One simple equation to keep in mind: Motivation=Personal Trainer. I have seen in my days many serious gym rats that feel depressed because they are not reaching their maximum potential at the gym. Personal trainers have the responsibility, or as I would say the obligation to help them out. I am always encouraging those who are serious about gaining weight and muscles to train with a partner. You need to find someone who has the same goals and convictions to make your journey easier, and who will make you feel bad if you slack off. We all know that bodybuilding is a solitary sport, you don’t really need anyone there to do the exercise, except when you try to lift heavy and you need a spotter. I have trained many times with partners, and I feel constantly motivated to push myself beyond belief. This is how you gain muscle. It is by going through that pain barrier that you can see results. How can you do that without a training partner? You’ll figure this one out.
Personal trainers and professional bodybuilders are always accused of having a big ego. Maybe because we walk around in the gym, and after a good pump, we flex in front of the mirror. We see what the exercise actually made us accomplish. Yes, we gloat. We are proud of what we’ve accomplished, but the mirror is just a tool. Think of it as being an artist and building the perfect statue. You use clay to define the muscles in the statue, and if you feel that you need more mass in certain areas of your design, then you add whatever is needed. You hope to create a masterpiece, hoping that this statue can be placed in a show room at an art exhibit. Is the artist gloating? No. He is merely proud of the masterpiece and wants to share it with the world. Professional bodybuilders at the Mr. Olympia show are proud to have created the masterpiece and share it with bodybuilding fans. This sport is getting more and more popular every single year. More and more attendants come to the show and share the excitements of seeing gigantic masses of muscles close-up. After seeing a show, you are definitely motivated to take your ass to a gym and start pumping like crazy.
But you are probably wondering how do you get to their level? Without using enhancement drugs, it will be quite a challenge to reach their size. First, to compete you need more than just a sponsor. You need good genetics. Let’s say you cover that hurdle and you are gifted with the most amazing genetics. Muscles do not come easy if you don’t pump them correctly with the appropriate drugs. You need to be financially capable of paying for these drugs if you are not yet one of the pros. To get to pro level, you need your pro card; which means you need to win a National competition. Once you get there, if you ever do, you’ll be entering an interesting world. No need to go further, I think you all get my point.
Many gym members come to me and ask for advice. This is what a personal trainer should give, is free advice. This helps you to get recognized by the members and if they ever need a session, even just one, they’ll remember who was there in their time of need. For many, including myself, we have experienced a downtime in our life when it comes to exercising or weightlifting. It is very hard to keep the same passion about the sport as you did when you were twenty. It can be quite a challenge to go to the gym and pump iron as ferociously as you did when you had more energy. Just to make us each feel better, it is quite normal to feel this way. We are getting older. We have new sets of responsibilities, family, work, errands, etc. We are not getting younger, unfortunately. However, these next few tips will actually help you to get over this hurdle. We all want the perfect body, right? Okay, let’s get started.
For most, lack of intensity is one hurdle that is hard to overcome. As mentioned above, there’s times when I see people showing up at the gym, they start lifting weights, feeling sluggish and in the sign of light pain, because of lactic acid flowing in your muscles, you decide to stop, and wonder if you had enough for today’s workout. Well, this is where the problem arises. You can’t stop. There is the pain barrier that you haven’t reached yet. The best thing is just to take a few seconds and rethink what it will take for you to go and pump so hard that you’ll feel your brain coming out of your ears. For growth purposes, you need to feel anger, anger at yourself for being a “girly man.” Anger at the thoughts that you limit yourself when it comes to reaching the perfect body. You worked hard all these years, why stop the growth now? You need to learn to tolerate pain and let your body heal. You need to push yourself at each workout, like it is your last one. As I mentioned, a training partner is necessary for these types of situations because both can motivate each other to go over this annoying hurdle.
Let’s try and get you back to the intensity of when you are ready to train ’til you bleed. Weightlifting in itself is a science. You need to review all exercises that you do and make sure to do the right one. Choosing the wrong exercise is very common to all gym members. Without the proper knowledge on how to perform the right exercise, it is very easy to choose one and probably increase injury. If an exercise is not done properly, you increase the probability of getting injured and worst of all, you get nothing out of doing the exercise. Let me rephrase that, you don’t get nothing, because any resistance training, even if you do it like a complete idiot, will cause you to see some small and minor results. These minor results are still more than what you will see if you are sedentary. For each exercise, you want to fully utilize its effectiveness and get the most out of it. Well, personal trainers are there for that. We are here to help you with a program that will be catered to your needs and get the most of your sessions. The reason why personal trainers need to take a national certification to train other people is to help them understand how muscles work, and what to do to keep their client’s healthy. The client’s goal is to show up at the gym.
