Personal training

Carl Long
Prof. Diamond
Eng. 61
10/28/2013

Personal Training I have a passion for action sports, physical fitness and wellbeing. There is no better feeling in the world than being healthy. Along with being healthy, comes physical fitness and athleticism. But accomplishing these goals is no easy task. Athletes don’t wake up every day physically in top shape and able to perform their best athletically without hours on top of hours of hard work and proper dieting. Not many athletes know the ins and outs of proper training and dieting, which is why they refer to a personal trainer for the tips and advice they need to succeed. A major in Kinesiology is an excellent way to gain the proper knowledge to help athletes get to where they need to be. As a personal trainer, you have many duties related to your job. Trainers are responsible for providing various personal training services that help members maximize their workout efficiency. And to also improve physical fitness and wellbeing. Personal trainers demonstrate exercises. These vary, depending on his or her client’s level of fitness capability, age and weight. These demonstrated exercises could be as simple as a squat or as advanced as a power clean. It is important as a trainer to get to know your client. Such as their level of fitness, what they’re physically capable of performing. Personal trainer need to be able to determine what exercises can benefit their client or potentially harm them (California).
Trainers are also responsible for creating a healthy diet plan for their client to follow, in order to help accomplish their fitness or health goals. This part of personal training is the most difficult. Diet plans can be very difficult for the average person to follow and keep track of. Just like the physical part of personal training, a diet plan very depending on client’s fitness goals, age and weight. For example, if a middle aged man is looking to lose a significant amount of weight, he would need to do a few things. First, in order to lose weight your body need to burn carbohydrates that have been consumed in the past twenty-four hours. Once your body has depleted all unused carbohydrates, it can now access your body’s stored fat source and start to burn it off. But in order to burn carbohydrates in the first place, he must engage in high intense exercises, which min in their late thirties usually don’t do. So what needs to happen is he must alter his diet to eat six times a day. The content of his diet would be low carbs and proteins. The reason for him to eat six times a day is to keep his metabolism running so he can burn fat during his daily routine. Along with a diet, comes exercise with his personal trainer. His workouts would consist of very low weight, with a high number of repetition. The reason for low weight workouts is because he would be low on carbs which would highly effect his strength. The high amount of reps will cause his muscles to fire quicker, causing him to burn carbohydrates then start burning stored fat (United). Trainers can work in many different places. For example, if a trainer has a group workout in urban areas, he could meet his clients at a local park or running trail. The most common place would be the gym, where a personal trainer can train one or more individuals. Trainers even go to clients homes for personal workouts. That’s usually the case for elderly people who would have a hard time leaving their home. Qualified trainers travel to hospitals to train rehabilitated patients who may have been injured in an accident and is in need to re-train their muscles (United). To become a trainer is not very difficult. A degree is not needed, but would be very beneficial. My personal trainer, Brodie Priestley recommended a degree in kinesiology and nutrition. Also having a background in sports and powerlifting benefit me. Even though a degree in not required, sources indicate it would do nothing but help (United States). During my interview I asked my trainer Priestley what made him choose kinesiology as his profession. “It was simple” Priestley replied. “My father was a world class power lifter, benching over five-hundred pounds as a senior in high school. So like every kid, I wanted to be just like my father. I fell in love with lifting weights and play sports. The more I lifted weights, the more results I saw and I began to feel better about myself,” Priestley explained. “I quickly got addicted to lifting weights and wanted to keep progressing. I began to educate myself more on lifting weights and ways to get bigger and stronger. My obsession with lifting weights and muscles development got to the point where I stopped playing sports to focus on powerlifting.” Priestley’s hard work was paying off as he took first place in numerous powerlifting events. “I wasn’t just winning, I was blowing my competition out of the water,” Priestley explained. Priestley worked his way up to become the number three power lifter in the nation, and later broke the world record in bench press for his weight class. “It was obvious that I was good at what I did, so I wanted to help others accomplish their physical fitness goals. So I began Personal training at a local gym. I quickly fell in love with helping others and seeing them progress. It’s a cool feeling, I couldn’t be happier with what I’m doing” Priestley explained to me. I asked Priestley what he though was the toughest part about being a personal trainer. Priestley’s response was simple, he told me that “as long as you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t really matter what you do to get there. But I guess the hardest part of being a personal trainer would be getting some clients to trust you and to buy into your system.” Priestley continued on saying that some people who may have been out of shape most of their life have a hard time believing that they can lose weight and get in shape by following my weight loss program, which makes it difficult to train that individual. Next I asked Priestley what he liked most about his job. Priestley responded by saying “The best part of my job is seeing true results in my clients. There is no better feeling as a trainer knowing that you helped someone get healthy and physically fit. In most cases that is a life changing event for people who used to be highly over weight and unhealthy. That person can now walk around proud of their appearance and have all the confidence in the world, all because of my help. To me there is no better feeling.” Even though I learned that an education is not need to become a trainer, I asked Priestley what steps he took in school to get where he is today. Priestley told me that getting his master’s degree in kinesiology, and minor degree in nutrition was the smartest thing he has ever done. “My degree helped me in every way possible, I now have an edge on a lot of trainers that might not have a degree. But not only am I more educated but my degree gets me more business which is awesome!” Researching my career choice has reassured me that becoming a personal trainer is who I am going to become. My trainer has had the biggest impact on my decision. He has helped me so much and I’ve also seen him help many others. I learned that what you get out of training someone is the ultimate prize. In conclusion kinesiology is what I have chosen as my career choice.