Personal Training - What is it?
"fitness"
Fitness refers to whether or not you are physically capable of doing the things you want to do. The term itself is based on whether something is "fit," or suitable, for its environment. This is what I choose to focus on.
Modern culture and the commercialization of the idea of fitness has led to it becoming more and more a singular concept, an aesthetic, or a genre.
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Though it may largely be a media illusion with problematic motivations, fitness is something that people think they want because ultimately, they've been led to believe it will make them happy. This is also what I choose to focus on.
At Trick9 Fitness we like to think that "fitness" in its most basic form, is being able to do the things you want to do, while feeling comfortable, confident, and happy in your body.
WHat is Personal training?
Personal training is a professional relationship between a person with goals, and a trainer who is supposed to help them achieve those goals, usually through a program of exercise and nutrition. Sometimes it's a matter of extremely specialized expertise and knowledge, sometimes it's simply a matter of basic accountability and encouragement from someone you click with.
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Fitness goals can be almost anything: Activity-based goals like: to run a marathon, or become able to walk around the block; to climb a mountain, or to be able to carry the laundry up from the basement. Or physique-based goals like: to have the more defined tricep shadow when you flex, or to just look better in a t-shirt. The "personal" part of personal training is where the methods are defined by the goals of the individual and their relationship with their trainer.
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Trainers specialize in many different things. There are specialized trainers for almost anything you can imagine. A specialized sports trainer is often called a coach, but it's the same concept. Your goals will often define the kind of trainer you look for.
TRICK9 FItness
Trick9 Fitness is what might be called a "gen pop" fitness place. I mostly deal with the general population - average folks. I help them learn the basics and then the finer points of training for strength and mobility. I keep them on a well-balanced program, and help prevent injury by offering tempered guidance and informed progress.
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We mainly do varieties of resistance training. Resistance training is a broad term to describe using resistance to create challenge in exercise, which then triggers adaptation of the body. Lifting weights is a classic form of resistance training, where the resistance is created by gravity and equipment. Calisthenics is a form of resistance training using just the weight of the body, a well-known exercise in calisthenics would be the push-up.
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There are many forms of resistance training. I like to mix up the methods while keeping the challenge to the body cyclical and repetitive. This means that we will go through phases of working with different forms of resistance, (bodyweight, dumbbells, barbell, cables, bands...) using different approaches (fast, slow, light, heavy...). We will be applying that variety to a lot of the same movement patterns, because in order to stimulate adaptation of the body we have to create a repetitive stimulus for it to adapt to.
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My main passion in training is getting you increasingly more comfortable using your body to do stuff. Finding pain free ways to get stronger and more confident in your body's capacity to do cool stuff is extremely good for our mental health and our acceptance of our bodies.
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Feeling confident in movement is a huge step towards becoming naturally inclined to moving more, and moving more is a huge part of becoming healthier and happier.
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Weight Loss
Weight loss is a tough topic.
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I have clients who never want to even look at a scale because it might trigger disordered eating for days, and others who are fine with weighing themselves every day and chuckling at the inconsistent nature of the human body. There is a multi-billion-dollar industry that feeds almost entirely on making people feel worse about themselves every day, and the hard truth is, I'm a part of that industry. I'm aware of all the toxic BS that the fitness industry, along with cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, fashion, etc. -- all the toxic BS these industries churn out, and the damage all this can do to a person over a lifetime, especially to women, but increasingly to men also, so I try to mitigate this as best as I can. I work with you to find strategies that you feel are building healthy habits and mindsets while gearing them toward achieving your goals.
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I know a lot about nutrition and can help you develop strategies for healthy muscle gain and fat loss.
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That being said, weight loss is going to mostly be about what happens outside of the studio. We work together to come up with strategies that are reasonable and achievable. The fact that you're here makes me think that perhaps you have some experience with trying to Change Your Life. It's very rare that someone can change everything about their life overnight, and start eating 100% healthy, exercising regularly, going to bed at a reasonable hour and sleeping well, managing stress, drinking enough water, and doing all the things a person could be doing to have a perfect life. So we choose where to focus first, building a strong foundation of larger blocks, and filling in the gaps as we make progress.
Fitness isn't an all or nothing endeavor. There is no success without some failure mixed in. I'll be here, ready to say "ok so that didn't work as well as we had hoped but that's not a big deal. We've simply learned some more about what to do next!"
TRICK9 FItness
I've worked with newly retired folks to those over 90. I've worked with young athletes and middle-aged parents. I've worked with shoulder injuries, knee-replacements, fused spines, and chronic pain. I'm not a doctor. My clients will often know more about their condition than I do. What I do know is a ton of exercise options for various body parts, and what might or might not work for you to start building some strength and range of motion in a problem area, and if that doesn't work, I either know like 15 other options off the top of my head, where to look to find 85 other options, when to say let's take a step back before we move forward with this, and when to refer out to a more specialized professional.
I don't sell supplements or have my own brand of protein shake. Most of the research I do is to have solid info with which to convince people to spend their time, energy, and money on things that make their lives better in measurable ways rather than wasting money on things that barely matter (like fitness supplements).
I tend to look at weight loss goals and interpret them as "I want to be healthier and feel better about my body."
The best feeling is when I can tell a client's mental image of their goal has shifted from wanting to be some entirely different person to wanting to be a better version of themselves.
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I will not hesitate to tell you to stop doing an exercise if it hurts.
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I enjoy finding ways to get your body moving in ways that DON'T hurt, and sometimes that takes a little creativity.
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I've been doing this a while and have learned a lot, but I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I'm just a personal trainer. I'll readily admit when I don't know something, and I am always learning along with my clients. I will tell you when there is something you might need to see a more qualified professional about.