Guys and girls, here’s an important update regarding my availability.

For the time being, I’ll be available at Doherty’s Gym (Brunswick) on Mondays and Tuesdays only.

On Thursdays and Fridays I’ll be available for Personal Training in Trafalgar, at the Victory Fitness Centre.

As you might know if you’ve followed the blog for a while, I often get a workout in at Victory Fitness when I’m in town visiting my family. So, we got to talking about me taking a few shifts in the gym and also offering Personal Training.

Awesome huh?

So far I talked a little bit about why I start everyone off with the same program, and what I’m looking for when I start modifying or customising it for each client. As I implied, the basic “introductory program” is designed to produce the foundations of fitness and functionality that we then build upon with a more advanced program. Rather I should say, the introductory program evolves into a more advanced program as we modify and add more exercises specific to the client’s individual requirements.

Outside of this though, the basics of a good program remain consistent regardless of the goal. The program has to be balanced, and we need to target (and exhaust) the large, major muscle groups with heavy compound movements, and then target smaller specific muscles with specific isolation exercises, often with less weight.

Simply put, we should be doing all of the following:

• Pushing, horizontally and vertically.
• Pulling, horizontally and vertically.
• Bending and extending at the knees.
• Bending and extending at the hips.

These are the “big four” that target the huge muscle groups in our chest, shoulders, back, butt and legs.  We can take our choice of exercises for these movements, and make them harder or easier as the client requires.

Now… this is how I do things. I’m not saying that it’s the ONLY way to do things, but it’s one way that I happen to know works very well. Newly qualified trainers often are under the mistaken belief that they need to produce a unique program for every client right off the bat… which basically means they are just clutching at straws and the “program” is really just an assortment of exercises. Whenever I mentor new trainers I always advise them to develop their own approach to training that suits their target market, but to have a systematic approach to creating an actual program suited to the client’s needs. Starting out with the basic natural human movements is as good a place to start as any.

Going back to the muscle groups we’re targeting with those movements; did you notice that I left out arms, abs and core? Well… we would may add some secondary or accessory exercises to hit these spots, but they’re really of a secondary importance. Arms are going to be hit PLENTY with our pushing and pulling movements. Core should be activated on all exercises anyway, and in particular NEEDS to be activated while squatting or deadlifting, so that’s also covered already. Abs? Please. Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym!

We’ll still train these parts (including abs!), but as I say, they’re not the huge muscle groups that we’re most concerned with hitting to produce a change in body composition. It makes sense right? Prioritising the huge muscle groups over the smaller ones, to produce better results? And yet… a lot of trainers are going to give you a program with bicep curls, crunches and planks, but nothing for chest or back! Oooh I probably just stepped on some toes! To be fair… it’s not entirely their fault. A lot of what they get taught in the courses and especially if they do their placement in a big box chain gym is mostly useless. I’ll write another blog about that some time soon!

Bottom line.

It takes time to build a Customised Program, unless by “customised” you just mean “random selection of pointless exercises”, which lets face it is what a lot of exercise programs really are. You can’t just take one look at a human being and go “ok here are the 8 exercises that will solve all of your problems”. You need to start with the basics (push, pull, bend and extend) watch closely and address any imbalances that show up while performing these movements. Descend (make easier) and ascend (make more difficult) the exercises as required as well.

This is the true value of hiring a Personal Trainer, especially on an ongoing basis. It is one thing to simply be put through “a hard work out”, but great results in changing your body only come from following an actual program designed to produce those changes.  I am becoming more and more focussed on delivering amazing results through ongoing programs, rather than just taking people for a workout. If you haven’t noticed, this is reflecting in my pricing structure which offers amazing value for people who purchase multiple sessions up front.

As usual, it’s too long for a single entry, so check back tomorrow for part two where I also talk a bit about the difference between going to a Personal Trainer for a “program”, vs a “work out”.

I must have given out more exercise programs in the past few weeks than… well, I don’t know what. Lots of programs though with all my lovely new personal training clients and other members at the Fitness Centre in Latrobe Valley where I’ve started working.

