Personal Training

Almost every, if not every gym has one or more fitness instructors, but not every instructor is a certified personal trainer, in fact for you to be an instructor you do not have to own a personal trainer degree. Everybody that has been to a gym or is currently a member of one has some sort of an idea of what an fitness instructor is. As the representatives of this new species called "personal trainer"are still relatively few but increasing quite rapidly, I'm going to introduce you to their characteristics.

What is personal training?

This is when a person stands next to another person that is sweating and panting and encourages him to sweat and pant even more. Or so it seems.

Personal coaching is a new kind of animal - it doesn't bite nor growl, in fact it is quite strong, agile, resilient. And smart. Supposedly.

What is a personal trainer?

Personal means personal - when you workout out this person will be with you, beside you, beside you and nowhere else. Of course, not until death do you part, but at least the end of the workout. A personal trainer won't do small talk with the hot chick doing leg curls while you're doing your heavy squats or won't on the phone talking with his girlfriend while you're busting your ass on the bench, or at least a good one is not supposed to do that.

A Personal Trainer:

• Is someone who understands your needs, sees your options and helps you achieve your goals. These goals might be like :having more energy, feeling better, muscle gain, strength gain, fat loss etc. it depends on the case. Sometimes practitioners have desires that are well beyond their capabilities - then the coach's job is first increase the athlete's capabilities.
• A person with excellent knowledge of bio mechanics and kinesiology (ie someone who understands the functions of the various muscles, their qualities and properties and hence - the movement of the whole body). That, combined with his knowledge on which type of training is required for the event in question and a training suitable for the athlete grants a higher quality to the methods a personal trainer uses.
• A person that possesses excellent technique of execution of most movements. This is one of the most important characteristics for a personal trainer, a man can teach you what he can do, so you can do it as well as he can, but a man can't teach you what he does not know. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are rather rare, and usually it comes to coaches who were much better, but at some point they had to stop due to an injury (for example).personal trainer degree online
• A person that possess knowledge about nutrition, human physiology and biochemistry. Or at least, it is advisable to have that knowledge because there is no way to hard for a long time without quality recovery. There is no way to hard and with quality without being in good health. A good health and a quality recovery can't exist without good nutrition. For our good nutrition, however, it is necessary for us to know the body well enough, to know which foods will helps us reach our goals.personal trainer school online
• A person that is a good psychologist.By a"good psychologist" i don't mean that one will tell athletes to lie comfortably on the bench and then an hour he will hear your complaints about the your boss, traffic, weather, etc. and help you with your relationship problems Yes, you can have those moments, but the job of the trainer is to make it so that the nothing interferes with your training, a personal trainer should not share his problems with you as well, he can't tell you how his own boss is busting his balls every day or tell you how his wife is cheating on him etc.A good coach will not stress you with his problems he is there to encourage you and motivate you not stress you further.
• A person that will choose the best for your current physical and mental state. As I mentioned above - the intensity should be regulated to fit your current possibilities (because one day we can be at 100% and the next we can be at 5) the direction remains -he/she is to to satisfy your needs and desires. On the other hand, your personal trainer as a good psychologist should be able to sense your emotional state and know whether it is better to annihilate your body to clear your head of the crap that it has collected through the day . Or is it a better idea perform a simple toning workout because your stress has already exceeded the limit of what you can take.
• It is advisable for the coach to be familiar with the structural balance of the body. This is because most people's daily life nowadays is related to sitting on chairs and furniture which is quite often related to computer work. This leads to muscle inactivity, muscle tightness and muscle weakness in certain parts of the body (usually abdominal, waist and shoulder girdle), which in it's own turn leads to muscle imbalance that often carries health risks. A distinctive muscle imbalance may prevent us from safely executing a movement or even cause an injury that prevents us from fully or stop us from training for awhile.

Personal Training Certificates

I'll talk a little about how you can get a personal training certificate for those that are just curious or want to actually own one.
As it is now one can get a certificate even at home.
For example you can even apply to online personal trainer courses and get a personal trainer degree online by taking online personal trainer certification programs.
There are personal training colleges and also various personal trainer courses etc.
There are many organizations that offer certificates make sure you do your research before applying to one.
I don't want to get really into this topic in this post, i might cover it in a completely separate post in the future.




Above all, a personal trainer should be a role model! And that is perhaps is the most important feature because  for you to train people to get in shape, you first need to be fit. To train people to become stronger, you first need to be strong. To train people to build muscle, you need to have plenty of your own. To train people to burn fat, you must have burned your own unnessesary one first.
The difference between personal trainers can be from heaven to earth.Those are the characteristics that i believe a good personal trainer should have.
(sources:bbteam)
(pictures:fralinca.ca)

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Bruce Randall (Part I)

Bruce Randall started lifting weights just before his 21st birthday. However, before he came along in the iron game,as a teenager Bruce was employed in some really physically demanding jobs, he worked as a coal worker and as a logger.After he got a job on a freighter, thanks to a good diet, good sleep and fresh air he increased his weight from 74 kg to about 87 kg in only 58 days. After he returned to school at the age of 17, Randall enlisted in the football team, and slightly reduced his weight and he maintained it that weight up to his graduation.

The Navy

After he graduated school, Randall enrolled in the U.S. Navy. Several months later, while walking around the base he stumbled upon the finest gym for weightlifting in the U.S. fleet, led by the best instructor of weightlifting at the time - Chief Petty Officer Walter Metzler.

