The worth of good form

Good form is important in exercise. But it's not the only thing that matters. My client Madeline's previous trainer insisted on perfect form on every exercise and so never made the load heavier. Did her form get better? Of course not, she just got bored, frustrated, and stayed weak. We need to move well and do more, the two work together.

Any movement is best when,

1. safe
2. effective
3. elegant

in that order.

Performance begins as inconsistent
and is more consistent with practice

The thing about a beginner's performance is not so much that it's poor – some are remarkably good - but that it's inconsistent. One rep looks great, the next terrible, the next okay, and so on. Practice makes the movement more consistent. We'll all still have our good or bad days, but the variation won't be so wild. Whether this consistent level is good, okay or poor depends on individual talent. As the person continues practice, the level improves.

The competent trainer or coach will first try to make sure the movement is safe, even if it's not effective – after all, if the person gets injured, they can't do the movement at all. For example, a squat with knees rolling in and going onto the toes is neither safe nor effective; a half-squat with heels on the floor and knees out is safe, but generally not effective. As the performance becomes more consistent and always falls within the safe range, the trainer or coach ensures the movement is effective; the half-squat becomes a squat, and is loaded up with weight.

With enough practice, the performance becomes very consistent, and as well as being safe and effective it's elegant. We wouldn't expect someone to walk into a gym for the first time in their lives and do a 200kg squat, so we shouldn't expect someone to have an elegant squat in their first workout. Making a movement look good takes time. Anyone who's ever had a child will know just how much practice is needed to make even simple movements look good. 

Any movement has perhaps 10 or 12 different points which matter in making it elegant. But there'll always be 3 or 4 things that if you get them right, everything else falls into place making the exercise safe and effective. For example, in the squat these things are: weight through heels, chest up, knees out. Get those three things right and the squat will be safe and effective, to make it elegant means things like bar placement and grip and the stance and whether you look up or down during it, and so on.

My client Agatha has a tendency to let her wrists bend as she squats down. The bar rolls an inch or two down her back, so that when she comes out of the bottom of the squat she can't keep her back up or she'd drop the bar, so her hips rise up and then her shoulders follow – it's not a squat but a knee extension followed by a good morning. When she squatted 40kg this wasn't really obvious and anyway didn't matter, the exercise was still safe and effective. Now that she squats 70kg it's much more obvious and does matter - if she wants to progress further. So now we get picky.

The worth of simply practicing the movement should not be underestimated. My client Swati got a routine from me as a gym member, doing goblet squats with a dumbbell. She never went beyond 10kg or so, but did the movement every time she came to the gym. When she became my client 10 months later, in her second session she was able to barbell squat 50kg for a single, nothing amazing but 20kg heavier than most women starting out, and a good start – and a lot closer to elegant than most people their first time under the bar.

Simply practicing the movement is good for more experienced lifters, too. Dan John has a 40 day programme, the same 5 exercises every day, not pushing but always working within yourself, and people report that they're often stronger after it.

Don't agonise over form. But don't ignore it, either. Try to make it good enough, it can be perfect later. Practice will make it better. Get those 3 or 4 things right with each movement, then practice them. Which are those 3 or 4 things with each exercise? Well, that's what competent trainers and coaches are for. But in the end, lifting weights ain't ballet. First make it safe, next effective, then over time it'll become elegant.

Don't get bored with the basics

The other day I had a cancellation, and when I walked out of the gym for a coffee I found my previous client sitting in the lobby psyching herself up to go to work. I asked her to join me for coffee, and we went and had a chat. She said, "You must get bored watching the same exercises and counting reps all the time." 

"That's why I have you do 5 reps and less," I said.

"Yeah but the same exercises?"

I work every day with adults 
who are not as strong as this infant

The answer is: no, I don't get bored. Dan John quotes Dick Notmeyer as saying that to be a good coach, you can't get bored watching the basics. I run over one hundred PT sessions a month and each week in the gym I'll show half a dozen people through their routines and give some tips to another two dozen. Even if I gave out a thousand different exercises I'd still be watching the same thing again and again. 

But I love it. From the beginner with a "squat" which is in fact a half-squat on their toes with knees tracking in and hunched over, to the more experienced lifter who needs to just tilt their head down slightly to give themselves more hip drive, all are enjoyable to work with. From the natural athlete who watches one demonstration or hears one description and performs the movement very well on the first rep, to the clumsy nerd with a history of joint injuries who needs months of preparation just to be able to a below parallel bodyweight squat, these all fascinate me. 

In the end, physical training is an absurdly simple thing. We pick a weight up and put it down, we put one foot in front of another as we run, and we do this thousands and thousands of times until we get it at least pretty much right. When we're doing it right, we reward ourselves by adding another plate to the bar, or running up a hill instead of the flat, or running a bit longer, and generally making things more difficult for ourselves. 