It got me thinking about programs and in particular about customising exercise programs to suit different individuals (clients) with different needs. Everyone is a little bit different. We have different goals, and different ability levels. Therefore, a competent trainer should be able to custom tailor an exercise program specifically to meet the needs of each client. Right? Good!

Here’s the thing though. Although we have different goals, different ability levels, and different needs; there will be common elements that are the best way to address all of these factors. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say the MAIN elements of the program will be consistent from one person to the next, it is only the finer details that need to be customised or fine tuned.

For this reason, I devised my Introduction To Resistance Training Program, which I now start all of my personal training clients and gym members off with. This is the basic frame work that will evolve into a very comprehensive, highly customised exercise program for each client.

Lets talk first about the common goals of most exercise programs.

Clients may need to lose a lot of weight, or just a little. They may need to gain weight, or maintain weight while improving body composition. Other clients are happy with their weight and body composition but want to improve their strength, or posture. The specific goals vary but there are goals within the goals which are common. Funnily enough this is the stuff that I don’t really talk so much about anymore, but I’ll make an exception this one time.

I tend to only talk about how we are going to achieve the client’s expressed goals, but at the same time I am thinking about things like functional fitness, posture and so on. What I mean by functional fitness is, for example, a person should be able to squat to the ground to pick something up. This is what us fitness industry professionals (hahah) refer to as a Natural Human Movement, something we’d be doing lots of if we were wild humans in our natural habitat, but (in many cases) have lost the ability to do due to modern lifestyles.  Anyway, I digress.

If a client has some imbalance that prevents them from being able to squat to the ground, it’s easy enough for me to just put them on the leg press machine and work legs that way. In fact, I’m going to stick them on the leg press machine regardless, because I want them moving some great big weights up and down! But if I don’t also address whatever the issue is, and help them progress towards being able to squat in a natural motion, then I don’t think I’m really doing my job. And then of course once they are able to squat, I’m going to put a bloody great heavy barbell on their shoulders!

So, that’s a really good example of what I’m talking about. Shoulder posture is another very common one too. Even pelvic and lower back posture is quite a common one that needs to be addressed.

So when we talk about customising a program, these are the issues that we are addressing with our custom choices of exercises. I was explaining to someone the other day, training a client who doesn’t have any of these issues is about the easiest thing in the world for me! The tricky part is when you notice something and think “hmm, why is that happening? How can I fix that? What do I need to stretch, and what do I need to strengthen? What’s the best exercise, or do I have to invent one?”

More about Preparing Customised Exercise Programs in part two!

As you might be aware I’ve recently started offering PT at a new location as well as just working behind the desk of the gym but… well, I’ve spent enough of my life behind desks so the “desk” job tends to mostly be spent on the gym floor showing people how to use the machines / do their exercises more correctly. Been doing loooooots of programs as well and making people happy.

One of the best compliments I’ve received (a few times, actually) is about how I apparently “put everything into plain English terms that we can understand”. Or, you know, variations on that theme. It was well timed too, as I’ve been networking a little online with other trainers and I notice a lot of them talking to each other in really complex technical terms about training and nutrition. I find myself having to sort of translate the conversations back to plain English in my head before I can form an opinion on whatever point they’re making! So I was trying to decide if I found this impressive or not and wondering to myself if I needed to lift my game a little as far as being able to provide really technical explanations to back up my strategies.

But then I thought, “nah bugger that”.

Like I said, fortunately I’ve been getting a few compliments about my “no bullshit” approach where I like to make things as simple (aka logical, straight forward and sensible) as possible. So, that’s what counts to me. Can I get through to people (PT clients) and make them understand my point and put it into practice? Surely that’s better than having them say “wow this guy really knows his stuff! I couldn’t understand a word of it but wow his knowledge is so in depth”, right?

Maybe at a really advanced, elite level of body building or figure modelling the really technical stuff might be important but for the average guy or girl who just wants to get into shape (even GREAT shape)… well, I think most of the time the technical talk is just to sound important and try to show off with how knowledgeable you are.

Knowledge is great but I think when you truly understand something, you can make it seem simple.

