Competitive strength and everyday strength

In strength training we often focus on competitive strength, the "one rep maximum", the most weight we can lift once. Often all our training is focused on that. But there's also everyday strength, which is something up to around 2/3 the maximum. And this is important, too. We can't always get 100%. We can get around 67%, though. 

Everyday strength is the weight you can lift without a warmup on a day when you had a bad night’s sleep and missed breakfast and had an argument with your girlfriend or have got your period and are annoyed at your boss, and it’s a weight you could do for a few sets up to a total of 10 reps – and do it every day without any soreness etc. This is around up to 2/3 of your max lift. On a shitty day you don't have competitive strength, but you do have everyday strength. 

A few weeks back a bunch of my clients went to a powerlifting competition. James at 78kg had previously squatted 130 for a single in the gym, and was regularly doing 100 for his work sets. His first attempt 100 was no problem, and 120 came up easily. Now he tried 140, I saw him come under the bar a bit loose, step out uncertainly, then look a bit confused first to his left – the bar swung – then his right – the bar swung again, then shake his head, go down – and not come up.

The bar had clanged against a metal part of the straps, and as this was the first day he’d ever used the monolift, he didn’t know what it was, and it distracted him as he wondered. Now, when he tried 100, he could be a bit sloppy and still get the weight up. 120 he had to be tighter getting under the bar and more focused. 140 there was no way he was going to do it unless he was 100%.

A 67% lift requires 67% effort and focus. A 100% lift requires 100%. Sometimes we bash ourselves up for not getting 100%, and we forget just how much better that 67% is than it was before. While focused on competitive strength, we forget about our everyday strength. And the truth is that as we continue training, both are improving. So that our old work weight is now a warmup. My client Rosemary, being a small woman in her 60s with a back injury, took six months to be able to deadlift 60kg just once. Now she has done 80kg, and will try for 85 and 90 at a meet in December. But whether she gets 85 or 90 or not, 60 is now a warmup for her. She can just walk in and pull 60 even on a crappy day, and do it for a stack of reps. 

Anourd that's the way it goes in strength training. Your old competitve strength is now your everyday strength. The right mindset in strength training is a balance of ambition and contentment. Too much ambition and you get all depressed when your competitive strength isn't what you hoped. Too much contentment and you never improve either competitive nor everyday strength. You need to appreciate what you've achieved while realising you can achieve more. This is how progress happens. 

Of course, you can push your 100% directly, or just push your 67% and watch your 100% come up anyway. This is the premise of Dan John's Easy Strength, and will be the subject of another article. 

Kudos to Tara for her article Shut Up, Brain, which inspired this one. 

Talented athletes suck

Give me the gimpy ones. 

Whenever I get a gym member or client who is naturally physically talented, I breathe a sigh of regret. Talented athletes suck, they rarely achieve anything. When a person is talented, they're used to things being easy. As soon it gets hard they realise they're risking failure, they become nervous and quit, backing off and changing goals or making excuses. 

Many of us knew someone like this at university. They were naturally so smart that they got through most of high school without studying. But come first year university, or at the latest second year, suddenly they can't pass without studying. Generally they drop out and have an unplanned gap year. 

It's the same when it comes to athletic endeavours. The young woman who can squat 60kg for a single on her first day in the gym later gets to 75kg for work sets and starts complaining, missing workouts and so on, maybe even quits training with me. Three months later she's in the rack squatting 50kg. Meanwhile her untalented friend who started at the same time and struggled to squat the empty bar is smashing out 80kg for work sets. 

Talented people take success for granted and quit when things get hard. Untalented people always find everything hard so just assume it'll always be hard. So they stick with it and get better, and eventually surpass the talented.

If you're a talented athlete, please don't come to me for training, I don't want to waste your money and my time, you're just going to quit as soon as it gets hard. If you were the kid who was picked last, if you're old or riddled with injuries, then head on down and we'll accomplish amazing things. 

"He's not just my client, he's my friend."

Most fitness professional organisations will have a Code of Ethics which includes something like, "the trainer should ensure they do not form a personal relationship which might compromise the professional relationship." What they mean is, "keep it in your pants," but it applies to other kinds of relationships as well. This is difficult because a trainer and client will spend a lot of time with each-other, you the trainer will see the client in vulnerable moments - both failure and success - and clients will generally trust and open up to you in surprising ways. 

Some things for a trainer to think about are below. This is useful for clients as well, of course. 

You can be friends with a client, but there are limits. Essentially you don't want to be a dickhead in front of a client, nor overly familiar. They should not see you drunk and vomiting, or grinding on chicks/guys at the club. If you have problems with your husband or mother, don't talk about them to your client. Especially don't badmouth your colleagues or boss to the client-friend. Any gifts you give to your client-friend should be related to their physical training, like weightlifting shoes, a new set of cricket pads or whatever. 

As a trainer, you'll tend to find that the friendship is rather one-sided and won't last past the training. If they're sick you'll call and see how they are, you'll remember their kid's birthday, that sort of thing. They won't do the same. As well, once the training relationship is over, the friendship will fade away. It's like when you stop working at some place, and your workmates say, "hey, we gotta catch up, let's do lunch sometime." You never will. Take away the common activity and the relationship is dead. They were just friendly, not your friend. 

Since they're your client in your workplace where you spend 20-60 hours a week, they're a big part of your life. But you are only 1/2 to 3 hours a week of their life. They may spend more time each week with Simpsons repeats than they do with you. Outside training, and after the training stops, you'll be well-thought of until you're forgotten shortly afterwards. This is disappointing but there it is, you won't get your fill of social life from the gym, same as any workplace, you need to have a life outside work. 

There are exceptions of course but these are the general rules. 

Steady as she goes

I have a little team of amateur lifters, the other day a 30yo guy said to a 65yo woman as she deadlifted, "I hope I can still do that at your age."

"Keep it up from now and you will," I said, "a lot easier than starting in your 60s." 

Consistency is more important than anything else. Consistency is more difficult than anything else. 

Recently a 21yo lifter was complaining because last week she'd squatted 70kg for her work sets, and the week after I had her do 72.5kg. 

"I can do 75."

"You certainly can. But would you be able to do more next week? And the week after? And so on? Whereas if you do 72.5 today, you'll certainly do more next week, and the week after."

She still didn't like it. "Tortoise and hare," I said, "you know the story?"

"Yeah but you're not a tortoise, you're a fucking snail." 

Interestingly enough, while the first two sets were no problem, as she came to do the third set she started complaining it was heavy and she didn't want to do it.

"First set was easy, second set okay, last set hard. If they were all easy, problem. All hard, problem. But the first was easy, and the last hard. It's almost," I said, "as if I know what I'm doing."
"Bah."

This is part of the job of coaching, helping people stay the course, neither rushing ahead nor lurking behind, keeping them "steady as she goes." 