Another hurdle that personal trainers can resolve is originality in workouts. We are able to come up with different exercises that will keep the client happy and coming for more. Since our muscles adapt to the stresses we subject them to, it is imperative that we find ways to surprise them. Keeping the same exercise routine will eventually become stale. I see members coming in every day to repeat the same exercise for each different body part. The key for growth is not only to increase the weight at each set, it is important as well to change the order, changing the amount of sets and reps between each exercise. Always keep your body wondering what you will do next. Keep it fun! You will feel and see the results in a shorter time period.
It is also important to revise the combination of body parts that you do on a daily basis. If you used to do chest and triceps, biceps and back, shoulders and calves, and quads and gluteus, then change the combination. You can do chest and biceps, back and triceps, shoulders with forearms and traps; core exercises can be done every single day, as well as calves.
As someone with exercise experience, you can understand where I ‘m coming from, with the combination of muscles trained. You will hear different opinions when it comes to muscles. Some will say that training biceps and back is great because when you perform any back muscles, the biceps brachii is involved and helps you perform the back exercises. Since it’s used as a secondary muscle, it is already warmed up so it’s easy to perform biceps right after back exercises.
However, you can hear different opinion when it comes to combining back and biceps. Others say that the biceps muscle is already fatigued, since it participated in the performance of the back exercise. Once fatigued, it can be difficult to isolate the biceps to fully train them. It’s a Catch- 22. You can’t really win. Trainers will have different views and opinions that can confuse the hell out of you, because it confuses us as well. The more we learn, the more we realize that we knew close to nothing. This is the reason why there is continuing education to keep your certification. You always need to keep informed about the new changes or exercise the industry offers. Personal trainers learn as much as possible to eventually inform their clients about new findings in kinesiology and health.
Another hurdle is what most people fear to hear or read: Nutrition. We dedicated a section of this book about nutrition, diet, and a special plan that will help you lose weight and keep it off.
You’ve heard and tried many diets in the past; programs that probably never worked or gave you a satisfactory result. You hear as well that eating every couple of hours is beneficial for losing weight. Plus, each time you eat you will not be as hungry as someone who eats just three meals a day because digestion accelerates your metabolism, and fast metabolism makes you lose weight. For those who want to gain muscle size, you will need to intake about 2g of protein per pound of bodyweight. Believe me, it’s not easy to follow these guidelines. It’s a full time job to eat every two hours and train to become a professional bodybuilder. You understand that the career of muscles is not for everyone.
It’s not a good idea to skip meals. It is important to always have something in your mouth and chew your life away. I am talking about healthy food, not gum. To have an exceptional body, you must go the extra mile and have your six to eight meals a day with high protein intake. Thank God for the supplement industry; they are making tastier bars with high nutritional value. So for the busiest executives who don’t have much time besides managing their stress related ulcers, you actually have an alternative. Don’t make these bars nor shakes your sole intake of food. They are called supplements, and should be taken this way.
Another hurdle that actually follows the one mentioned above is the lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is one of the most destructive habits that you need to fix. Everything about exercise, food intake, and variety in training is worth nothing if you don’t have the proper amount of sleep. Growth happens while you sleep. You understand now why newborns needs about 20 hours of sleep per day to grow. This is how they double their size in weight within the first few months in their life. Normal people can function with six to seven hours of sleep with no damaging effect to the body.
However, if you are the avid weight lifter or living an active lifestyle, you need more than the basic seven hours. These hours are not enough to allow all the repair mechanisms do their job properly. You will need extra sleep to recover and get back to speed with your work-outs. This is when setting priorities is necessary for you to allocate enough time for your health and social life. Staying up all night drinking and partying shouldn’t be in your plan to lead a healthy lifestyle.
If you do have the chance, take a nap in the afternoon to recuperate some of the missing night sleep. A 15 minute powernap can rejuvenate you and give you enough energy to last for a few more hours.
One of my favorite hurdles that I discuss with my client is the concept of overtraining. Yes, a word that should be spelled to all avid, motivated and dedicated young kids who can’t seem to stop working out, day after day, night after night, 365 days a year.
First, I tell them you are not a cyborg, so don’t treat your body like one. It is important to understand the logic behind the frequency, the length of the work-out sessions, and how detrimental it can be to exercise every single day. Avoid comparing yourself to professionals from the old days who failed to understand what overtraining was all about. It’s important to understand that the pros have the genetics that allows them to go on and on and recover faster than the normal human. Another fact is that their fast recovery abilities are enhanced with special compounds: AKA Steroids, which increase endurance and capacity for physical activity. Last and foremost, their job is to train. They have sponsors that finance them throughout the training to hopefully win a national competition and promote their sponsors supplement to the whole world by telling everyone they use product XYZ.