So, while they’re talking about “[x] percent of your 1 rep maximum with increased time under tension on the eccentric contraction” I would just say “lift as heavy as you can for [x] amount of reps, nice and slow”. Which one sounds like I really know what I’m talking about? Which one is a more helpful instruction to a non-expert trainee (for example your average PT client)?

Lau Tsu said

The sage resides in substance, not in attenuation.
He resides in fruitful reality, not in blossomy ornament.

I quote Lau Tsu a lot here lately! I guess I’m saying that the complicated technical terms are the “blossomy ornament” that I’m not terribly interested in.

In training a simple approach is usually enough to get results. There’s definitely a tendency to look for more complicated (over-complicated!) exercises, programs and approaches as if they might bring better results more quickly.

As my friend put it to me the other day, it’s not about making things more complicated; it is about taking what is actually quite complex and making it seem simple.

That’s all!

Well, I’m currently following an updated version of this, which I’ll describe below. Since it is winter and I’m eating lots and trying to gain weight, I figure I can really take things up a notch in the gym. As always when I write a program for myself, I’m thinking about which parts need extra attention, which parts need less attention, and so on. With this program I’m only going to hit my traps once a week, I don’t bother with any arm work, and I haven’t deliberately targeted my front delts in years… but pretty much every other muscle group is going to get SMASHED every other day.

So here we go! This is what I would describe as a Triple 2 Day Split Program.

Just like in the original version (and for that matter, all of my 2 day splits) we’ll be doing a push day, and a pull day. Push day is really just chest and quads, plus middle delts and calves. Pull day is back, hamstrings, glutes, rear delts, traps once a week, and I’ll do deadlifts twice a week. My traps have progressed nicely this year, as have my rear delts… but the rear delts still need to catch up further so I have planned accordingly. Your needs may well be different!

On the first split I’m going to utilise pyramid sets of 12, 10, 8, 10, 12 reps on my main horizontal pushing or pulling exercise. I’m thinking dumbbell press and either seated cable row or 1 arm dumbbell row, but I’m going to mix it up.

On the second split, it’s 2 sets of 10 – 12 reps and then another 2 sets of 8 – 10 reps.

On the third split I’ll do 2 sets of 6 – 8, and 2 sets of 4 – 6 reps. You can see I’m really mixing it up this time with the rep ranges, and the choice of exercises will vary from one split to another as well. It won’t always be the same exercises on the same split either.

So on Push day we’ll have the following;

• Warm up.
• Main horizontal pushing / chest exercise.
• Another chest (isolation) exercise.
• Legs (compound) exercise (squats, leg press, etc).
• Another leg exercise (usually either leg extension or calf press / raise).
• Something extra for chest
• Something for middle delts.

Then on Pull day, it goes like this;

• Warm up.
• Main horizontal pulling / back exercise.
• Another exercise for back &/or rear delts.
• Hip bending exercise, for example deadlifts, or single leg hip thrusts.
• Hamstring curls.
• Vertical pulling exercise.
• Something for traps, or another rear delt exercise.

Generally sets of 8 – 12 reps for everything other than the main horizontal movements. You could use the strategies above for the leg and hip compound movements as well though.

Get stuck into it!

Take it from a qualified professional trainer (and body composition specialist, at that) who is technically 10kg overweight…

the BMI is actually a very useful tool. Like anything in life though, it has its limitations. In otherwords, it is useful in providing a GUIDELINE or you might say “ballpark figure” of what we can consider healthy or unhealthy weight ranges, but requires that you also apply some basic common sense or intelligence when interpreting the results.

First off… you need to understand how unhelpful this is. Seriously.

The worst is in cases where for example some young girl comes to me for advice, and this happens;

Girl: I need you to help me lose 5kg.
Me: Absolutely not. You’re already at a low BMI, losing any more weight would be dangerous and unhealthy.
Girl: Oh I don’t believe in the BMI. I saw a video on the internet where they said it was wrong. Anyway, I’m fat. Are you going to help me or not?
Me: You don’t need to lose weight. Just hit the gym and work on improving body composition while maintaining your current weight.
Girl: No I’ll just stop eating.
Me: *bangs head against desk*

THIS HAPPENS.

