Professionalism: Thinking, decision making, or one size fits all
SUPER TRAINER DAN
As we watch Super Trainer Dan, toned, tanned, and looking barely out of school, he arrives carrying his clipboard (complete with professional-looking picture of the anatomy system) and takes you to his testing room. He walks in front of you, paying no attention to you, just to his own reflection in the mirror. After a series of questions, he takes your pulse to determine your resting heart rate. Then he wraps a cuff around your upper arm (very serious look) and takes your blood pressure. In a flash, Super Trainer Dan whips out a tape measure and measures your biceps, waist, chest, calves and legs. Then he asks you to take off your shirt, starts pinching you, and with a vise-grip-looking device crushes your skin as if to draw blood or leave a blister. "OK, " he says, "Let's go on the floor." Off you go to the bench press to see how many times you can press half your weight. He demonstrates by loading 225 pounds and reps out 10 with no challenge. As you watch, feeling like a loser, he then motivates his new victim/client to do a forced three more! (You got six reps of half your body weight.) Feeling a discomfort in your shoulder, you then race off to the stationary bike where he has you pedal as fast as you can for three-minute intervals, only to record your heart rate and how well it recovers back to its resting state. Alas, Super Trainer Dan has enough information to produce a wild guess at a program designed and tailored just for you (and every other client that week). A Fit-Pro would never make the multiple errors of Super Trainer Dan. Super Trainer Dan would have been better off skipping the strength testing and focusing on teaching you how to maintain a neutral spine and proper body positioning for every movement pattern/exercise in your program, and then only progressing to the next movement once the client demonstrated complete control. He would have been better off having his client walking at a moderate pace to teach a kinesthetic awareness, as well as an indication of perceived rate of exertion. The lesson that Super Trainer Dan should have taught is the fact that strength gains that occur in the first 8 weeks of any workout program (studies in neural factors vs. hypertrophy) are due to neural factors, not increases in muscle size. The brain learns to activate the muscles with more force and efficiency, turning on the ones responsible for the movement and inhibiting the ones that are not. Therefore, most strength increases are from motor learning. "WE LEARN TO BECOME STRONGER ALONG PATHWAYS (SHOULDER ABDUCTION, HIP, KNEE, AND ANKLE FLEXION, ETC. BY REHEARSING THOSE PATHWAYS WITH BITS OF INCREASING LOADS." Call it micro-progressions. Fit-Pro is here to make you an elite trainer-not a gym trainer, not a trainer who bases all his workouts on how an exercise feels. We need to understand that all machines are not created equal. The education you have learned at this point is only worth it if you understand it, apply it, and live it.
Important Factoid:
Remember "Super Trainer Dan" (S.T.D.). He is known to watch his clients perform risky movement patterns. He demonstrates the exercise perfectly, yet is frustrated that the client just cant do it! Dan means well; however, he is too preoccupied. Dan should abort an exercise after the second repetition if the client is not in perfect body posture. Dan just figures the set is almost over, and the clock is ticking. Dan gets frustrated that his client can't hold a split squat/position, so he continues to demonstrate as the client watches. The client rolls his eyes with a sigh, and says "this pulls on my knee, and hurts my low back". Dan continues to try to adjust his client's position. The fact is that Dan has to eat and train himself soon. Dan needs to commit to memory that every loaded movement has a "risk-benefit ratio" - so as his client increases the chances for muscular imbalances, muscle strains and deviates from the goal, Dan's reputation will eventually crumble. Dan does not know proper progressions, so he starts with high risk, "what works for him" exercises. Trainers need to take the time to abort, explain, and look only to the best interest of the client. We need to teach corrective exercises to prepare the body to handle more forces.(such as a lunge) Teaching and getting the client to feel more confident, stronger, and decrease the "fear of doubt" that is part of every new clients thoughts. This will lead to RENEWALS, INCREASED SALES, WORD OF MOUTH, and those (6-figures!)
Dave Parise is a recognized leader in the fitness industry. On the cutting edge of exercise today, he has been voted one of the Top Personal Trainers in the United States and across Canada by the Association for Fitness Professionals, IDEA. Dave has 20 years of experience in Strength Training, Human Performance, and Exercise Science. Born and raised in Hamden, CT, he began his career as a body builder and certified trainer.
In 1986, Dave retired from competitive body building to establish a private one-on-one personal training facility located in Hamden, CT. Discouraged with common gym science and compulsory movements, he set out to change the fitness industry by setting new standards and proper training methods based on the function of one's individual anatomy, not a manufactured machine. Dave Parise is a notable Celebrity Trainer in New York, Boston, and CT. He can be reached at daveparise@resultsplus.com
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