Lifting weights will make you grow up

What distinguishes a woman from a girl, a man from a boy, an adult from a child is a degree of self-reliance, of resolve, and emotional stability. Obviously all of us need other people, and all of us are volatile from time to time. But basically either a person has their shit together, or they're all over the place. Weight training helps a bit in maturing because it teaches us to survive failure. 

I used to help coach some troubled teenagers, and after pushing them up a hill run until a few of them were crying, I'd stop and tell them a story. Someone I know tried to get into a special military unit, of course he didn't get in. One of the tests was they came and got them in the mess at 0030, "Out on the parade ground in your PT gear at 0100." They got out there, 32km run, "There'll be a truck waiting for you at the other end, be there by 0600." Some time like that. 

Of course there was no truck there, just the course sergeant-major with a Rover, hot boxes and tea urn. "Truck broke down, you have to go back on foot, you have until 1600 this time, an old lady can walk it that fast, if you get there earlier your time is your own." 

Lots of the guys sat down on the spot. "Anyone else? Anyone want to wait for the truck?" A few more guys sat down. The guy was tempted, it'd been more than 24 hours without sleep and he'd never run more than 15km in one go before, let alone two lots of 32km, but he sensed something dodgy was going on. 

Most of them went back on foot, half an hour later the truck came towards them, went past. Half an hour later it came past them again, this time with the guys who'd sat down, jeering at the guys on foot from the back of the truck. Some bloke fell over in pain and was picked up by the medical vehicle. 

Got back that afternoon, the guys from the truck were gone. They'd been binned. The guy who fell over? Still in. 

The first run was a physical test, they had to make it in time. The second run was a mental test - you just had to try. In a conflict, it does happen that you go on a long patrol, are on your way back into base where you'll have your first shower in a week, hot meals, rest... then the radio sparks up and tells you that you'll come back in, resupply and then head back out. They don't mind if you go "fuck!" so long as you do it. It's alright if you're injured and can't do it, they'll look after you, they understand everyone has limits. But they don't want people who say, "No!" and stop. 

The lesson here is: it's alright to fail, it's not alright to give up. 

One of the differences between adults and children is that children give up because they're afraid they'll fail. Adults give it a go anyway. This is one of the reasons physical training is important: it teaches us it's alright to fail, we just get up and give it another go another day. Neil Diamond said, "Girl, you'll be a woman soon." I'm sure he was referring to 20 rep squats. 

Stress vs Strain

Stress your system, don't strain it. But do stress your system. On the one side we have the trainers who fancy themselves as physiotherapists endlessly fixing "muscle imbalances" without ever actually getting anyone strong, on the other we have Crossfit laughing fondly wetting yourself during workouts. 

Some stress on the joints and muscles is not actually a bad thing. Stressing the joints and muscles is the whole fucking point of resistance training. We stress them, they adapt, we get more better faster stronger. Trainers who choose to avoid stressing the systems of their clients had better at least have charming conversation, since they won't be getting their clients results.

Stress, not strain. A stress causes an adaptation, a strain causes an injury. There's a difference. Commonly timid newbies will assume any stress risks serious injury, while macho idiots assume even a strain is good for you.

If we assume that all stressors are strains, we never make our clients more better faster stronger. We peer at our clipboards as we ponder whether anyone ever gets more than a "1" on the overhead squat portion of the Functional Movement Screen, and wonder why our only remaining client is that slightly smelly guy nobody else in the gym talks to. 

If we assume that all strains are stressors, we go the Crossfit way. We end up pumping our fist saying PROGRESS HURTS!, then less than a week later say, I'm injured, how did that happen?

Both approaches, like all extremes, are wrong and stupid. Sensible middle ground, boys and girls. The truth lies in the muddy shell-cratered No-Man's Land between the two warring armies of Gray Cook and Greg Glassman, like some wounded soldier screaming in pain and waiting for any caring person to go pick him up. Let's declare a ceasefire and go rescue him. Or you could stay in your trenches.

"I want to be a personal trainer"

We get a lot of people doing their practical placement at the gym. I give them good advice, most look over my shoulder at the hot chick or guy across the room instead, or examine their nails. I've personally supervised the placements of about 30 students, there were only 3 who I trusted to do a health consult or programme showthrough, most were clueless and not very interested in what was happening around them. One of the ones who paid attention is now working at our gym, I'm not aware of any of the others being employed anywhere. This is a normal ratio, in a class of 20 you'll find 1, if you're lucky 2, actually go on to jobs in the industry. Most people doing the courses just don't know what they want to do, almost none have ever hired a trainer, etc.

In fact recently that has been my first question to the work placement students, and it will be my first question to people asking here about becoming a PT. 

"Have you ever hired a personal trainer? or even got a programme from a gym instructor?"

In most cases the answer is "No, PT is expensive, and a programme, well the instructors at my gym are idiots."

"Right... so you think it's not worth paying for personal training, yet you expect other people to pay for personal training with you? You don't trust the expertise of people who've been doing this for years, but you expect other people to trust your expertise? Do you think PT has value, or not?"

It's okay if you don't think it's worth paying for something. I know guys who never pay for a haircut, they just buy electric clippers and get a #2 all over. But these guys aren't trying to become hairdressers. If you don't value what you're offering, why should anyone else?

drugs, m'kay

Many people get upset when you point out that their favourite bodybuilder or athlete is probably taking drugs to help their performance or appearance. This is not cutting them down, it's letting people know what is naturally attainable.

It's not cutting a fitness model down to point out that at 12% bodyfat she's not likely to have big breasts, so if she does they're probably silicone implants; large breasts are not realistically attainable with a low body fat. Nor is it cutting a crossfit athlete, bodybuilder, etc down to point out that if she's gained a lot of muscle very quickly and has a high lean mass then there's a fair chance she's taking Vitamin T supplements. To those with experience of drug use and drug users, the signs of it are as obvious as breast implants. 

It's not evil to take performance- or appearance-enhancing drugs. As Stevie P points out, we have a double standard about medical assistance with appearance. Want "thigh gap"? Localised lyposuction is yours. Want a bigger penis or breasts? Surgery, no problem. Want a smaller belly? Hell, they'll cut your stomach in half for you! Want bigger arms? FUCK YOU, GET OUT OF MY OFFICE, says the doc. 

It's important to have a realistic of idea of the rate of change and end result attainable with hard work and good food. That way, people can make an informed choice about whether to have surgery, use drugs and so on. 

A large number of professional athletes are using performance-enhancing drugs. If a top performance were attainable without drugs, then drugs would be useless and nobody would take them. "Oh but genetics -" What, all of them are simply genetically talented? None of them take drugs? Who's taking the drugs, then, just the people losing the competitions? Someone needs to have a word with their dealer, then. "No, all of them take drugs except my favourite athlete who is just special." Uh-huh. 