Also, how about this one?

Adult female: Can you help me with a program to tone up my stomach and the back of my arms?
Me: Ok… well according to the BMI you are only about 5kg overweight, so we will dial in a nutrition plan to support the healthy weight range for your height and….
Adult female: Overweight? How dare you! I’m not overweight – the BMI is flawed anyway. I’m perfectly healthy.
Me: Why is this my life?

This has actually happened to me a few times as well.  So, the issue is not just about overweight people thinking they’re not overweight (even though they’ve just asked me for a weight loss program?!)… the bigger concern to me is the people who refuse / are unable to accept that they are underweight and under eating.

The BMI is the only tool we’ve got, and subject to some common sense and intelligence it’s a pretty good one. Unless you’ve come up with something better, stop spreading this garbage misinformation that enables unhealthy / at risk people to disregard it.

Anyway…

Most of the criticisms I keep reading and hearing about the BMI are actually quite ironic and illogical. People might read my paragraph earlier where I say “it’s just a guideline and you need to apply common sense when interpreting the results”, and respond with “so you admit it is a flawed system? It should be done away with!” But at the same time, the most common complaint I see about the Body Mass Index is “it assumes there is just one healthy weight that all people should be”.

Do you get my point? They can’t have it both ways. You can’t complain that the system expects all people to weigh the same, and then complain that the system isn’t accurate enough as well. This whole “it doesn’t take different body types and amount of muscle into account and thinks there is just one healthy weight that all people should be” is actually a total fallacy that I’m about to bust wide open right now.

Lets look at MY stats:

Age: *mumble* 38
Height: 168cm
Weight at lowest BMI in the “normal” range: about 57
Weight at highest BMI in the “normal” range: about 70

Notice anything? There’s a 13kg difference between the highest and lowest weight of the “normal” range for my height and age. That’s a MASSIVE variance! How can people say it doesn’t account for different body types or body compositions?

Next myth I’m going to bust; “here’s a picture of a bodybuilder, technically he is obese; therefore the BMI is junk and we should throw it out”. Well… remember what I said about COMMON SENSE? I don’t really look like a body builder, but I’d fit into that category of people who are above their “normal” weight range due to busting their arse to put on some extra muscle in the gym. It’s common sense that there’s a difference between being technically overweight as an athelete with relatively low body fat and lots of muscle mass, and being actually overweight (over fat).

We can consider the waist to hip ratio to determine if someone with a higher BMI is just built larger while still being relatively lean, but in most cases common sense should be sufficient. If you’re just slightly above the normal BMI, maybe it’s because you are packing some extra muscle. If you’re WAY above and carrying a spare tyre around the waist… is there really anything to argue about here?

You need to address this. It is a HEALTH issue.

Lets talk a bit about what are the important things to stay focussed on when we get into fitness and exercise. Some of these overlap a little, some of them might not be what you expect me to say, either. Here we go!

1. Top priority is happiness.
   
   By that I mean, enjoying training, enjoying your food, and keeping a positive mindset.

   It’s absolutely NOT about beating yourself up for not being perfect or not being the same as anyone else. As long as you’re trying your best, results will come, and you should be proud of yourself for making the effort.

2. Health.
   
   Obviously, right? I mean… you work out, eat right, I have 8 million entries already on the health benefits. I’m still putting this as a secondary priority after happiness and enjoyment though. If you aint enjoying it, chances are you aint going to stick with it. Exercise isn’t punishment, it’s FUN. Always remember that!So other than “lets have some fun” the first goal of an exercise program is usually to get into a healthy weight range. I don’t think it is necessary (or particularly helpful) to set a very specific weight down to the last kilogram, but if you’re not in a healthy weight range, you need to GET into one. And if you’re IN one already, do NOT come to me saying “but I want to lose another 10kg and be underweight” because I’ll kick your arse. See priority #1, you don’t get happy OR healthy with that sort of thinking.
   
