn’t help that one female client brought a balloon into the gym to give me for my birthday, while my girlfriend was there chatting with the front desk crew. Awkward.

But ultimately it comes down to trust and professionalism. If you always act professionally, there’s nothing to worry about. If your significant other (or the client’s, in this case) trusts that nothing will happen, there’s nothing to worry about. But, as you found out, if either of those factors is missing, it’s just going to be a persistent issue until all ties are severed.

Are there any other friends or relatives that you could still train/advise? Any buddies on a sports team? A cousin in high school basketball? An ex-girlfriend you still speak with who wants to get in shape and land a better-looking boyfriend than you? :wink:

Worst comes to worst, you might consider putting a local Craigslist ad out there. “No-cost 12-week training consultations in exchange for testimonial.” Worth a shot, unless you have a weirdo respond, then it just becomes a funny story from the trenches. Ha.

178

[quote]Vash wrote:
PS: Have you gotten any of Bedros’ products? I’ve gotten the Close Clients DVD, and despite my history of ass-kickery in sales, I increased my non-training sales by exactly 31%.[/quote]
I haven’t purchased any of Bedros’ stuff yet, but his free info is solid and it’s already helped, so I’ll definitely be investing in something along the way. I’ve been trying not to purchase as much marketing stuff in general, only because I realized I started collecting marketing products instead of actually implementing the info.

And while we’re talking about Facebook, check this…

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to create and start running a Facebook ad to promote my business FB page, specifically targeted for several nearby states and a certain common interest. Within four hours of creating the ad, it captures 5 leads. As of right now, a little under 24 hours and about $13 later, it’s captured a solid 30 leads/page fans.

This stuff works, y’all.