It's not pooing on someone's hard work to suggest they're taking drugs. It didn't matter how much EPO Lance Armstrong stuck in himself, he still had to go out and bust his arse on the bike every day for years. Between gym and the track, he trained around six hours a day six hours a week. Give me 36 hours a week of your time and you'd certainly get remarkable results. Add drugs and you'll be famous. 

Some magnificent physiques and performances exist among professional bodybuilders and athletes. Few are attainable naturally. It's important to understand that there do exist physical limits, to surpass these you need Better Living Through Chemistry. However, this is irrelevant to most of us, since very very few of us come anywhere near our physical limits, basically only professional athletes do, the rest of us have day jobs, families, and so on, we just don't have time to discover our natural limits. 

Awesome physiques and great athletes, not many natural, though. Again, for most of us is not our genetics but our time. Most of us are not professional athletes, so drug use cannot be recommended, for this and many other reasons. The curlbro popping Clenbuterol for his gunz and abz is like someone faking their resume to get a dishwashing job, they're missing the point. 

Edit 2012.07.15 - Jason Blaha lays it down. Let's not bullshit ourselves: the top athletes all take drugs. If you want to be a top athlete, at some point you'll have to make that decision. Me? I wouldn't do it, and I hope my son and anyone I train wouldn't, either. But that's what it is. 

High rep squats

"20 rep squats are primarily a manhood exercise. You struggle through the reps, rack the bar with relief and a sense of achievement, and then it dawns on you: I have to do 5lbs more next week! And that one set out of your whole routine sits in the back of your mind for the next week, taunting you." - Mark Rippetoe, Seattle February 2013

High repetition squats are excellent for building strength and - in combination with stupid amounts of decent food - size in the legs. The horrible thing about high-rep squats is that if you can do 12, you literally always can do another rep - the only question is do you really want to? Once some of my clients competed on squatting 60kg for as many reps as possible. 

Navneet managed 53, and afterwards said, "After 40 reps, you can tell that squats use your whole body." 

I told this to Agatha who'd done 30, and she replied, "It took him 40 reps to realise that?!"

One of my clients Tess is going to do the Tour De France, "oh but only the mountains," thus requiring quads of doom, and so has been on a 20 rep squats and milk programme, with good effect. During a heavy set she'll clench her teeth so tightly that she chips them, so she wears a mouthguard to protect herself from her sheer badarsedness. This week she had a cold, but came along anyway. Below are her thoughts with each rep.

1. "Jesus I feel like shit, how am I going to breathe through a giant mouthguard and blocked nose?"
2. "I'm not sure if my stance is too narrow or too wide...maybe I just feel strange because I have a giant weight on my back...? This feels so much heavier than an extra 2.5 " -sad face on inside"
3. "My arms will surely break off before I get to 20"
4. "Ok, ignore the arms...Feeling.... Okay..."
5. "1/4 through...1/4 through... That's just 3 more of what you've already done"
6. "Don't look up...don't look down...don't snap your teeth!"
7. "Careful of those wrists and hands flapping back"
8. "Bottom of mirror...breathe...don't look down...breathe"
9. "Breathe dammit you're almost half way!"
10. "How many have I done? is it 9? I think it's 9....almost halfway..."
11. "Wait...is this 9...? Did I just do 9 or 10?...where am I...?"
12. "Like Kyle always says "If you can do 12....""
13. "yep...There's that one more after 12...I got this..."
14. "Come on come on come on come on up up up"
15. "1/4 to go...1/4 to go...that's so much more than halfway done..."
16. "Fak yah mudafacka"
17. "Shit...3 more after this one...not 2...Don't snap teeth!"
18. "So close...and yet...so far... get the fuck up!"
19. "One more bitchaaaayz"
20. "Must...lift...to...rack..."

Inspired by her efforts and a continuing quest for legs more like saplings than twigs, I've started on 20 rep squats myself. My own impressions:

1. "Hmm, stance too narrow, feels funny."
2. "That's better."
3. "Ho hum."
4. "Who's that over there? Not bad for a blonde."
5. "WTF? Why are your bringing a bosu over here?"
6. "A bit heavy."
7. "Yes, heavy."
8. "Maybe I need a mouthguard, too."
9. "Okay this is getting boring now."
10. "Hey! That came up easy, I could do 25."
11. "Aaaaaruuugh!" First grunt.
12. "Unk." Second grunt.
13. "25? I don't think so." 
14. "Gug." Third grunt.
15. "FAAAARK." Profanity.
16. "Gasp, gasp."
17. "Hey, milk burp."
18. "Home stretch."
19. "Unh."
20. "Phew. God." Rack.

Tess wouldn't do this on her own because it's insane. I make sure to have a colleague or friend around during my work set, otherwise I would skive off around rep 12. Rip calls it "manhood", but since there is nothing inherent in a penis which grants mental strength, I would call it "resolve". Resolve is an important part of working out, since without it we'll give up and achieve nothing much. 

My job is to help people do difficult things they thought they couldn't do. High rep squats are sometimes a part of this. They're very effective but they're fucking horrible. 

You can write it, but can they do it?

This is an important principle often forgotten by trainers and coaches, particularly online gurus. Here is one example, but there are many.

"load your body weight equivalent on a barbell and perform 100 repetitions. That is, if your scale weight is 205 pounds, load the bar with 205 pounds and go for 100. Most likely, you will not be able to get 100 repetitions in your first bout, so stop to rack the weight to garner a modest break. That's okay. Just don't rest too long - rest no longer than 2:00. Following that maximum of 2:00 between bouts, continue your journey to the 100-rep goal. It may require five to six bouts to get there, but find a way to achieve 100 total repetitions."

Really? You're unlikely to do 100 reps with your bodyweight in one go? At first I thought the guy might be in some super-hardcore gym where a young woman does 20 rep squats with 100kg and the guys in the background don't even look up from talking shit with each-other. But then I saw the other suggested workouts which were either pointlessly easy or reasonable. This told me the authour wasn't really thinking about what he was writing. This trainer had forgotten, you can write it, but can they do it? 

It's also forgotten by trainees, sitting there with their neat spreadsheets with everything planned out to the last set and rep to take them from a 40kg to a 240kg squat in six months and three days.

Online gurus have an excuse: they don't train anyone, so their wild ideas never risk being dissolved by the harsh acid of reality. Gym newbies have an excuse: they're newbies. But even experienced trainers, coaches and trainees will do this from time to time. Just last night I was fiddling about with a spreadsheet and adjusting variables and then in six months my squat will be... really? I'm going to go six months without any interruption to my training? I won't get sick, injured, won't have to take time off to look after my son while my wife visits someone interstate, won't get busy with work or just plain lazy? 

Be realistic. Let's aim for something which is challenging, but won't destroy us. A plan which is ambitious but not crazily so. 