3. Aesthetics.

   Lets be real here, other than the above two points… I could talk about increased lung capacity, core stability, cardiovascular fitness and all these other things that trainers like to talk about and clients feel that they should be focussed on, but if we’re honest… we want to look better in the nude, right? Or… in our swimwear at the beach or pool, right? Realistically if I gave you a program and we measured amazing progress in all of these areas EXCEPT you couldn’t see any improvements in the mirror… you’d be a bit disappointed, frustrated, not very satisfied. It’s not enough to just BE fit and healthy, we want to LOOK fit and healthy too!

   This is about body composition and it is what I’m starting to see as my speciality. It’s not enough to simply “lose weight” by restricting calories and then burning more calories on the treadmill or whatever. It’s quite possible (and in fact, quite common) for people to lose weight, get into a healthy weight range, but still not see much of a change in their body. It’s smaller, but still has the same wobbly “problem areas”. So, usually they decide “I still need to lose more weight, I need to restrict calories even further, I need to train twice as hard for twice as long! Then I’ll be happy!”

   Now, does that REALLY sound like a plan that will lead to being happier? Nope, not to me.So, back to body composition. We’re talking here about the ratio of lean (muscle) mass to bodyfat, and to achieve that lean and toned body type means we want to lose fat while maintaining or even increasing muscle mass.

   Fortunately when you train with a focus on body composition and aesthetics, the health aspects take care of themselves. Loss of fat stores and improved posture are both health AND aesthetic benefits, and the other effects already mentioned above will also be achieved. The reverse may not be true of training strictly for improved performance on your next fitness assessment. Regardless of all of this, we’ll still consider health the priority even over aesthetics, as it would be impossible to build an attractive, aesthetic physique while disregarding health.

4. It has to be practical, and sustainable.

   This means whatever stupid fad diet, meal replacement or whatever else… unless you actually think you are going to keep buying these things for the rest of your life instead of eating actual meals? Not to mention, rules 1, 2 & 3. You’re not going to be very healthy or happy on these ridiculous products, and even if you do lose some weight on the scales you’re very unlikely to improve body composition on “the cookie diet” or whatever other ridiculous scam product. God. Are they actually serious with this stuff?

   Practical and sustainable would be just learning what your regular intake should be, and how to hit that target with foods that you enjoy cooking and eating. Learn it and practice it until it becomes habit, and then it will become intuitive or second nature. Think about it for a moment; isn’t that a lot simpler and more logical than any other approach?

Apart from that… well, honestly I could talk about training and fitness and nutrition ALL day EVERY day. But, I run out of NEW things to talk about because lets face it, my approach is super simple. Eat the right amount, pick some stuff up. Push, pull, bend & extend. Maybe a little cardio as well. Lately I think I talk more about just keeping a healthy, positive attitude than anything technical.

As a friend (who also happens to be a bodybuilder and one of the best trainers I know) said to me the other day; it’s not about coming up with complicated approaches, it is about taking what is complicated and making it seem simple.  And like I keep saying, I keep it VERY simple because I think “simple” means “straight forward and logical”, which means people can actually stick to the plan and have a snowball’s chance of making it work and being successful. When you make things more complicated, put more “rules” in place and so forth, it’s too much for people! My goal is always to make everything so easy that people have absolutely no excuse not to succeed.

Lau Tsu said;

The great Way is quite level, but the people are much enamored with mountain trails.

There’s a tendency amongst people to look for the most extreme, restrictive or self-punishing approach to weight loss, and there’s also a tendency amongst industry people to try to show off their knowledge with talk about how “well there was a scientific study proving that… ” blah blah blah yawn zzzzzzzz. Who cares if it’s not a realistic approach that you can actually expect people to stick to?

I find lately that I enjoy talking online about fitness and nutrition with people who are just successful enthusiasts rather than industry professionals, because for the most part they’re talking about stuff they actually DO that gets results, rather than just ideas that might sound great in theory but are completely impractical for anyone in real life. Generally the people getting results and actually enjoying themselves aren’t focussed on the intricate details of nutrition and exercise science, they’re just getting in there and doing what they do consistently to the best of their ability.