But in this simplicity lies our chance to do things brilliantly, to gradually refine our technique, lift more weight or run or throw things further. A sense of achieving mastery is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world. Many times I've seen someone's face the first time they did a full pushup or chinup or squatted 100kg or ran 5km without stopping, and it never gets old. 

To achieve mastery, you have to stick with the basics and not get bored with them. If you are doing a useful programme based on training movements, not muscles, you should not get bored. If you get bored you're not working hard enough. Put another plate on the barbell or run 1km further. Adding weight or time or reducing rest between sets, you may feel fear or fatigue, but not boredom. 

A good trainee will not get bored with the basics, because they're mastering the basics. A good coach or trainer won't get bored watching the basics, because they're helping the person master them. It feels good to get better at stuff, and to help others get better. 

How many sets and reps should I do for my goals?

There's a chart that floats around the academic and internet worlds which is supposed to answer the question of “how should I lift for different goals?” It usually looks something like the one below, though sometimes it will have a Russian's name on it, because everyone knows all the true genius of fitness lies in the Eastern Bloc, just look at Putin with his shirt off.

For almost all lifters, this chart is a load of old bollocks. It refers to experienced lifters. For beginners – where a 'beginner” is someone who, given good rest and food, can progress from one workout to the next, and almost all people in gyms are beginners - the reps and sets aren't so important, and certainly the tempo of the lifts don't matter much at all. For example, it's been shown that the number of sets you do doesn't matter much.

The body changes because you ask it to do more than it did before. As a beginner, before you were doing nothing, now you are doing something, something is more than nothing, so your body adapts - you get stronger, and if you change your diet, you will get overall bigger or smaller. 

Exactly what that something is that you do isn't that big a deal. For example, even Zumba or riding a bicycle would improve the barbell squat strength of a previously sedentary person - because in each case your legs are doing more than they did before, which was nothing. Much the same applies for other fitness goals, by the way; a sedentary person just lifting weights will improve their cardiovascular fitness, and just doing jazzercise will improve their strength. 

For the beginner, the reason to choose a particular rep range or series of exercises is not that they're better than something else at improving their cardiovascular fitness, strength, muscular size or whatever - rather the person is laying the foundations for future training. 

For example, let's say that today you can squat the bar, and after six months of BodyPump doing sloppy half squats while hating the fitness instructor for her cellulite-free thighs you find that you can do a good form deep squat with 50kg. But your friend just started with the 20kg barbell and worked her way up to squatting 50kg. Her squat would be technically better than yours because she's got more practice in the movement. And she would reach a 75kg squat before you did.

The important thing for a beginner is to learn the basic movements of squat, push, pull, and so on - and to practice them regularly, trying to do lift more weight, or the same weight more times, in each session. Just 1kg or 1 rep is more, and you will force your body to adapt.

The exact sets and reps aren't important. Obviously lifting weights you can lift for less than 3 reps means you are likely to be sloppy in your movement, more than 20 reps is usually not more of a stress than 20 or less; but outside those extremes, most will work just as well for beginners. The important thing is that consistent effort over time gets results.

How many sets and reps should I do? More than you did before. That's what beginners need to do. I know everyone reading this is advanced, honest. I mean those other people.  

Personal trainers and aimless sessions

The valiant and competent PT stands ready to
catch her 1kg dumbbell
should she fail on the 687th rep

Sometimes people will look around their gyms and ask me why PT sessions consist of random exercises with neither PT nor client taking notes of what they're doing. There's a method to this madness. 

Firstly, most PTs have 0-3 clients. Up to around 6 clients, the PT can just remember their previous personal best lifts and go from there to make sure that they're pushed in each session - remember that if you do more than you did before you'll progress; it's better if this "more" is structured, but you can go a surprisingly long way without much plan simply by actually making an effort; and clients generally demand novelty, thus the randomness. And with 0-3 or even sometimes 6 clients, the PT can keep all this stuff in their head. Get 12-18 clients and the PT has to start writing things down, though. 

With all that, bear in mind that many clients don't actually care about progress. If you have them puffing like a steam engine for half an hour, they're happy. Magazines and Biggest Loser and a heap of movies of people doing pushups in the rain while someone shouted at them have told them that simply being thrashed is progress, or if not progress is sufficient atonement for their "sins" of sitting on their bums eating crappy food most of the week. "Okay, today you will do 1,000 jumping jacks, I'm going for coffee, leave $30 on the table on the way out." 

