I recently finished an interview on Voyage LA detailing my history as a trainer and the road to where I am today.
To read the full write up:
Single leg exercises are fantastic for many reasons one of which is shoring up any strength discrepancies from the left and right sides.
One of the better hip dominant movements is the single leg Romanian deadlift.
How To
- Pick up one foot and have a slight bend in the down leg.
- Push the hips back making sure to hinge at the hips.
- Focus on making sure the hips don't swivel as you push your butt back. A great way to help facilitate this is by kicking your leg straight as you hinge over.
- Hinge back and squeeze the glute in the down leg.
- Perform 5-10reps and repeat on the other side. I would include this in the middle of a leg workout as an accessory movment
Here I've loaded the movement with a kettle bell, shown is the easier way to hold onto the weight by hugging it against your chest to decrease the lever of the body aka: makes it easier than holding it in your hands.
Tim DiFrancesco of the Los Angeles Lakers w/Jordan Clarkson
Question I received: "Gary, I really want to get certified as a trainer. I've been lifting since high school and I'm thinking about quitting my job as a pharmacy tech. I really hate it and want to leave as soon as I get certified. I love basketball, so I definitely want to train mostly athletes."
First off I told him it was great that he figured out what his passion was, but also that it would be a long road ahead with a huge pay cut. If he was happy taking a pay cut to become a trainer then by all means full steam ahead and I would be more than happy to give him resources to be the best trainer he could be. But if he had responsibilities and things to pay for, that he may be better off as a part time trainer initally on his days off to really see if he enjoyed training and working with others for a living.
As a pharmacy tech or any health field background, becoming certified as a trainer isn't a big stretch. The science part should come easy, but those experiences won't cover coaching people. It's easy to train your friend who is young and healthy, but what do you do with the former athlete who has a surgically repaired ACL or bum hip? What happens when you get a difficult client that doesn't seem to take your advice on proper nutrition?
I brought up the point that he's currently employed with a steady job, by leaving the comfort of that job to become his own boss to "train athletes" right out the gate; he would be in for a rude awakening. Some trainers believe that within a year they'll be working with high level athletes. The problem with that naive line of thinking is this:
You've worked with ZERO athletes, what makes you think a million dollar body is going to take a flyer on a rookie trainer?
(hint: the answer is none)
If he had only mentioned he wished to train athletes in the future I wouldn't have come at him hard with the truth. I've had the opportunity to meet plenty of well intentioned people who like this individual, they quit their jobs to "follow their passion" only to fall flat on their face after going independent. Wishing to be your own boss and actually cultivating all the skills required to succeed are two completely different things.
I've learned this:
You cannot live wishing to be an entrepreneur when your skill-set and mindset haven't been cultivated to be one
Remember when you're out there on your own, there are zero guidelines on what to do next and how to spend your time. For many the risk of the unknown and leaving something "steady" is not worth it and I would advise this person to seek a different JOB instead of taking a weekend course to change industries cold turkey.
Some simply can't get organized enough to get a business off the ground. Other's aren't wired to think on a deeper level strategy-wise. I used to think "what do I need to do? I want to work but I don't know what to do!" If you really don't have any clue what to do, go get a job. I mean there are so many resources and you still don't know what to do!? I.E: Google it!
It got to the point where I would pester my wife with "so what should I do?" which is an asinine thought considering I was supposed to be my own boss.
(Note: I knew what to do, I was being lazy and didn't want to own up to doing the work)
Being your own boss is a skill too, one that you may not have been born with. You can still be your own boss but to temper expectations if you don't end up rising to the top of your industry. You'll earn 45K instead of 1 million dollars each year.
It boils down to being happy > everything else.
Ultimately he wrote back and said thank you for my input and that he would be getting certified to start training part time and see if it might be something he wished to pursue full time. He mentioned it hadn't occurred to him that it would be THAT difficult getting in front of ONE professional athlete. I gave him some more resources, said he should try his hand at working at the high school level and left it off with an open invite anytime he was in Los Angeles to drop on by and I would love to host him for an hour at the gym.
Ball is life...until you have to pay your bills.
Everybody wants to get faster and jump higher. For most clients they have to learn to slow themselves down to go faster.
This isn't some Yoda jedi mind trick, it really does mean that by learning how to effectively slow yourself down, you'll be better abled at accelerate safely out of said stop.
There's not a whole lot to it except this cue: Land like a cat, not a dog.
Most cats at least, are pretty quiet when they move around. There's been times I'll be sitting forward in my chair only to lean back a bit and discover a cat behind me now. Gotta be nimble and quiet like cat.
If when you land you make a loud THUD foot slapping the ground noise, you're too loud. This also applies to box jumps where you're stomping onto the box. When you don't land controlled and softly it only shifts the weight more onto your joints, and that's a recipe for injury down the road.
"Smarter, Faster, Better" by Charles Duhigg explores the science behind how we motivate, manage and become more productive humans.
In a nutshell it's more about how you think as opposed to what you think, which is a mindset I believe that can change your life.
We make good choices based on our past experiences which allow us to forecast the future more accurately.
Charles believes “good decision making is contingent on a basic ability to envision what happens next.” This only happens when we have the ability to see how what's going on is different than how we actually believe things should be which is known as a mental model.
Characteristics of individuals good at managing their attention
- They create pictures in their minds of what they expect to see
- They tell themselves stories about what’s going on as it occurs
- They narrate their own experiences within their heads
- They are more likely to answer questions with anecdotes rather than simple responses
- They say when they daydream, they’re often imagining future conversations
- They visualize their days with more specificity than the rest of us do
Motivation is not innate, it is a skill that can be cultivated and improved upon.
In the book he uses an example from the Toyota company where they are tasked with reopening a former GM plant with the same workers which forced this factory to close. They allowed workers to feel like they had autonomy over their actions and surroundings, which led to a successful relaunch of this car factory. Motivation often has more to do with the belief we are in control more than the actual choices we have to make.
“Productivity is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort.”
At times when we look to be productive it comes at the expense of performing a task or unpleasant chore. Instead of groaning, we should take an opportunity to ask ourselves "why" we're begrudging performing this particular task. Only after we become aware of the why do we see that these small tasks are a part of a part of a much larger goal or set of values.
We see that these small chores can have a massive emotional reward which allows us to have a more meaningful view on our decision making, Self-motivation flourishes when we realize that helping around the house or opening a door for someone on its own, might be relatively unimportant. But it is part of a bigger project that we believe in, that we want to achieve, that we have chosen to do.