So if you’re searching around the internet or anywhere else for a good approach to getting into shape, losing weight or whatever… here’s a question to ask yourself when evaluating the information you find;

Does that sound like normal human behaviour to you?

Now, this is a little ironic coming from me, because I’ve always hated the “normal” and believed people should be individuals, celebrate their uniqueness and try to be their best instead of conforming and embracing mediocrity. So, while I don’t encourage that sort of “normalness”, as far as diet and exercise goes I don’t really see how people can expecting lasting results from anything that it isn’t somewhere in the realms of what can be considered normal human behaviour. I definitely don’t understand how trainers can recommend any approach that doesn’t sound like normal human behaviour, either!

So, whether it’s the juice diet, soup diet, whatever other stupid “don’t eat any of this, just eat this instead” diet, disturbing eating disorder related behaviour… the latest I heard people talking about was “eat whatever you want for two days, then just water for the next day”… really? REALLY? The same goes for excessive amounts of exercise as well. I talked a lot about that recently!

So what would I consider normal?

It’s real simple. I’ll make it in point form for even greater simplicity.

1. Consuming an appropriate amount of foods to maintain a healthy weight range.
   This means NO starvation diets, but not over indulging either. Ideally people would be able to do this by intuition alone, but for most of us we might need to count calories and macros for a while until our intuition is a bit more accurate. My observation is that women in particular will UNDER eat, which makes it hard to achieve great results – under eating can actually be just as bad as over eating.
2. Around one hour a day of resistance bearing activity.
   Think about it. Outside of modern sedentary lifestyles, humans would be moving around, carrying things, squatting down, getting back up… escaping from wild animals! Most of us don’t do any of that any more, so we need to make up for it with an exercise session. About an hour is PLENTY. 4 hours of cardio followed by weights followed by whatever else after a day of work and/or study is NOT normal behaviour.

That’s about it. It really doesn’t take much, does it?

I’m going to say that the definitive answer to this question is “maybe, but probably not”. It really depends on what your goals are and what state your physique is currently in. First up lets look at what a bulk is and what a cut is, shall we?

Bulking:

Exactly as you might expect, bulking is the act of attempting to gain mass and weight. The only way to get bigger is to eat more, so when bulking we want to add a lot of calories to our meal plan. An increase of say 500 – 1000 calories above maintenance levels is probably about normal.

Generally bulking is used by body builders and strength athletes trying to add a significant amount of muscle mass. When eating so far in excess of maintenance requirements you can also expect an increase in body fat as well, so I would say it is important to choose the source of these extra calories wisely and not just use “bulking” as an excuse to pig out on as much junk food as you like. Remember, at some point in the future you’ll want to start getting lean again, so the more fat you put on, the more work you’ll have to do later.

Even when trying to increase in size, I would say that you still want to see a flat stomach with the hint of a 6 pack (aka some ab definition) when you get up in the morning on an empty stomach. It’s ok if your belly looks a bit big in the evening after eating all day, but be more concerned with how you look before breakfast to make sure you are not putting on too much fat.

Cutting:

Cutting is the process of reducing calorie intake (perhaps to 500 – 1000 calories below maintenance) and trying to shed any body stores and really get line in time for summer, or a competition, your wedding or some other event that you want to look amazing for. Often this comes with a change in training program designed to burn more calories as well.

What most people do:

It seems to me that most people yo-yo between bulking and cutting in an unproductive manner that fails to produce the desired results one way or the other, leaving them too fat 1/2 the time and too skinny the rest of the time! The reason for this is in not starting out from a good enough position in terms of body composition.

What I mean by this is, even if your long term goal is to get bigger and stronger, if you’re not already quite lean when you start bulking, all you are really doing is getting fatter. Especially if you go on an undisciplined “I’m trying to get bigger anyway” bulk where you go even beyond your increased target of calories by eating whatever the hell you want, whenever the hell you want it. Sure, if you are training hard you will pack on some muscle mass as well, but your physique is still going to suck and to the rest of the world you’ll just be another fat guy, really.

