So you want to be a personal trainer. Or maybe you just want to be a better personal trainer. Right on, it’s a pretty fun job. Not a lot of people get to say that they do their hobby for a living. However, as I’m sure a lot of you all ready know, there are some pretty crappy trainers out there floating around. This can be good or bad. Bad because we must battle these “experts” in the ongoing quest of informing the public with good information and trying to throw out the bad. Good because it means there’s a lot of opportunity out there to step up to the plate and make a difference in people’s lives and

your own paycheck.

Let’s start off with why there are so many bad trainers out there. Remember folks that personal training is a very infant industry that has seriously exploded in the last decade. As Americans get fatter and fatter and become more and more addicted to the cheeseburger and get more and more sedentary with each new technology they become in more and more dire need for help. Every January 1st millions of Americans vow to change their lifestyles and bodies, but how many people actually do it? As we creep up on 2007 I’m sure several folks will make this pledge for possibly the 10th time in their lives. We are so sedentary it is seriously ridiculous. C’mon,

even if you have a cubicle job and it’s likely your chair has WHEELS on it so you don’t even need to stand up anymore! You can just roll around from one side of the cubicle to the other. And how many of us have seen people cruise the parking lot outside of the gym looking for a front row parking spot just so they can go in and walk on a treadmill?

This exploding demand has not been met with adequate supply. Unlike doctors, lawyers, teachers, and police officers who have all been around for centuries and whose professions have been ironed out by time, personal trainers have not had the same tenure. Granted there are bad teachers and

cops, but trust me when I say it is MUCH worse with trainers.

Furthermore, the vast majority of the public cannot discern between good and bad job performance in their trainers. This is in part because they have very little working knowledge to critique them. As opposed to a mechanic, you know if you have a shitty one when you pull out of the garage and the wheels fall off. But people are so out of touch with their own bodies this epiphany is much more rare in our industry. Consider this: every year millions of teenagers walk out of high school with a diploma not knowing how many calories are in a gram of protein or how to do

a bench press properly. I think this is a debacle because when I was in the public school system I had to take AIDS education not once, not twice, but three times. 6th grade, 8th grade, and 9th grade health classes all hammered it into my head again and again. Why? Because AIDS is an international health hazard. But guess what, so is obesity and it is a much greater hazard that we do not inform the public on how to manage it.

Pretty much, people are clueless and need professional help. And if the school system isn’t going to provide it well, then step aside and let capitalism give it a shot. Since, people are willing to shell out

the big bucks to get rid of firm thighs and answer the all mighty, “How do I get abs?” question then you can bet your paycheck that new products and professionals will be there to kindly take your money in return for their guruism. Problem is, with business comes competition. If “Flex” magazine tells you to eat apples then “Muscular Development,” must tell you to eat oranges. Why do you think Housewife magazines have the same title “Get that sleek sexy midsection in just 6 weeks! The new ab workout!” What happened to their great workout from 3 issues ago? And if the thigh master was really all that, then why does Winsor pilates keep selling the volume of tapes they do?

You get where I’m going with this, people need help and the ones providing it pretty much suck. That’s where you step in, because you’ll be the one to bring accurate knowledge and a little common sense to the table, so here’s the NDCA (National Danny Certification Association) guide to becoming a succesfull personal trainer.

1. WORK OUT

Before I was a trainer I taught guitar lessons in college. If I sucked at guitar would anyone pay me a penny to help them get better? Naturally not. I do not care how long you were in medical school for, if your body sucks you will not get clients. And it’s not just that your knowledge isn’t good enough,

you can be really smart and really out of shape sure. But if you don’t know how to inspire people and can empasize with people trying to work hard, eat right, and change their bodies and their lives then you are missing a big part of the job description. If you don’t know what it’s like to complete a heavy set of squats then screaming “C’mon, 5 more!” when your client is pooped will likely lead to diminished gains and quite possibly injury. To put it more philosophicaly, do not provide the directions to a place you’ve never been.

2. GET SOME EXPERIENCE

I would not hire a mechanic fresh out of trade school to work on my car. They

gotta complete their floor hours in the shop and/or their apprenticeship. Bartenders must first learn to barback. Doctors must first complete residency, servers are usually bussers first. If you’ve never worked in a gym or trained clients then you have a lot to learn. Do you know how an hour long session should be used? Do you know how to organize your client’s work outs and statistics? Do you even know how to get clients? Well then you’ve got a lot to learn. When in the learning/certification process I usually recommend to folks they get a job at a gym to learn the industry by doing sales or front desk. That way you can keep a paycheck coming while observing the trainers both good and bad. And this is one EASY job to score. Right now, 99% of gyms in America are hiring because, again, there is a total lack of talent in the industry. When I was with Gold’s I caught a kid cruising for porn on one of the computers and fired him on the spot. One week later I heard that he had been hired as the SALES MANAGER at 24 Hour Fitness!!! Yup, not a hard job to get at all.

3. THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS…

Like I’ve stated in other threads, think of being a trainer as a two part gig. One one hand, you’re basically an exercise tutor. On the other, you’re a motivational speaker.