Listen to instruction

The other day I found a scrawny young guy doing a round-backed deadlift with 80kg. I was busy with a client so left him to it, but when he went to 95kg I had to step in. I corrected it, and it was alright. 

"Stay at 80kg," I said, "do a couple of sets of 5, do that a couple of times a week, then next week add 5kg, and so on." 

He loaded the bar up to 95kg. "No really, stay at 80kg."

"I just want to -"

"Stay at 80. That's enough for now, more and you may hurt yourself."

"Could you watch while I -"

"No. If you are ignoring my instruction, there's no sense my giving you more."

He was quite offended by this, and indignant. Possibly his anxiety to add more weight had to do with the fact that the 64yo woman I was training at the time was doing 80kg. If he'd asked I could have told him, that took her 12 months, you are doing it today, don't feel bad - but he was too emotionally bruised to even ask. The male ego is a delicate thing. 

A couple of days later another scrawny young guy doing the same disc-popping deadlifts. I corrected him, he expressed wonder that it no longer hurt his back. We tried some things out and he pulled 140kg, which for him was a 30kg lifetime personal best. 

I started saying something else and he interrupted. "I better get on with the rest of my workout."

If someone got me to do an exercise pain-free for the first time in my life, and in ten minutes helped me get 30kg personal best, I'd stick around to listen to what else they had to say. 

My examples here have been young guys. It's true that adolescent males are the least likely to listen to instruction, since when a man says the words "I don't know" his penis shrinks one-sixteenth of an inch. (Women are all former men who said "I don't know a lot. True story.) But it's other people, too. I once had a woman in her 40s tell me she didn't need a gym programme. "I've been coming seven years, I'm advanced." However, she could not do a pushup, perhaps she had advanced beyond them? 

I don't know everything. In February I went to the Starting Strength Seminar in Seattle, I didn't spend $3,000 and travel halfway across the planet just to walk in and tell Rippetoe he was wrong. But I can definitely coach you to your first pushup and stop you herniating discs in your back from an 80kg deadlift. You might even get genuinely strong. 

Not everyone likes to listen to instruction. If you don't, that's alright, but you probably should not join a gym - just lift alone in your garage. Fail in private where we don't have to watch you. In the gym, listen to instruction. 

Quality and quantity

A client recently joked, "Us old cripples are the strongest clients you've got." And she's right. This is something I noticed about a year into my personal training career: the more injuries the person has, the better their progress.

How does that happen? Well, when someone had injuries, I carefully considered their workout routine, choosing movements carefully to strengthen crucial weaknesses, work around serious issues, I resisted any demands from them for variety for its own sake, kept things focused, and made sure they had really good movements. Quality. 

With the healthy ones I just slapped weight on the bar and if they got bored I threw in whatever would make them happy. But where possible I put more weight on the bar or made them do huge numbers of reps. Quantity. 

After that first year it occurred to me, if it works for the gimpy ones, why not everyone? Thus my approach of coaching movement. Quality first, quantity second.

Now, this does not mean that we need a movement to be brilliant before we put another iron slice on on the salami. Lifting weights is not ballet. Don't overthink the movement. But it does mean take the time to make the movement good, then load it up. Remember the self-evident truth in training: consistent effort over time gets results. A good movement becomes a strong movement, this is the worth of good form. 

Gyms are schools of movement. Most people come into them movement-illiterate. This is why any effective trainer or coach will have a system of some kind. When I started, with the gimpy ones I had a system, with the healthy ones I didn't, this is why the more injuries they had the better their progress. Certainly we can argue about which is the better system, just as we do for other kinds of education. Nonetheless there must be a system of some kind. First you do this, then when you can do this well, you do that - and so on. 

Most people training on their own in the gym have no system. Two-thirds of new gym members don't take up the appointments they get with a gym instructor, and two-thirds of those who do take them don't do the workouts they're given, so at most one in nine people in the gym have any routine at all; fewer still progress the effort on these exercises over time. I see less than a dozen people of hundreds a day with a workout journal. 

For example, if I get a young guy to do barbell squats, commonly he'll be physically able to squat 70kg or so for a single. I start him on 40kg for sets of 5, and tell him, "next week, add 2.5kg, and so on. In six months you'll squat 100kg for work sets easily." Physically he can go faster than that, but I try to allow for nobody being there to watch his form, for shit food and missed workouts. He nods and smiles, and next week I see him struggling with 60kg, the following week he's quarter-squatting 80kg, after that I never see him squatting again. Two years later he's doing curls with a gym newbie and telling him, "I used to squat 140, but it hurt my knees." System vs ego, system loses. 

Rather few of us really have any pressing need to achieve this lift or that run really quickly. If you're joining a rugby team in three months and weigh 50kg, if you're hoping to conceive a child next year and weigh 150kg, then okay there is a hurry. But most of us are working out for general health, so there's no hurry. Progress is progress. 

Squat, push, pull, hip hinge, loaded carry. Take the time to master these movements. Build the quality and the quantity will come. There's a time for quality, and a time for quantity. Mostly it's quality. Sometimes you need to smash it, but not often. Progress, but there's no hurry. 

Of course, if you have too much quantity then you'll get some injuries and your progress will improve. Hurts a bit, though. Up to you. 

Why women should lift heavy weights

So they can get stronger. Same as everyone else.

Every fitness blog and magazine does articles on this, on how to trick women into lifting heavy, giving lengthy explanations of why they won't bulk up (though if they did, I ask "would that be a bad thing?") talking about the benefits to their booty, and a lot of other patronising bullshit. This article even gives 77 PTs' responses about the "question". All of these are amusing, but also wrong. That's because women, or older people, or those with several previous injuries or health conditions, these people are used to being treated differently, as members of some special class for whom the rules are different.

They're not. Lift heavy shit, get stronger. This applies to everyone, no matter their gender, sexuality, race, religion, age, favourite football team, or health condition. Treat them differently according to some group they're a member of and they will act differently. Treat them the same and they'll act the same.

As PTs, we deal with individuals. Not members of some arbitrary group, individuals. We must never forget the first word in our job title. This stuff is patronising. Nia Shanks expresses it well, she's not lifting "like a man", she's lifting effectively. 

Lift heavy shit, get stronger. Exactly which movements we use, exactly which weight, how quickly we progress you, well that's where we look at you as an individual.

"Do you want effective training?"

"Yes."

"Then you are going to lift heavy shit."

The person may question the effectiveness of this. Runners are especially bad. That's okay, if I as a trainer do not have a reason for every exercise, every set and every rep you do, then I'm an incompetent idiot. Since I'm not, I'll have good explanations for everything you do, and everything you do will involve lifting heavy shit. 

In my experience, gym members have few objections to this idea, it's other trainers who get upset about it. Typically these are trainers who don't know how to coach a squat.