"You did 5 pushups last time, 6 pushups this time, this is progress, well done" is an alien concept to them. This is especially true when you come to the "but I just want to tone up" crowd (which has both male and female members). 

Remember that physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. Many people begin poor in all three. These kinds of unstructured workouts with no real progression will, so long as the person is pushed, raise them from poor to okay in two of the three, and all three if they improve their diet, too. If you've been looking, feeling and performing poorly for the last several years, simply being okay will feel amazing. 

A structured workout with progression in combination with a good diet is necessary to improve how you look, feel and perform from okay to good. But many clients will be thrilled just to be okay as even that's a vast improvement for them. And for that, just getting them working hard and sweating for half an hour a couple of times a week is enough. 

Let's not be too disdainful of this, since the person with this kind of session with a trainer is better off than they would be on their own. Most people on their own don't progress the resistance, speed, time, etc, they just come in and read the paper on the bike or do a few sets of lat pulldowns lurching their body back, etc. Simply by being given a routine working their whole body and pushed a bit harder each session they get results they'd never get on their own.

Only a minority of clients will want something more. This small number grows if the trainer uses sessions to educate the person. But most PTs don't, they provide only the service demanded. Bring 'em in, thrash 'em, sign 'em off, see you next time, next! Again, this is an improvement on what most people do on their own - they will at least see progression from poor to okay. 

Clients with no real goal except to be thrashed for half an hour a couple of times a week bore me, so I never recruit them, if given them by a manager I try to change their minds, and if that fails I shuffle them off to other trainers. But for many trainers this kind of client is their bread and butter. 

Why you should not join a gym

Recently a client mentioned that a friend of hers was considering joining the gym, but was put off by the joining fee and wondering if she'd come regularly. This is pretty common, so it's worth talking about.

Do I need to join the gym?

It depends on your goals. Physical training can change how you look, feel and perform. These things improve because you ask your body to do more than it did before, and your body adapts. But most people are doing nothing. This is why there's so much argument over the One True Perfect Workout - because beginners were doing nothing, this is something, something is more than nothing, so their body adapts. If they just lift heavy weights they will improve their cardiovascular fitness, if they just do Zumba they will improve their strength. 

If you are currently doing nothing, then whatever you do, your looks, health and performance will all improve from poor to okay. Just get your body moving. You don't need a gym membership for this, only willpower. I once went bushwalking with my girlfriend, I burst the buttons on three pairs of pants and looked down and realised I had a 103cm chest and 97cm waist. Four months later after 10,000 steps a day and a heap of pushups and the like, I had a 107cm chest and 83cm waist. No gym membership was used or needed, just willpower. 

But once I'd improved how I looked, felt and performed from poor to okay, to get them to good I needed something more. I needed a gym. If you are happy at having poor looks, health and performance, or if you have strong willpower and can improve to okay on your own, then you should not join a gym. If you need help going from poor to okay, or if you want to take things a step further to get good, then you should join. 

What gyms offer

Every gym offers three things,

• equipment
• atmosphere
• instruction

Equipment is the least important. Many people are impressed by shiny machines, chrome barbells, clean mirrors, bright lights and airconditioning, but the truth is that most people in gyms only use a few pieces of equipment, and they could with smart shopping buy this equipment for around a year's gym membership. But would they use it? Probably not. There's a reason the late-night shopping fitness equipment is all advertised as "folds away for easy storage" - because that's where it'll end up. Remember willpower? 

Atmosphere is important. We can pray or read books or watch movies anywhere, but we like to pray in synagogues, read books in libraries and bookstores, and watch movies in cinemas - it just feels right. Doing it on our own somewhere else, it's harder to do. Same with gyms. Everyone around you is busily sweating, grunting, pounding away on machines and lifting weights, this motivates you to move your arse and do stuff. You may or may not actually get to the gym, but once you get there you'll do something. 

Going at a regular time helps this. You start seeing familiar faces of other regulars and trainers, and say to yourself, "If I go today, I might see Sam, that'll be nice." And if you and Sam become friends then it's "I'd better go, or Sam will ring me up and ask me where I am." If Sam's an experienced gym-goer or competent trainer, then maybe you'll get some instruction, too. 

Instruction is the major cost of running a gym, and so it's the major thing you're paying for in gym membership. Community gyms will typically offer a few sessions to get you started,

• Health consult - they ask you nosy personal questions about your medical history, past and current physical activity, and your goals. Based on this they design a workout routine for you, and -
• Programme Showthrough - show you through the routine so you'll be comfortable doing it on your own. This may not be the One True Perfect Routine, it'll be one the trainer thinks you'll actually do. The best workout is the one you stick to. 
• Technique Check - a couple of weeks after this you'll have had the chance to do the routine a few times, you'll meet with the trainer again, they'll run you through your routine to see if you know what you're doing, and if you do, there may be one or two tweaks to the routine. Then you go off and do it for a month or two.
• Programme Evaluations - after you've done the routine 12-24 times over 1-3 months, you should have seen some results, and be more comfortable in the gym. It'll be time to review your progress, and change your routine. You may want new exercises just for variety, or need a greater challenge, or have changed goals, and so on. These evaluations keep happening every month or three for as long as you're a gym member.