So what then happens is one day you look in the mirror and decide you’re too fat and need to go on a cut. So you drastically reduce calories and up the cardio. The issue here is that between bulking and cutting you need a decent maintenance period where your body gets used to holding all that extra muscle mass, and even then your cutting nutrition and training plan needs to be fine tuned to maintain as much of that muscle mass as possible while reducing body fat. Otherwise you just end up back where you started, usually just looking like one more “skinny-fat” guy, aka your physique still sucks.

So what’s the answer?

I would say for new people, unless you are very underweight you probably do not need to go on a bulk. And unless you are quite overweight indeed, you probably do not need to go on a drastic cut either. Assuming most new people will be looking to build some lean muscle mass while also losing the fat stores around their belly or butt, a more sensible plan would be to establish good nutrition habits at around maintenance levels, and then start lifting some heavy weights.

As you may have seen already, I’m getting a lot of really good feedback about the brand new “No Excuses, No Bullshit” package in particular. Lots of happy people are seeing improvements in body composition (aka they’re losing fat while maintaining muscle mass) on this one.

I’ve been getting lots of requests for exercise program cards recently, so I should have some available hopefully tomorrow if all goes to plan. These are for all the people who don’t live close enough to come and train with me at the gym, but don’t need a full “exercise and nutrition” program like the packages I already have available.

I’ve had my “Next Level” program available for free on the blog for close to a year now and lots of people are having a great time with that one already, but I thought it would be nice to give people the chance to get an actual card they can print out to track their lifting progress.

Once again I’ve drifted off on a tangent from what I was supposed to be talking about! Let’s get back on track…

What to expect from my Training Programs and Online Packages.

There’s not really just one “correct & best way” to do things to get results in changing your body. It’s always interesting when I talk with my friends who train or who are also Personal Trainers, and you all have quite different approaches that all get results for yourselves and your clients.

What I like to do is just keep things as simple as possible and focus on what I consider to be “the bottom line”.

For example in resistance training, the bottom line to me when putting a program together is “am I training my whole body, with a balance between different movements and muscle groups?” To elaborate a little more, I’m saying you gotta train your legs as well as your upper body, and you should be doing the same amount of “pushing” exercises as “pulling” exercises. Ever see a guy who looks like he JUST trains chest and biceps? All out of proportion and strange looking? Overdeveloped in a couple of areas while underdeveloped in others?

Obviously that’s NOT what we want, so we have to train full body.

To me, this is just logical and sensible. And especially when combined with appropriate nutrition, it produces the desired result.

As for nutrition… again I like to keep this simple too and just focus on the bottom line. Some people just have good intuition and can get their intake right without having to really think about it too much. At more elite levels such as preparation for a body building contest your nutrition plan would need to be really precise, taking a wide range of factors into consideration in close detail.

For myself though and the majority of the people I help, the bottom line is simply “am I over eating, am I under eating, or am I eating roughly the right amount?”

I talk about this a lot. You know what? I’m going to KEEP talking about it a lot until people GET IT, get it?

We can agree that if people are overweight, it is usually because they’ve been taking in too many calories, right? Consistently consuming even a small amount of calories above what you need can add up to a large increase in body weight / body fat over time. Generally when people decide to do something about it, it’s either a crash diet (aka starvation) OR hopefully they get into fitness instead. From my observation though, and especially with females the tendency is still to under eat, which will actually slow or completely halt your progress towards the lean physique you are trying to build.

So, again; it’s not necessary to stress out over the finer details as if you were preparing for a contest or something. For most of us just wanting to get into great shape, it is enough to focus on the bottom line – “am I consuming within the right range of calories to maintain a healthy weight for my size (taking my activity level into account) or not?”

You can always fine tune later, but if you’ve been under eating (especially if you’re under eating and over training) bumping those calories up to an appropriate level will bring results surprisingly quickly. Of course, you can’t lose weight if you’re over consuming, so… determine your appropriate levels and take the appropriate action!

The bottom line in bottom lines;

In the end it all comes back to “Is it working, and is it enjoyable?”, right? Right!