Now, to be a tutor must you have an elaborate degree? Of course not, when I was in high school I tutored middle school kids in math. When I was in college I taught guitar lessons. Pretty much you just have to be knowledgeable, competent, and experienced in the subject you are presenting. Being a trainer is a little tougher because you’re dealing with people’s bodies, not their grades or their ability to play “Stairway to Heaven.” But still, fundamentally you’re still a tutor. And usually tutors are used when someone isn’t grasping a concept that’s being taught to them. Students usually only hire a math tutor when their grades are falling and/or they can’t seem to get it. But remember what I said earlier, how we’re dealing with a subject that for the most part NEVER got taught in the first place? This means that people are really in need of your services and knowledge and there are plenty of organizations that are there to provide it. ACSM, NASM, ISSA, NFPT, NCSF, NSCA, and Cooper are all places you could turn to (I left out ACE because I think ACE blows. Not that the ACE trainers themselves are bad, but I am not fond of the organization). And to further your studies and help you out with any of these, you can always turn to the good ol’ NDCA for your continuing education needs. But the cert does NOT make the trainer, this is a formality to build your credibility, knowledge, and confidence. You do not NEED a cert to train, again I point out that most guitar teachers do not have degrees in music. But it does help you get business be it through an attractive resume to employers or as a marketing tool to attract clients.

4. DO NOT RE-INVENT THE WHEEL!!!

This is the topic that really gets on my nerves. Did weight management experts exist in the 1800’s? If not, then why were the obesity rates so low? Is it because people got a helluva lot more daily activity and highly processed foods had not yet been invented? Hmmm…if that’s the case then why do

people insist on preaching new fangled diets and lifts to offer the solutions to our fitness needs? When I was studying engineering in college one thing that got drilled into my head was that to be an effective problem solver you must be able to identify and fix the problem. Obesity is NOT the problem, it is the result of something else. Lack of knowledge, minimized daily activity, and poor diets ARE the underlying problems, and even those have underlying problems. Sophisticated technology, poor time management, and convenient food choices are some of the underlying problems of those. So after deconstructing this, now you know what you’re up against. A super neat-o reverse crunch with a medicine ball will not effectively combat the lack of daily activity. Your protein burrito recipe, as nutritious as it may be, will not help someone’s diet if their diet is the result of convenient food choices. One of the best trainers I’ve ever talked to is Robert DeVitto from the Apex Fitnes Group. For anyone familiar with Apex, they’re kind of a strange group of folks who are way to into their supplement line. But DeVitto was the one representative who did not preach pills like a banshee but rather some good ol’ common sense. He spoke of something he called a “better bad food” and the idea is basically about getting people to gradually improve their diets in a manageable manner. An example, your client likes to eat BigMac’s for lunch. Well then a better bad food at McDonald’s might be the chicken sandwich. Are McDonald’s chicken sandwiches by any means a great choice? Of course not, but it’s a better bad food that will still improve their diets.

The average American eats 2 meals a day, and what that means is that no matter how much we keep preaching this six small meals stuff, people aren’t going to be able to apply it to their own lives. Hell, I don’t even eat 6 small meals a day. I get about 4 meals in and call it good. So if you tell your clients to eat 6 small meals there’s a very good

chance you’re setting them up for failure. So keeping with the idea that we’re not going to re-invent the wheel, did people in the 1800’s, back when we were much thinner, eat 6 small meals a day? All the stuff I’ve ever read points to no, which to me suggests that meal frequency is not nearly as important to weight management as a lot of people like to think it is. 3 meals a day is just fine, and if you must then throw a snack in there.

This all points to a greater concept of DeVitto’s that I have since used over and over and over again. He likes to go by something he calls R.P.M which stands for

Realistic, Palatable, and Maintainable. This pretty much means that in order for ANYTHING, (diet, training, supplements) to work you have to make it realistic for the client, they have to enjoy eating it and enjoy doing it, and it has to be something that they can continue for the long haul. You can debunk a lot of crap by using the RPM test. Can someone follow the Atkins, Zone, Cabbage Soup, or Hollywood diet for the next 10 years? Naturally not, so this is an easy way to explain to people why there are more or less ineffective. Does your client enjoy eating egg whites? If not, then even though it’s a good food choice, it fails the RPM test. Seriously, give this a shot for just about any program and it’s an easy way to tell if it will work or not.

Now, as far as the gym goes, this is where re-inventing the wheel gets out of hand the most. Almost every time I go workout I hear some assbag with his clipboard explaining how working out in the morning, after a protein shake and a 8.2 minute warmup, during the week, after a full moon, when the tide is low, after the equinox can help you burn an extra .039% fat. It makes me want to scream SHUTUP! at the top of my lungs. Some trainers are too smart for their own damned good, that or they

spend their time memorizing useless medical factoids. Common sense, why is it so uncommon? You don’t need to be, or attempt to sound like, a rocket scientist. Don’t confuse your clients with term from the ACSM glossary. They don’t want to hear about the function of the glute minimus in pelvic stabilization, they just want their ass to look good. And that is a result of more muscle and less fat, and that is a result of improved nutrition and proper full body conditioning. Do not make it harder than it has to be.

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