The idea behind these appointments is to encourage the person to keep coming and working productively. The statistics are that if you just sign people up and leave them to it, 6 months later only 25% are still around. If you welcome them and give them a routine, 50% remain. If you do the followup sessions, 75%. Anything higher than that is because of the personality of the trainers, do they just sit behind the desk or are they out there on the gym floor talking to and helping people. 

It's simple human nature that if you meet with me as a trainer today and I give you a routine, if we have an appointment to meet again in a couple of weeks, and if you see me regularly when you come in, you are more likely to come in on your own and do the routine. 

Anyway all that is instruction. Each appointment is 30-60 minutes, so the new gym member gets 1.5-3hr of instruction in their first 2 weeks, and then half an hour or so each month afterwards. The truth is that only 35% of gym members take advantage of this instruction by actually booking and attending the appointments, and of those, only around a third actually follow the routines given, instead doing their own thing. This is part of the reason most gym members don't achieve their goals, they either don't come at all or if they do come are just spinning their wheels. If you join a gym, you are paying for instruction: use it. 

Joining fees

In general I think that joining fees suck and shouldn't exist. Gyms have them because of the 25-75% of people who quit in the first 6 months - after all the administration work of signing them up and staff wages for their first appointments, they want to get something out of them. If you're joining a friend's gym, take the friend along when you're ready to sign up, emphasise that you're only joining this gym because your friend recommended it, and you could go elsewhere - they may waive or reduce the joining fee. However, you can think of the joining fee as paying for those first 3 appointments you have. 

Gyms to avoid

Gyms to avoid are those which have a very restricted range of equipment, commonly it'll be all shiny machines. You can get a restricted range of equipment on your own, you don't need a gym for that. As well, gyms will a poor atmosphere - everyone locked in their own world with their ipods, members and staff ignoring new people, etc. And gyms which offer no or poor instruction, or insist that you take personal training sessions to get any instruction, should likewise be avoided. You wouldn't join a library where you had to pay to learn how to find the books you want. A certain level of instruction is what you pay for. 

Conclusion

Of course, you might be happy with how you look, feel and perform now - so that's great, and you don't need a gym membership. Or maybe you're unhappy but will be too lazy to go regularly, you don't need it, waste of money. Or maybe you'll go regularly, but never use the instruction because you're certain you know everything already - don't join, work out at home. These are all reasons you should not join the gym.

I'm a terrible salesperson, because I just tell the truth. You don't need a gym to have okay looks, health and performance, only to have them all good, or to have them okay if you have poor willpower, which most of us do. In the end achieving your goals is all up to you. But a good gym sure as shit helps you achieve your goals.

RIP Ricky Bruch

Ricky Bruch was a Swedish field athlete who showed great promise, but was tossed off his country's Olympic team for being a loudmouth who argued with his coach. As documented in The Soul is Greater Than the World, after this, he decided to train harder than ever and travel around competing in every throwing meet he could find and do better than any of the Olympic throwers, a goal he achieved - beating the winner by 5 metres.

He was apparently a madman. But he was mad in a way that can inspire us to greater efforts in the gym. 

Consistent effort over time gets results. Consistency is important, but gyms are full of people who come consistently and make little or no effort. Effort is important, but likewise, many people make great efforts... for a short while, and then give up. Ricky Bruch was certainly a madman, but he certainly applied consistent effort over time, and got results. 

Maybe we could all do with a little more madman in our lives. 

Strength standards

Often people will want to know “am I strong?” The answer is “strong for what?” What is “strong” for a soccer player will be a limp dishrag to a competitive powerlifter. I think of strength levels in terms of the person's goals, and how it affects how they look, feel and perform. The chart below lays it out, this is how things look in a community gym, in an athletics club or strength centre they'd look different. This chart applies to adults under 50 years old with no major health issues, medals and certificates are given to my clients when they achieve these levels.

Level		Overhead	DL	HV	PU	weekly	invested	diet/rest
Bronze	everyday	50%	100%	1	20	1-6hr	1-6 months	both okay
Silver	sports	67%	150%	5	40	4-10hr	3-12 months	one good
Gold	strength sports	75%	200%	10	75	8-16hr	6-24 months	both good

Everyday strength is what you need for day-to-day life.