Remember these three advantages they have over you. So daily training for hours in a row will only make you weaker, smaller and constantly fatigued. If it takes you more than 90 minutes to complete your work-out with weights, even with the large body parts, you are definitely doing something wrong.
One hurdle that is common to all gym rats is over-socializing at the gym. A gym is there to train your body muscle, not facial muscle. It’s okay to look at a few passing pretty women in tongues, but don’t stare or drool. It is great that everyone seems to be attracted to you because of your charming personality, your sense of humor, and your interesting nocturnal adventures. It can play hard with reaching your main goals.
Personal training has its effect on gym members. When you see a personal trainer with a client, you will not go and approach him/her and ask them for advice. This is not something you will do. You respect their surroundings and wait till they finish with their client. As someone serious in developing muscles, I do my best to come to the gym, make myself invisible by having headphones in my ears and have tremendous focus to my training. Everyone around me learns not to disturb me until I complete my work-outs.
Avoid making eye contact with anyone. They may figure you want them to be around and start talking. There are a few members that I see coming to the gym to catch up with friends and joke around. They end up staying at the gym for six hours before realizing that they need to eventually go home. I actually have the time to train four clients, get my work-out in, and they’ll still be there chatting their muscles away.
Do not be one of these socializers. Training is a serious business. It needs your full attention. However, once your work-outs are over, you can resume your social activities and flirt with every single woman at the gym. Save all the jaw-jacking and ego-padding for the clubs or bars on Saturday night.
Injuries can be another hurdle that can stop you from growing. To do the best mass-building exercises with the heaviest weight possible, you need to have healthy and injury-free shoulders, lower back, hips and knees. I’ve seen lots of my gym buddies training while injured. They pull a muscle and hesitate to go and get it taken care of. They go and say: “Well, if I go see a doctor, he’ll tell me that I need to stop training for the next 6 months.” Even though I am not fond of doctors, or their knowledge in the industry of training, I still listen to their advice if I do get injured. I’ve injured my lower back, shoulders, chest, and legs and for most of these body parts the doctor told me six months in bed. Yeah, of course I’ll stop pumping iron for six months. Sure. Why not ten years while I’m at it? Stopping weights for 6 months would probably be as worse as stopping for a decade. Anyway, I stopped weight lifting for a few weeks, took whatever medication he prescribed me in order to heal faster and get my ass back to the gym. So if you do have injuries, listen to your body. Once your body says its okay to get back, wait a few more weeks and then jump into the weights.
Once back, go slowly like it’s your first time doing it. Take your time; do not go too deep, and make slow controlled motions. Remember to inhale and exhale. You’ll start feeling warm sweat falling on your forehead, and the intensity will start rising slowly and surely. You want to savor every single second of the movement. You will then start to feel contractions, very intense contractions, and you continue because you know it feels so good. You go on and on and you can’t stop until you’ve reached the “BEST PUMP OF YOUR LIFE.” Got you there, right? You thought for a moment that I was talking about a sexual orgasm. The first time, the slow controlled motion, inhaling/exhaling, feeling of warmth, etc. Well, this is it… this is “working out.” Having a good pump is like having an orgasm. You’ll have the feeling of coming at the gym, coming at home with your girlfriend/boyfriend, or by yourself with Rosie palm and her five sisters. You are coming every single hour of the day. It is a great feeling. Okay, I think I’ve watched “Pumping Iron” way too many times.
Finally, the last hurdle I can think of is a lack of confidence in yourself. This can be a huge gain stopper. If you can’t believe that you can grow, what makes you think that others can? Without the conviction that you can grow bigger and better, the chances are slim that you will. It’s all in the mind. The mind controls your growth. If you tell your brain that you can’t go on because you don’t feel fit for this sport, you will not succeed in the sport or your endeavor of building a great body. You need to fight your subconscious and tell it who the boss is. You need to fight with yourself and say that you will grow, that you will get bigger and you’ll end up impressing yourself with astonishing results. It is all on you. No one can tell you what to do, how to workout, beside personal trainers of course, you will be the one to get your ass out of bed in the morning and go to the gym. Once there, half of the battle is won. The second part you will need to overcome is the grueling work. In the end you will look at yourself in the mirror, spread your spoilers (also called Latissimus Dorsi, or “Cobra Back”), and you will understand why they came up with cameras that offer “Panoramic Views.”
Dan Amzallag
Gloateus Maximus: Inside and out of personal trainers lives
Book available at http://www.fitnesstrainersnetwork.com
Accredited and certified personal trainers for USA and Canada