Lift heavy shit, get stronger. All these articles and discussions make gender an issue. Don't make gender an issue and it won't be an issue. 

No tricks, no patronising bullshit. Lift heavy shit, get stronger. 

Progressing with debt reps

If you can't or won't do the target reps, you owe yourself those reps, plus the same again. This helps you progress.

In a progressive resistance training routine, the idea is... to progress the resistance. This is an ancient and arcane truth, hidden from the general public by a global conspiracy, and only revealed to you now by special dispensation from the secret lizard people controlling the world. In every workout, or at least every month or so, you should try to do more weight than you did before. If you can't do more weight, do more reps. If you can't do more reps, do more sets. Any of those would be progress, and you'd be stronger.

The problem is that at some point it gets bloody hard. Keep adding weight or reps, and eventually they won't come up easily, you'll be grinding them out. At this point most people wuss out, and progress stops. This is why the curlbro benching 60kg on his own and 85kg with his buddies rowing it up today will still be benching 60kg a year from now, it's why the woman pressing the 5kg dumbbell will still be pressing it a year from now, and it's why almost nobody squats and deadlifts properly.

Obviously technique is an issue - if you're doing the lift badly you won't progress for long - as are nutrition and rest. But often it's simply willpower. Do you really push yourself, or do you wuss out when it gets hard? Almost everyone wusses out eventually, whether it be with squatting the empty bar or squatting 200kg two years later.

One way around this is debt reps. Let's say you're doing a routine where the simple rule is that if you can do 5, 5 and 5 reps with a particular weight, you add weight to the bar next time, let's say 2.5kg. With any such routine, the problem arises: what if you're unable to do 5,5,5? The first thing is to figure out if you were unable to do it, or unwilling to do it. Debt reps accomplish this.

Debt Reps mean that if you don't do the target reps, you owe reps, plus the same again - a 100% interest rate, nasty I know. You get these out however you can, however long it takes. There isn't interest on the interest or you could be there forever. But you WILL get out those extra reps!

For example if your target was 5,5,5 and you managed 5,4,3, then you were short by 3 reps, so you owe 6. A reasonable way to get them out would be 5,4,3....3,3. But doing singles or doubles would be fine, too. Just get those damn reps out. Chances are you'll find that 5,5,5 comes up without trouble next time.

The Debt Reps approach really comes into its own with things like high rep squats, like the classic 20 rep squat routine.  The horrible thing is that if you can squat the weight 12 times, you literally always can do another rep, the only question is do you want to? People fail physically on the 3rd or even 7th rep, almost nobody physically fails the 18th rep, they just give up. Debt Reps are a good cure for this, since when the person hits rep 12 or so and then realises that if they stop now they'll owe 16 reps, this is a strong incentive to only stop if they really really have to.

If you're lifting weights, try progressing the resistance sometimes. If that gets hard, that's alright. Always do more, when it gets really hard try debt reps. It won't kill you unless your friend is too busy checking out the hot guy or girl in lycra to notice you're pinned by the bench press bar. Choose a training partner with bad eyesight.

The perfect workout routine

..is the one you do, as I have mentioned before. But aside from that, how do I as a trainer design a routine for you? Do I put in dozens of exercises for muscle activation, or give you an aimless session? Of course not.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, 

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."

He was speaking of designing aircraft, but the same applies to workout design. People typically work with me for two half-hours each week. Paying a bit over a dollar a minute, clients want value for this money. They could be at home in bed sleeping instead of waking at 5 to come in and sweat. Every moment counts. There's no time to fuck around. I write down every movement which might benefit them, then I put a mark next to every last one to remove it. Having given them a preliminary death sentence, I make each exercise beg for clemency, prove why it is useful and worthy. Typically only 3-6 are left to survive. 

The others are discarded and dumped into a pauper's grave. In this muddy lime-covered ditch you will find rotting Mr Curl and Ms Swiss Ball Crunch, Sahib Dumbbell Flyes and Monsieur Thrusting Du Hips. Many mourn their passing, but I do not, I have my thoughts on the living. 

Some sort of squat. Leg press, split squat, goblet squat, barbell front squat, whatever the person can manage. Some sort of push, barbell overhead press, pushups, kettlebell press and the like. Some sort of pull, cable seated row, bat wings, dumbbell bent-over row, chinups if they can do them. Some sort of hip hinge, kettlebell deadlift, barbell deadlift, kettlebell swing, Ukrainian deadlifts. Planks and farmer's walks. All chosen based on what the person can do safely and effectively, with a planned progression from one exercise to the next, from leg press and planks to goblet squats, from goblet squats with a 10kg dumbbell to barbell back squats, and so on. 

It is not that these other things are entirely useless. Many a set of glistening gunz were built with the curlz, bro. Crunches and Roman chair knee lifts have made much abness, girlfriend. But when time and effort are short, we must do only the most important things. PT income more-or-less follows an 80-20 rule, and so do workouts:  80% of your results will come from 20% of your exercises. Throwing out all but the right 20% of your movements will leave you with 80% of your results; is it really worth five times as much effort again to get just 20% more results? Perhaps if you are a top athlete or bodybuilder, but not for the rest of us. If we have extra effort to spare, we can put it to that vital 20%. If after three sets of squats you have wind left for six sets of leg extension machines, why not do another set or two of squats, or add some weight to the bar instead? Focus. 

This is, I suppose, a kind of minimalism. But it works. Nia Shanks puts it in nicer words than I have. 

Chinese whispers of fitness

The best results for a personal training client come when the PT communicates directly with any medical professionals involved in the client's life. This is because things get hopelessly garbled otherwise. 

Whenever a client reports medical advice, there's a real game of Chinese whispers going on. Remember that game? 30 kids sit in a circle, the teacher gives a sentence to pass on in a whisper. By the time it comes back to the teacher it bears little or no resemblance to the original sentence. So, this is the process,

1. the client does the workout
2. the client hurts and sees someone medical
3. the client reports what they did in the workout, warping it
4. the doctor (who is probably not physically active) listens and interprets this mangled description, warping it
5. based on this the doctor gives some medical advice
6. the client listens to this advice, warping it
7. the client reports the advice to the PT, warping it again
8. the PT listens to this advice, and warps it when describing it to other PTs asking for advice

I'd add that the warping done by the client and doctor will also be affected by their personality, whether active or sedentary. There's sore and there's hurt. Hurt means injury and medical attention, sore is just part of exerting yourself. The active person will say they're sore when they're hurt, the sedentary person will say they're hurt when they're just sore. Thus the active person will make their injury worse, and the sedentary person will never get strong. 

This is why it's important for a PT to communicate directly with the medical professionals involved in their clients' lives, provided the client gives their permission. And if the client doesn't give their permission, the PT probably shouldn't work with them. 