• Looks - unless you were really squishy or puny your physique won't change much, though your posture will improve.
• Feeling - the ordinary aches and pains people get from sitting around at work and the like will tend to disappear, it won't fix actual medical issues but will sometimes mitigate them, your feelings of general vitality will have improved a lot.
• Performance - able to put things on high shelves, turn mattresses over, change tyres, shift refrigerators, participate in recreational sports without fear of straining anything. Friends will know you as “that strong person” and ask you to help them move house.

Sports strength is what you need to do well in serious sports, or for a job requiring serious physical work, like labourer, infantry soldier, fireman, etc. This is about as far as you can go if you also want to run marathons. 

• Looks – nobody will have to ask you if you work out. People will check you out in the gym and notice your lifts.
• Feeling – you will rarely get sick, though in the course of getting this strength you might have pushed too hard or used poor technique and got an injury or two. You will usually feel good physically, and are much less likely to be injured during your sport.
• Performance – everyday physical tasks are easy for you, if you have any sports skills at all you'll be one of the better players on the team, friends will ask you to help them move house or do the landscape gardening and then go and have a coffee while you do it.

Strength sports are those where being strong is a major part, not only powerlifting and weightlifting, but rugby, wrestling and so on.

• Looks – you will stand out as well-built even if dressed, everyone in the gym will know who you are, and newbies will ask your advice, follow it for half a session and then ignore it.
• Feeling – your health and wellbeing will change often, sometimes feeling great, other times being hit with illness and injuries; few people get to a double bodyweight deadlift and stay there or higher for years without getting run down from constant hard training or without hurting something.
• Performance – with sports skills you'll stand out and could turn professional, provided there are enough places in your chosen sport. However this would only be beginning strength for strength-specific sports.

DEFINITIONS

The standards are based on lifts. The overhead is simply getting the weight overhead, whether by a strict press, push press, snatch or whatever. The deadlift a conventional or sumo barbell deadlift. A heave is a chinup, pullup, etc – whatever hand-facing and grip width you care to use is fine, but it must be from dead hang; a pushup is, believe it or not, a pushup.

The standards are minimums, and all four must be achieved for the level to be attained; if you bench more than you deadlift and cannot do a single chinup, then you lack balance in your strength and physique and will be prone to injury and looking silly. As well, we are interested in lasting strength; if someone deadlifts twice their bodyweight once and then never again, they can't be Gold.

Weekly means the total time which must be spent on training each week to achieve these lifts; maintaining them will require 1/3 to 1/2 this time, though in practice people aiming to "just maintain" tend to go backwards instead. This is time training, not time spent wandering around the gym looking at the hot chick on the cross-trainer or the hot guy doing chinups, or sitting reading the paper between sets of lat pulldowns, or chatting to the bros between sets of cheat curls. The overlapping ranges of the times are due to different levels of natural talent, age, diet and so on.

Invested means how many months are required for a dedicated newbie to achieve this level. Most people will never achieve even Bronze level, because they don't apply consistent effort over time, instead doing pointless exercises, constantly changing workouts, not progressing the resistance, and generally buggerising about. But a dedicated person who uses correct technique over a full range of motion and progresses the resistance will take this amount of time to do it.

Diet/Rest refers to how switched-on the person has to be to achieve this. You can get Bronze level with an ordinary diet and rest (though not poor diet and rest), to achieve Silver at least one of the two must be good, for Gold both must be good. Someone with both a poor diet and rest may briefly achieve some of the lifts at a higher level, but won't achieve them all, and their lifts won't be lasting – a year from now they won't be as strong, they'll have fallen back due to inconsistent training or injury.

EXCUSES

“But David Beckham doesn't deadlift twice his bodyweight!”

Are you David Beckham? Spectacular skill makes up for ordinary strength, so that some sportspeople can get away with not being very strong. However, people with ordinary or merely good sports skills need strength to help them. Many sports teams lack a proper strength and conditioning programme; they usually lose matches and have players frequently out due to injuries.

“But I'm small!” “Yeah! And I'm big!”

The three barbell lifts are given in proportion to bodyweight, since that is how people see things in everyday life and sports. Nobody expects a 50kg person to lift as much as a 100kg person, nor will there be many 50kg rugby fullbacks or 100kg soccer midfielders. If you are underweight for your height and frame and so find these lifts difficult, eat and get bigger. If you are overweight and so see these lifts as impossible, eat less, get smaller, then as you drop weight from your frame you can add weight to the bar. 

“But I'm a girl! And I'm old!”