The Beginning

On January 3, 1953, after returning from Christmas vacation, Bruce weighed about 90 kg.He wanted to bulk up to 100 kg, so he can join the football team. Randall realized that in order to increase his weight, he needs to eat more food. So at every meal began to take something extra - a glass of milk, a slice of bread, one more piece of meat etc.And the weight gradually increased, and his body adapted to the larger amounts of food.

First Workout Routine

The first routine that Bruce used was entirely for arms:

• Barbell Military Curls – 3x6-8, 110 lbs/50kg.
• Dumbbell Concentration Curls  – 3x 6-5, 50 lbs/22,5kg.
• Barbell French Curls/Skull Crushers – 3x6-8, 70 lbs/32.5kg.
• Dumbbell Bent Over Triceps Extensions – 3x6-8, 35 lbs/20kg.
• Dumbbell Preacher Curls – 3x6-8, 45 lbs/20kg.

With this routine and his football training Bruce increased his weight from 92 kg to 100 kg, by now his arms were almost 46 cm Randall was completely absorbed in sports, his dream was to become a professional at American football.

Weightlifting

A little later, in the midst of football season Bruce already weighed 120 kg, his strength also increased. At that time his coach Officer Metzler advised him to give up football and focus on weightlifting. Randall decided to listen to his mentor and focus on increasing his weight with the purpose of gaining even more strength.

After he was devoted to weightlifting, he began to train with the following program:

• Dumbbell Bench Press – 3x5-8, 120 lbs/55kg.
• Decline Dumbbell Bench Press – 3x5-8, 130 lbs/60kg.
• Incline Barbell Presses – 3x5-8, 250 lbs/115kg.
• Good Mornings – 3x3-5, 295 lbs/135kg.

These are the initial weights,with which he started but after a while the weight increased dramatically. At the end of each workout Bruce performed several exercises like squats, dead lifts, barbell rows, shoulder presses etc. Breaks between sets and exercises were a few minutes.

Nutrition

During this period, in which Randall increased his weight and strength, and because of that he had to also increase food, which was of utmost importance. Bruce spend most of his money on food, although the fleet fed its staff pretty well. Randall always amazed the cooks and the people around him when he sat down to eat.

Often his breakfast consisted of about two liters of milk, a loaf of bread and a half and about 28 fried eggs.
Bruce ate four times a day,while drinking milk between meals.

• He had breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 11:30,and usually dinner was at 16:30 and at 21:30 he ate something more before bed.
• Usually eaten 12 to 18 eggs and drank about 7 to 9 liters of milk a day.
• I once drank 18 liters of milk a day in addition to their standard diet.
• The guys in the Navy counted the eggs Bruce ate for a week, the results were unbelievable, he consumed 171 eggs only for his breakfast for a week.

The Squat

When Bruce Randall started his training, he asked his coach which exercise can generate the greatest strength in the whole body,Walter Metzler replied that that exercise is the Barbell Squat. In the beginning, when Bruce weighed 90 kg his legs were very weak, he tried to squat 85 kg and failed. Several years before he started training with weights Randall had an accident in which he had one leg broken at 7 spots, but that did not stop him. Later, at a weight of 112 kg Bruce squatted with 140 kg. A few months after he managed to squat 185 kg with a body weight of 127kg. And once he weighted 161 kg, was able to hit a 275 kg squat.

The Good Morning.

Randall's favorite exercise was the Good morning. When reached over 180kg in this exercise, he realized that he could not continue to add weight and perform the exercise with strict form(legs straight),so he started bending his knees slightly when leaning forward. With this form he reached 310 kg in this movement.Once  he tried a Good Morning with 340kg his torso was parallel to the floor, but was unable to get up and dropped weight.

First Competition

In December 1953., Only 11 months after he began training Bruce participated in his first competition in weightlifting. He won the competition with an overhead press with 136 kg, 108 kg jerk and a clean and jerk with143 kg. By this time Bruce trained 3-4 times a week performing the basic compound exercises, and rarely practicing the Olympic movements

New Routine

On 1 January 1954, a year after he began to train his training program was as follows:

• Incline Clean & Press – 3x3-5, 355lbs/160kg.
• Quarter Front Squat – 3x6-8, 1,010 lbs/460kg.
• Dumbbell Bench Press – 3x3-5, 205 lbs/90kg.
• Dumbbell Decline Press – 3x3-5, 195 lbs/85kg.
• Good Morning – 3x3-5, 565 lbs/256kg.

On March 11, 1954 Bruce Randall was dismissed from the Navy. After returning home to New York, Randall amazed friends and family with the dramatic increase in weight in just 14 months. At that time he weighed 155 kg.

Personal Records

After returning home, Randall continued to train and increase his weight. These are unofficial records in his personal weight of 172 kg:

• Overhead Press –375/170kg.
• Squat – 680lbs/305kg.
• Good Morning – with legs bent, back parallel to floor, 685lbs/310kg.
• Deadlift – 770lbs/350kg.
• Curl – 228lbs/102kg.
• Dumbbell Bench Press – 220lbs/100kg x2.
• Bench Press – 3 second pause at chest, 482lbs/218.5kg.
• Decline Bench Press– 220lbs/100kg.
• 45 degree Incline Clean & Press – 410lbs/186kg .
• ¼ Front Squat – 1,320lbs/600kg

Randall continued to train and reached a weight of 186 kg/410lbs. But this body weight made it difficult to lift weights, and maintain such a large mass.

In the second part of this post I'll talk about how Bruce transformed from a 410lbs beast to a man with a physique of a greek god, and won the 1959 Mr.Universe.

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