Fitness and personality

I can guess a person's base level of fitness just by talking to them. 

We find hugely varying fitness levels among people with the same jobs and lifestyles. This is because of how much people challenge themselves physically day-to-day. Their base level of fitness depends on whether they have an active or sedentary personality; those with sedentary personalities will perceive any serious exertion as potentially injurious. 

Let's say you're going to work, it normally takes you 10 minutes to walk to the train station, however you couldn't find your house keys and now it's 7 minutes before the train. If you walk briskly or do a light jog you can make the train... or you can miss it and catch the next one and be ten minutes late to work. 

You want to put up a picture, in your garage is a jar of nails. You get to your garage and realise there's a large box of books in front of it. Do you brace yourself and move them, ask for help, or decide you didn't want to put that picture up after all? 

You're at the shops, you need some rice, your family eats it every day. It's $5 for a 2kg bag or $30 for a 20kg bag. But you'll have to haul it out to your car, only 50 metres or so but still. 

All these small decisions day-to-day affect the newbie's starting level of strength, endurance and mobility. That's why you can get two people of the same age and doing the same job, and one can do proper bodyweight squats, hold a plank for 30" and the like without trouble, and the other simply can't. 

From the mind to the body. I can take two healthy people of the same age and put them on a treadmill, raise them to a heart rate of (say) 130, and one person will look puzzled and say, "I can go harder than this, can't I?" while the other will look alarmed and say, "oh my god, do I really have to go this hard?" Physically each is exactly the same, but each reacts to exertion in a different way according to their personality, whether active or sedentary. 

Now, if I as a trainer meet a gym newbie, I have to figure out whether they have an active or sedentary personality. I don't rely on what they tell me, everyone who starts at the gym tells me they're going to work out 6 days a week for two hours a day. 

Injury history is usually a good guide, if they've torn anterior cruciate ligaments and rolled ankles, they're probably active, since they hurt themselves being active. If they've "bad knees" and "a bad back", they're sedentary, the vagueness of the description means they never sought medical advice, they just felt a bit sore one day and stopped doing that horrible physical exertion thing. 

But really I can just talk to them and figure it out from their personality, their body language. Active people lean towards me and move around more when talking, sedentary people sit back and generally cross their arms defensively. Active people look interested when I suggest various physical challenges, however ridiculous, sedentary people look frightened. Ironically, active people talk about how lazy they've been lately since they feel a gap between where they are now and where they've been in the past, sedentary people talk about how active they've been, "I'm so busy!" 

The active person the PT will actually have to hold back a bit lest they get overuse injuries. The sedentary person needs to be pushed a bit, but not too much lest they shit themselves and run - well okay, walk - away. 

I don't need a bench press, leg press, beep test or sit-and-reach test to guess your base level of fitness, I can just talk to you. Personality tells all. From the mind to the body. Only those with strong minds can get strong bodies. 

Workout motivation & habits

You don't need motivation, you need habits. 

As I've said so many times, consistent effort over time gets results. What does it mean to be consistent? It means that working out is a habit. I don't need motivation for a habit. I don't need to psych myself up to put my pants on in the morning, to drive to work, to brush my teeth before bed. It's a habit, it's something I do regularly.

Now, I might need motivation to do a particularly good job of that habit. I might need motivation to brush my teeth for three minutes instead of two, or floss as well. But brushing my teeth at all? I don't need motivation for that, I do it every day. 

The key thing is to make exercise a habit. Ideally, your exercise will be training, you're not just strolling into the gym and getting your sweat on for half an hour, you're working towards some particular goal, like losing or gaining 5kg, doing your first chinup, running 5km without stopping. But that usually doesn't take laser-like focus. Just make working out a habit. 

Sometimes it's better to choose process goals rather than end goals. Instead of saying, "I will run a marathon by the end of the year," you could say, "I will go on 144 runs this year." That adds up to 3 a week, allowing a month off across the year due to holiday, illness, injury or laziness. A "run" is a run, whether it's 1km or 50km. If you get halfway through the year and have done 100 runs already, great. If it's only 20, well then you are going to have a very active second half of the year. 

If you do 144 runs of whatever distance and time across that year, then something good is going to happen. You may or may not be able to run that marathon, or for a decent time. But you'll be a lot closer to it than you were - because you were consistent, and consistent effort over time gets results. This is the power of habits, for which we need no motivation. 

The typical PT client

Physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. However, many people have warped ideas about all this, imagining that only huge amounts of work will make any change at all, or else that huge changes can happen in a short time, sixpack abs by Christmas and all that. 

Most people have poor looks, health and performance. It doesn't take huge changes to push all three to "okay", and one to "good". Let's imagine the sort of person who might become a PT client.

• Jenny, 35yo, professional, boyfriend but no kids
• a bit pudgy but not obese, say 30-35% bodyfat
• some knee pain "I twisted it once", and some knee valgus (knees turning inwards) can be observed, lower back pain probably due to desk job, nothing diagnosed medically; gets colds and flu a lot, and says she is always tired
• was physically active in netball up till 25yo, since then has done occasional bouts of running
• struggles to do 3 knee pushups, plank attempt shows lower back caving in and one hip dropping, meaning abdominal muscle weakness and left-right imbalance, squat attempt shows knee valgus
• eats out a lot, and the PT suspects she has upwards of 12 standard drinks a week
• when she uses a step counter, it turns out she does under 2,000 steps a day, that is she is walking to the toilet and for a coffee and that's it, everything else is seated. 
• goal of "get fit, lose weight, tone up"
• signing up for 2x30' PT sessions a week "for about six weeks, then I'll see how I go." 

It's reasonable to get this woman doing,

• 2x 45' workouts once a week, where she does 15 minutes of intervals and then 30' of strength-based workout with her PT
• more fresh fruit and vegetables, not more than 6 standard drinks a week, no junk food 
• over 6 weeks, work up to 10,000 steps a day
• Before PT session - 15' of cardio doing 1'00" easy and 1'00" hard alternating, like 6.0km/hr on the treadmill at 2% incline and then 8% incline, or on the bike doing 90rpm then 120rpm.

Her first workout is going to be pretty simple, something like,

• PT session begins with - Squat-stretch holding onto rack for support, move bum in figure 8, push knees out, chest up, hold for 10 count, do this 3 times
• Goblet squat, unloaded, 10
• Dumbbell overhead press, 5kg x5
• Seated cable row, 10kg x10
• Cable hip hinge, 10kg x10
• plank 10"
• do this sequence 3 times
• Then stretch glutes, ITB, hamstrings and lower back, and put her on the foam roller for her upper back. 
• With exercise coaching that's 30 minutes

She progresses from there, we build squat reps up to 20 then add a dumbbell, we increase the press to 10 reps then go to the 6kg dumbbell, the plank adds 5" a week, and so on. When she can press a 10kg dumbbell she's ready for a barbell bench press, when she can goblet squat 10kg dumbbell for sets of 20 she's ready for a barbell squat, etc. 