The lifts are in proportion to bodyweight, and women tend to be smaller than men. Of course, men have more lean mass than women which lets them lift more. So we'd expect the men to do more reps of the same weight than could a woman. As for age, age causes surprisingly little decline in current and potential strength. The biggest factor is years of being sedentary, and whether there is consistent effort over time. 


Younger people and men can expect to be on the lower side of the invested time to achieve the lifts, older people and women the higher side. However, individuals vary more than do genders, ages, etc. And the biggest variation is whether people are willing to put in the hours each week, the months of training, of good food and rest. Most aren't.

As personal training clients I have a 49 year old woman with low-grade multiple sclerosis who in six months and 52 sessions has achieved all of Bronze except the heaves, I had a physically healthy 23 year old man who will never achieve any of them; the difference is that she applied consistent effort over time and he would not.

THE MEDALS

When my PT clients achieve the lifts two sessions in a row, I give them a medal and a certificate. One day when I was giving one out, another trainer saw it and said, "but doing a chinup is really hard for a woman!"
"Yes, that's why I give them a medal for it."
"You should lower the standards."
I'm 40, she's 20, we're different generations and have different experiences of receiving recognition for achievements. 
Some from the black iron gym world will scoff at the idea of people getting a tinny medal and certificate for such lifts. I would suggest they take a look around their local mainstream commercial and community gyms and see how many people can achieve them. 

CONCLUSION

That (for example) Gold level requires 8-16 hours a week 6-24 months does not mean that everyone who has gone to the gym for 90 minutes a day six days a week for two years is Gold level. They might have spent two years walking slowly on the treadmill watching Oprah, doing crunches on the Swiss ball, half-squats in the Smith machine or doing six different kinds of curls with their bros.

The strength standards chart gives a reasonable expectation of the results a dedicated person can get in the gym given the time and effort they put into progressive resistance training and improving their diet and rest. It works. Do it. 

Strength is built in the gym, size at the dinner table

Strength and fitness are built in the gym, size at the dinner table.

aka "eat less, move more"

You will not lose or gain weight in the gym. What it comes down to is energy in vs energy out. If energy in is more than energy out, you get overall bigger. If energy in is less than energy out, you get overall smaller. When getting bigger or smaller, you may gain or lose either fat or muscle. Whether you gain or lose muscle depends on whether you do weight training - give your muscles a reason to grow or stick around, and they will, give them no reason to, and they won't. 

There are four different approaches you can take. Two are useful, two are stupid and will kill you. 

• HOMER SIMPSON = energy surplus + sit on couch = gain fat + maintain muscle. You lose some muscle due to doing nothing, but gain a bit more simply because you are heaving increased bulk around, if you don't believe me, carry a 10kg weight plate around all day every day for six months and see what happens. 
• BULKING = energy surplus + lift heavy stuff = gain fat + gain muscle. You give your muscles a reason to grow, and give them material to grow with (food). Extra fat will come along with this, sorry. 
• GWYNETH PALTROW = energy deficit + sit on couch = lose fat + lose muscle. You go hungry and give your muscles no reason to stick around, so they leave. The sight of you excites fashion designers and causes migrants from conflict-ridden lands to hide their babies from you and have painful flashbacks to their time in a dusty refugee camp, congratulations. 
• CUTTING = energy deficit + lift heavy stuff = lose fat + maintain (or lose small amounts of) muscle. You can't grow muscle without an energy surplus, but you can at least hold onto most of it if you give it a reason to be there. 

Most people want to gain muscle and lose fat. This is what "toning" means. Muscles cannot be "toned", they can only get bigger or smaller, and be more or less visible due to bodyfat. In general, you cannot gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, this is because gaining muscle requires an energy surplus and losing fat requires an energy deficit. The exception is when the person is overfat: they can have an energy deficit and lose fat, and the fat they have provides the surplus needed to grow muscles. This will take most men from 25+% bodyfat to around 15%, and women from 35+% to the lows 20s%. (Visual guides to bodyfat percentage are here.)

However, most people in gyms are not overfat, so to gain muscle and lose fat they have to do as bodybuilders do and have a bulking phase and a cutting phase. For example, during the bulk the person puts on 8kg, 4kg muscle and 4kg fat; during the cut they lose 5kg, 1kg of muscle and 3kg of fat. Net result: gain 3kg muscle. Traditionally people want to eat more in winter and their bodies are covered up, and eat less in summer and their bodies are exposed, so they have a winter bulk and summer cut. 

So much for the principles, how about the practice?

Energy in vs energy out

It really does come down to energy in vs energy out. Note that the body doesn't know the difference between a calorie out because of lifting weights, or a calorie out because of running, or a calorie out because of Zumba or cycling or swimming or hot sex. It's all energy out. But most energy out does not come from exercise. 


We begin with a person's "base metabolic rate", which is the energy their body needs just to keep them alive, their liver and lungs and all the rest, even if they just sit on the couch watching Oprah all day. This varies a lot between people, but a typical amount is 1,500kcal and 2,000kcal for medium-sized men and women. They have to take in that amount, or they will eventually die. 

In the gym, people will usually expend 200-300kcal an hour, it doesn't really matter how fit they are or whether they do weights or cross-trainer or treadmill or whatever, most people adjust their effort to those levels and anyway  part of being "fit" is that your body is more efficient, it achieves the same work with less energy. No, the calorie calculation on your treadmill is not accurate. 

So 4 workouts are about 1,000kcal, and 36 workouts are 9,000kcal. There are 9,000kcal in 1kg of fat. Thus, if you want to lose 1kg of fat, and if you change nothing else about your food or your general physical activity, it will take at least 36 workouts to do. At 3 workouts a week, that's 12 weeks to knock off 1kg fat. I would suggest that your weight probably varies up and down by more than 1kg over three months anyway. 

And this will be very easy for you to sabotage with your food. One hour's workout = 250kcal = one Mars bar. Two hours? One large fries from McDs. I don't know about you, but I'd rather just not eat the fries. 

This is why we have programmes like 10,000 steps. Get a step counter, wear it, and just do whatever you normally do for a week, then see how many steps you do each day on average. People who are underweight, healthy weight or overweight may do very few or very many, it varies a lot. But everyone who is obese will be doing under 5,000. Under 2,000 steps a day is common for car owners with desk jobs.  

If you go from 2,000 to 10,000 steps a day, that's an extra hour of cardio every day. Build it up over the next several weeks. Not straight away, you won't keep it up. And you can have slack days and busy days. But the weekly total should go up until it hits 70,000. An extra hour each day, plus the three workouts a week, now it becomes four weeks to knock off 1kg fat. 

Consider your food. Now, I'm a personal trainer not a dietician. You wouldn't ask a dietician how to do a barbell squat, don't ask me for a meal plan. I can do not much better than pass on Dan John's wise words:

Before we get too specific: Eat like an adult!... Honestly, seriously, you don't know what to do about food? Here is an idea: Eat like an adult. Stop eating fast food, stop eating kid's cereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foods whenever your favorite show is not on when you want it on, ease up on the snacking and - don't act like you don't know this - eat vegetables and fruits more. Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop with the excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like a television commercial. Grow up.  (Mass Made Simple, p. 22)

Think about it, you know what to do. Eat more fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans. Have some meat, some fish and some dairy, but don't go crazy on it and stuff yourself. Ease back on the booze and junk food. "Junk food" is any food where the packet is more colourful than the contents. 


As for amounts, don't weigh your food or count calories, that will make you crazy, just steer as you go. If after a month you are overall bigger and wanted to be smaller, eat a little bit less; if smaller and wanted to be bigger, eat more. If bigger, smaller or the same and you wanted that, change nothing. 


As an example, with one less Mars bar each day, the 1kg fat comes off in two weeks. 


So the time to lose 1kg of fat,

• 3 workouts a week, change nothing else = 12 weeks
• 3 workouts a week, increase general physical activity = 4 weeks
• small caloric deficit from eating better food = 2 weeks 

All these figures are illustrative only, the human body is a stupidly complex thing. But they show the point: fat loss won't happen in the gym. Eat less, move more. Not heaps less, just a bit, steer as you go.

Much the same goes for gaining weight, if you have to be a hipster or someone unfortunate like that.

How one of my clients lost 30kg in six months
I'd love to say it was because of the 2-3 workouts a week he did with me, it wouldn't be true though. He just increased his general physical activity and ate better food. He ate less and moved more. 


So what did our workouts do for him? I just helped make him stronger, fitter and more flexible. He did the weight loss himself. Now, obviously the two things help each-other: once you've front squatted 70kg, walking to the shops doesn't seem like a big deal, and once you're regularly walking to the shops, your workouts will be easier. But really the weight loss was all down to him. 


Why go to the gym then?
I was asked in a job interview once, would I ever drop a client?
"If they were unreliable, sure."
"Yeah but what if they weren't doing what you told them?"
"If I fired every client who ignored my advice, I'd have no clients."
"Yeah but say your big guy had ballooned out instead of losing weight, drop him?"
"No. If he's going to be grossly obese, it's better for him to be grossly obese and strong and fit and flexible, than grossly obese and weak and unfit and stiff."
I didn't get the job, but wasn't too sad about it. 