Initially it will be difficult working with her, as she'll expect more exercise variety. This is because many people sign up for PT "for a bit of fun" and because she's been told that good results come from going so hard she throws up in every session, and different exercises every time. However, assuming the trainer knows what they're doing and can explain it, she'll trust them long enough to realise that the most entertaining thing possible is... results. 

In 3 months of this, or 6 months allowing for holidays, injuries or being slack, she could reasonably hit 25% bodyfat, be doing several full pushups, squatting for reps 60kg and deadlifting 80kg, and be able to run 5km without stopping, though slowly. Wait, 3 or 6 months? Didn't she say she'd reassess whether she did PT after 6 weeks? She probably forgot because she was too busy enjoying getting stronger and fitter. 

She'll have better posture, her hair and skin will look better (from the better food and circulation), she won't get colds so often, her back won't hurt anymore, and she'll have a lot more energy. She decides to go back to netball, not only enjoying the sport but also the people there. Her greater health, energy and self-esteem will also mean she has sex with her boyfriend a lot more often, which is also going to help her mood - I never ask this, but plenty of clients tell me anyway. 

Without strong goals she'll usually last 3-6 months before losing interest and quitting PT. But that's okay, she now has the knowledge and confidence to train on her own, and there are always more like this for the PT. 

In those 3-6 months she'll have improved how she looks, feels and performs dramatically - from "poor" to "okay". Depending on her native talents, one of her looks, health or performance may actually improve to "good" in this time. If she was pretty at 21 she'll be beautiful now, if she did shotput in school she might be deadlifting 100kg now, or maybe she just feels great. 

Since the day-to-day changes are not great, and since few people look their best during a sweaty workout in crappy gym clothes at 6am, hair is unwashed and so on, a casual gym-goer might not actually have noticed any change in her over the 3-6 months, by the way. But to her these changes are AMAZING, and the chances are she'll stay with the PT after those 3-6 months, quite happy to just maintain what she's got now, maybe push one or two little areas like "I'd like a smaller bum," or "it'd be awesome to do a chinup," etc. 

And that's a pretty typical PT client. It's exactly as my sidebar says - a sports coach gets the last 5% of someone's ability, a PT gets the first 50%. But that first 50% makes a huge difference to someone's quality of life and happiness. Huge. 

Should I pay for a workout routine?

In discussions with US PTs, I often see them resentfully describing gym members asking for a programme. "You have to pay for my genius!" These questions always puzzle me. In Australia, there are gym instructors and personal trainers. 

People join a gym, pay their joining and membership fee. They have the option of an initial appointment where we ask about injury and illness history, previous physical activity and current goals, maybe we measure some stuff, then we write up a routine and show them through it in a second separate session. A month or two later they have a review and perhaps we change the workout. Doing all this is the role of the gym instructor, and their wages are paid through the joining and membership fee. 

Obviously the routine is somewhat generic, and is not adjusted from one workout to the next. As well, almost nobody progresses the resistance on weights exercises, or the speed, incline or whatever on cardio. If people want someone watching every rep and adjusting the routine from one workout to the next, and to ensure they progress the difficulty, then they hire a personal trainer. This costs extra, obviously. 

Now, the routines we give to gym members, of course most don't follow them. They omit the most difficult exercise, they fail to progress the difficulty, the boys flee to the bench press and curls, the girls flee to the elliptical and Zumba class. It doesn't matter - it's our job to offer the information, it's up to them whether they follow it. Guess what? Your PT clients won't follow all your advice, either. 

The two roles don't clash with each-other, they complement. Giving routines to people does not mean I have no PT clients. Many PT clients I have are people I've given routines to. They liked it so much they wanted more, they recognised that a routine written on paper was only a small fraction of what I had to offer. Even if that person doesn't want PT, it's still worth helping them. If someone is thinking about doing PT, they look around the gym and see several trainers, they could approach and ask anyone. Who will they walk up to? The one who gives a lot of time and advice to people with a smile, or the one who does the bare minimum with obvious resentment? Potential clients see you training someone, they see that you're approachable and helpful. 

Whenever I give a routine out, I often say something like, "Now, the idea of this is to build the movement skills, so you can go from this machine and dumbbell, over to that barbell - if you want to. You're physically capable of doing it now, but I think several weeks of doing this will make you confident enough for it, too. If we were doing personal training, I'd have you under the barbell today. But doing it on your own is harder, so let's give you a month or two of this stuff and then we'll see." I've dropped the bait, it's up to them to bite. 

Keeping your routines to yourself like they're some brand name cola drink recipe, it's absurd. In a mainstream gym you get and keep clients by demonstrating competence, establishing trust and rapport. People asking you for programmes is your chance to demonstrate competence, establish trust and rapport. Do it. If you're at the gym between clients, don't fuck around on facebook or gossipping with the other trainers about how drunk they got on the weekend - get your arse out on the gym floor and talk to people. Yes, even give them programmes. 

This approach works. I give out stacks of programmes - in fact, I only do 8-12 hours of gym shifts a week, and I give out more programmes between PT clients than I do in the gym shifts. Overall, around half of clients are found by the trainer, and half come from someone making a general enquiry and the team leader assigning them to a trainer. Currently I have no clients from general enquiries, I found them all myself. A bit under half the people I've ever trained stayed with me for 6 months or more, and 3/4 of current clients (I've got better at picking stayers). This approach works.

From the member's side, no, you should not pay for a workout routine, especially not from someone online who's never met you - yes, I know he has a pretty website with pictures of underweight women with sixpack abs, but he's still clueless. Routines are everywhere for free, and if you are a newbie to physical training, unfortunately you are not so unique and special that you need one particularly customised to you. You just need to train the basic movements of squat, push, pull and hip hinge, do a bit of cardio and progress the resistance and effort over time. Those with particularly ambitious goals or big obstacles to ordinary goals will benefit from PT. 

Things may be different in PT studios and the like. But this is how it is in mainstream commercial and community gyms.

Muscle activation

People like to speak of "muscle activation". Physiotherapists make entire careers from diagnosing people with particular "sleepy" muscles and coming up with exercises to wake them up. Personal trainers with aspirations to internet fame will sometimes pick a particularly neglected muscle and attach themselves to it. Go to most physiotherapists or some pretentious PT and you'll be diagnosed with a lack of activation of vastus medialis, rhomboids, transverse abdominus, gluteus maximus or piriformis, if you're lucky all five. 

Generally speaking, muscle activation is bollocks. There is some value in that it teaches people to be aware of what their bodies are doing. Anyone who's ever tried to coach someone else to squat or the like will know that most people have poor bodily awareness, at the start they can't consciously contract their lower back muscles, etc. Anything that can help with this is good. 