Anyway, the point is that with proper workouts, your strength, cardiovascular fitness and flexibility improve, which improves your quality of life, health, posture and so on. And those are all good things, even if you still have spaghetti arms or a squishy bum. 


Strength is built in the gym, size is built at the dinner table. 

"But I just want to tone up", Part One - Education

or, About Becoming a Personal Trainer

On another forum a while back I started a thread about becoming a personal trainer. With two years passing since then, I can give you a summary version. This way, anyone who's thinking about entering the industry will have a good idea what it's like, and other people will have a better idea of why mainstream community and commercial gyms are the way they are.

Okay, enough intro. This stuff is relevant to Australia, other countries do things differently, usually even worse.

Anyone can call themselves a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, counsellor, and so on. This is different to being a hairdresser or plumber, which are more tightly regulated. However, if you want to get employed by someone else and have any clients, you will have to have some combination of education and experience. But first, let's look at some different jobs in the fitness industry.

A personal trainer works producing and supervising exercise routines for low risk clients with general health and fitness goals. A PT will usually be TAFE certificate-level educated. PTs may be employed by community gyms, work as franchisees for gym and bootcamp chains, or be self-employed.

The PT doesn't give detailed nutritional advice, diagnose injuries or conditions, or work with moderate or high-risk clients; though they may supervise the routines of moderate-risk clients, routines written by an EP (see below).

A fitness specialist works as a PT, or assists a sports team with conditioning, or in tandem with a physiotherapist in a hospital setting, and may work with moderate risk clients with general health and fitness goals. An FI will often be diploma-level educated. In practice the Diploma of Fitness person works as a PT, or uses the Diploma as a stepping stone to a degree, since most FS jobs go to those with degrees.

An exercise physiologist works with moderate and high risk clients for general health and fitness goals, often with physiotherapists, orthopaedic surgeons and so on. Some EPs simply work as PTs. The EP often has a degree-level education. You'll find EPs working with someone who has arthritis and emphysema, that sort of thing.

A strength and conditioning coach works with athletes to improve their sports performance with strength and conditioning. The S&C coach often has a certificate-level education.

I'll just talk about being a PT.

Certificates

There exist five relevant certificates

• Certificate III (gym instructor)
• Certificate IV (personal trainer)
• Certificate III (group fitness instructor)
• Certificate IV (older adults trainer)
• Certificate IV (childrens trainer)

As well, Level 2 First Aid is required by all gyms and insurance companies.

Not many places offer the last three certificates, most commonly people do the first and then the second, later on in their career if they want to specialise they may add one or two of the others.

Technically, only Cert III (GI) is required to work in most gyms; you're supposed to be able to conduct assessments, prescribe and supervise basic exercise routines, and so on. In practice, so many people have done Cert III (GI) that the next course Cert IV (PT) is the minimum to be employed. There are a few Cert III-only people employed at various gyms, you'll usually find they've been there for 10 years or more; these courses have only existed for 7-15 years.

Cert III & IV (GI/PT)

Minimum course content is mandated by the various state governments. The course provider can put more in, but not less. The modules cover,

• Communication - how to talk to people
• Anatomy & Physiology - how the body's laid out, how it works
• Assessment of Fitness & Posture - knowing where the person's starting from, how they move
• Exercises - the actual movements you'll be teaching people
• Program Design - putting these exercises together into a program that makes sense
• Nutrition - you are what you eat, they say
• Legal Stuff - occupational health and safety, risk assessment, etc.

In most courses, Anatomy and Legal Stuff get most of the focus of the instructors. The Exercises section is glossed over. In this, fitness is like any other industry - what you do in the course has very little relation to what you do day-to-day in the job. The job is all about teaching correct movement in exercises, plus a heap of communication and motivation.

To be a competent PT, you'll want to have a background in sports, martial arts, and/or gym work - or be willing to go and get it during and after PT school. You should have a large library of exercises to choose from.

Cost & time of courses

Education is like any other service, you can have it good, fast or cheap - but not all 3 at once. Most courses have the same total contact hours, TAFEs have more on paper but you get sent home early, etc.

State TAFEs take a year part-time and cost you $1,400 or so. They are usually not very good, but the simple fact of having days between classes lets you digest the information and do your own research.

Private institutions vary a lot, but most are quick (6-12 weeks) since they combine Certs II and IV into one course, and cost $3,000-$6,000. Some are good, most not. For example AIF (Australian Institute of Fitness) has a poor reputation, when employers see it on your resume they usually chuck it away unless there's some years of experience after it. CAE in Melbourne under Aaron Whear has a good reputation, they teach you more than the minimum.

In the end, whatever you choose, school is only the beginning of your education. In any profession, if you stop learning the day you walk out of school, you won't go far.

In the next I'll write about employment.