But you don't really need it. You just need to be coached properly in your movements in the gym. Train movements, and the muscles will follow. The best way to activate your muscles is to use heavy weights over a full range of motion in the basic movements of squat, push, pull, hip hinge and loaded carry. 

If you're squatting, don't worry about squeezing your glutes, just squat deep with your knees out and chest up, and then stand up, your glutes will be used whether you want them to be used or not. Squat deep. This means below parallel, having the crease of your hips between your leg and pelvis drop below your kneecap. On every rep, yes even the heavy ones. Don't overthink it, your body knows what to do, you just have to let it. 

If you do this, you will use your glutes during the lift, just as doing bicep curls all the way from your elbow being straight out while keeping your trunk steady will ensure you use your biceps. Whether you "feel" it or not is irrelevant. When your hips are flexed, you simply have to use your hip extensor muscles to extend your hip, ie your glutes and hamstrings.

If you go deep in a squat it is physically impossible to rise from the bottom of the squat without using your glutes and hamstrings. You may not feel it to begin with, but it will happen. Squat deep, and your glutes will be activated. Of course, watching someone squat properly is not as exciting for a straight male trainer as having a bunch of models in his condo thrusting their hips in the air. (I've searched across the internet, but have yet to find a female trainer giving barbell hip thrusts to her clients, or anyone giving them to ugly old guys, it's all young male trainers giving them to attractive young women, funny that.) 

But it's all about what the trainer is trying to achieve, effective training for their clients and athletes, or internet fame. For effective training, train movements and the muscles will follow.

Edit 2013-04-07:  The guy with models thrusting their hips in his condo writes against squats and deadlifts for the purpose of glute activation, "If you train a lot of people, you realize that they’re not all squatting and deadlifting the way they should be."

If the people you're training aren't lifting properly, whose fault is that? As trainers, our job is to teach correct movement. It's up to us to learn how to do this properly, and no amount of electrodes on people's muscles, naming neglected muscles or electrodes on people's bums excuse us from that.

Edit 2013.06.08: the same guy mentioned above had previously said he'd measured people squatting with very low muscle activation, now from his client's form check videos posted I can see why; if you squat shallow and let your knees cave in, you'll minimise the use of glutes in the squat. You could (a) get them to squat properly, or (2) get them to bridge and thrust their hips in the air. The second option will get you more pageviews, I suppose. 

Unpaid hours of PTs

A new trainer recently wrote me asking if he should do unpaid hours on the gym floor getting to know people so he could get clients. I said "yes and no", but that's the subject for another article. This is about the unpaid hours a trainer does even when they've got a lot of clients. The fact is that your clients are work for you outside their session times, too. 

This is something newbie trainers don't always appreciate, one client is pretty much the same amount of work for you whether you do 1 session a week with them or 5. 

I spend at least 30' each week on each individual client 

• scheduling and rescheduling sessions, 
• researching their injury/illness issues and consulting with medical types, etc. 
• planning the workouts 
• adjusting for injury or illness or 
• sudden few weeks without work/family dramas (chance for some good progress), 
• keeping in touch with them, "how did you pull up after our last session?" answering their questions, keeping them on an even keel when their ship may capsize due to their erratic steering, etc.

And this is of course unpaid. Thus for example 10 clients means at least 5hr a week unpaid.

So if you have the choice between 5 people doing 2x30' each and 10 people doing 1x30' each, the first one is much less work for the same 10 total training session hours and thus money, it's 15hr total vs 20. 

As well, the 1/week clients can be more work than the others because you don't control all their workouts, or even if they do them at all. If I see John on Tuesday and he does SQ60kg 5x5, then I know that on Thursday he'll be able to do SQ62.5kg 5x5. But if I don't see him till next Tuesday, whether he can progress depends on what he did that week, he might have done 2 good workouts and can progress, 4 too tough workouts and be too fatigued to progress, or maybe he just sat around drinking beer in between. Or maybe he comes this Tuesday and next week postpones his session and comes the following Thursday for 1hr to make it up, after 10 days will he be stronger or weaker? With the 1/week clients I'm always having to readjust the workouts to accommodate this sort of stuff. 

The 1/week people tend to reschedule at the drop of a hat, anything else at all comes up and they're out that week. 3/week people almost never reschedule because it's too much hassle finding another time and they'll end up working out 2 or more days in a row. But that's a lot of money for most people, and if the trainer did only 3/week people they'd have to work 6 days, so a mix of 2 and 3/week people is the compromise. 

At some point the trainer will reach the stage where it gets difficult to deal with so many different people. It's then time for the trainer to tell their 1/week people that they're cutting back, they can either do 2+/week or transfer to another trainer. Hard to put it tactfully, though.

However, whether they have 1 client or 40, the trainer must allow for unpaid hours of work associated with each client. 

mobile phones and trainers

The mobile phone is unfortunately an essential tool of the personal trainer. A moderately successful PT will have 10-15 clients, and do up to 6 sessions a day, at least one of which will be rescheduled, cancelled, or have someone not show up to, and someone else wants that time slot, but hang isn't that one on holiday? And so on. You need to be able to call and text to arrange things, you certainly can't rely on the gym's front desk to pass on messages for you in a timely fashion. And you need the phone to check on new clients the day after their first workout, call them for their birthdays and generally stay connected. 

But when the PT session starts, put the fucking phone away and don't answer it if anyone messages of calls. Check it after the person's session. The only exception I've made is when my wife was eight months pregnant, I told all my clients that if it rang I'd check if it was my wife or some close friend or relative, they laughed and understood.

"But what about using it as a stopwatch?"

Buy a stopwatch, or get a $15 digital watch that has a stopwatch on it.

"Yeah but there are useful apps for tracking workouts!"

No. Did I miss something? Have paper and pens stopped working?

If you as a trainer use your phone at all during the session, whether as a stopwatch, workout app or whatever, everyone watching will assume you're sending text messages to your buddies about your wild weekend. You just lost 10 potential clients, well done, perhaps for your next trick you could do a loud crotch grab on your client, unlike playing with your phone there may be a few who actually like that.

Your clients are paying $1-$3 a minute for your attention, that's what they want. Undivided. Fucking about with your mobile phone as you press the wrong part of the screen or enter the wrong number or try to find the exercise you had to substitute in because of the guy spending half an hour doing 4" range of motion 200kg leg presses will divide your attention. Don't do it.

Much the same goes for chatting to other trainers or gym buddies during someone's PT session. The obvious exception is when you introduce the client to someone and include them in the conversation. Don't talk over the head of someone bench pressing or anything like that. And don't knock out some chinups while the person is doing a plank. Seriously. 

If you are not interested in what they're doing, why should they be? Focus, Grasshopper. Keep your attention on the person who is paying for it.