Personal Trainers in Kelowna

I must admit, I'm not well received by my 'peers' in this city. For that matter, personal trainers in vernon aren't any friendlier.

I'm not sure if it's just the overwhelming ego that so many people in my industry seem to possess, or the fact that they feel threatened by my presence for the fear of me stealing their business; but I tell you, it's like walking on eggshells around these people. Quite honestly, I don't know how their clients even stand them. On more than a few occasions I've been met with downright snobbery and rudeness.

The whole 'tough and macho' bit has never been a routine that I've endorsed or took part in, partly because it's just not in my nature, and more importantly, I want my clients to feel comfortable and at ease in my presence. The health and fitness realm is intimidating enough as it is without me barking orders and making my clients feel somehow inferior to me.
I so often see trainers prancing around with the attitude like "maybe one day - if you're lucky - you could look HALF as good as me!" Sorry guys, this just aint my shtick.

So how do you find a good personal trainer in Kelowna? And how do you know who to avoid?

First off - STAY AWAY FROM CEREAL BOX PERSONAL TRAINERS!

(Thanks to my friend Cara for this term!)

Cereal box personal trainers are, I'm afraid, the norm in the Okanagan. What I mean by this, is a personal training certificate that is so easy to get, it's like they got it off the back of a cereal box. There are many, many, many personal training certifications out there. One of which is so incredibly easy to get, a fellow Kinesiologist had his dog certified just to prove this point. This is no joke. Somewhere out there, there is a golden retriever who is a certified personal trainer!

Most of these certifications require no post secondary education, no hands on training, and virtually no prior knowledge of health, the human body, or exercise science.

On average, to obtain a personal training certificate in this province, it requires little more than a couple weekend classes, and a brutally easy exam.

To illustrate this further, when I was fresh out of high school I obtained one of these certificates. And I did so without ever cracking open a text book, studying, or receiving guidance of any kind. I knew enough from reading fitness magazines (and you know how I feel about these crummy things) to pass with 98 percent. I even corrected the class instructor on some anatomy mistakes she made on a diagram.

This is not to brag folks, this is to let you know how bloody easy it is. I was by no means prodigy or fitness guru or anything like that. I just knew a little bit from reading garbage magazines and working out with my buddies.

Unfortunately, this is all it takes for you to call yourself a personal trainer in Kelowna, Vernon, or anywhere else in this province.

I won't name the types of certifications - and the trainers that they're attached to - that you should avoid (as I mentioned, I take enough heat from my peers as it is - and I guarantee this is going to upset many of them even further).

What I will do is let you know how to find a personal trainer in kelowna or vernon (or anywhere else for that matter) that you can trust to get you in the best shape of your life, and do it safely, quickly and in a way that isn't torture.

So check back soon, and I'll let you in a little secret that will weed out 90% of the crappy trainers out there instantly.

Yours in health,

RD

A swing and a miss!

Sorry folks, nobody got both the answers I was looking for.

Lots of you got one part of it right, but nobody was able to get both answers.

There were lots of really great answers, and it seems that many of you have been listening to my advice.

So on to the answers...

The two big reason's Sally's plan failed:

Mistake #1: Sally didn’t plan

She left everything up to willpower and a hope that she would do the right thing at the right time. But when she was confronted with a sudden schedule change, or a momentary lapse in willpower, she threw in the towel for the time being and told herself she would start fresh some other time.

Lesson #1: Life WILL get in the way.

Most people plan their workout schedule around a ‘best case scenario’, but think back to how many weeks you’ve had in the recent future when everything went as you planned. Probably not one. You must, I repeat, you MUST have a plan, and a backup plan. If you can’t get your workout in after work, then maybe you get up early the following day and go for an extra jog. If you miss Monday’s workout, do it on Saturday, if you know you get busy in the afternoon, workout in the morning. Make it a priority, and have a PLAN.

And the big one that nobody got...

Mistake #2: Her workout plan was only good for 6 weeks.

Sally got a program that was supposed to be 6 weeks long, and she ended up dragging it out over three months. She then wondered why her results sucked when she actually did it properly.

Lesson #2: Change your program, and change it often.

I've preached this time and time again, but so many people underestimate the need to constantly adapt and change your program. Never use and re-use the same workout program. When you start a new program your body is learning everything from scratch – you recruit muscles in ways they haven’t been used before, and it’s a complete shock to your system. This shock is what causes your body to change by losing body fat and building muscle. But when you don’t follow through, you are missing out on a tremendous window of opportunity where your body could see dramatic changes. Worse yet, when you pick away at the same program by getting in a workout here or there, your body is still learning and adapting even if the results aren’t showing. So when you finally do get around to doing that workout program the way it was intended, your muscle memory is there and already knows what to do so the results are dismal.

I see this so very often with people who stop working out in the summer, then pick up their old workout routine in the fall. Even though it’s been quite some time since they did that workout, their results will never be close to what they could have been over the first 6 weeks they started that program.

If you’ve been using the same workout program for longer than 6 weeks, EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN CONSISTENT…it’s time to change it.

And for bonus points...

Sally was using a program from a magazine.

I was really quite impressed with the number of people who mentioned this one to me. Good work!

How can a program really work for you if it was designed for everyone and their dog? It can't.

However, this isn't the REAL problem.

The real problem is that all of the major fitness magazines are OWNED BY BIG SUPPLEMENT COMPANIES!!! They just throw random workouts into their magazines, then promote their recommended diet that, of course, must have such-and-such supplement to see the best results.

I'll talk more about this in a later post, but for now, leave the fitness magazines on the shelf. If you want the real answers to your fitness questions...yours truly is only an email away.

Yours in health,

RD

When it doesn't go right...

Q: Rylan, what’s the biggest mistake you see people making with their fitness programs?

To answer this question, I’m going to present you with a scenario. There are TWO major things that Sally does wrong here. To test your knowledge of fitness, and to see how closely you’ve been following my instructions, send me an email me with your answer. The first person to email me with the correct answers for both of Sally’s mistakes will get a nice little prize.

Here’s a prime example of a scenario I see waaay too often:

Sally picks up a fitness magazine that contains the latest workout routine that guarantees to give her a bikini body in 6 weeks. She’s going on holidays in less than two months, and she’s got about 10 pounds to lose so this gives her just enough time. Sally starts her new program on Monday, and has a great week. She manages to fit in all her scheduled workouts and sticks a healthy diet plan, but then next week rolls around. She forgets to pack her gym shoes, misses her workout, and gets off to a bad start. “Ah screw it” she thinks. “This week is too busy, since I already messed up this week, I’ll start fresh on Monday.” Next week rolls around and she get four workouts in, but then Friday some people from the office want to go and grab a drink after work. She caves in - “I deserve a drink, I’ve worked hard all week” - so she skips her workout and has a couple drinks followed by a few wings and some garlic bread. On Saturday she’s so disappointed with herself for ruining an almost perfect week of her new program, that she vows that she will be 100% next week. Monday through Wednesday she does great and gets her workouts in and all is well. She then gets a call from her husband on Thursday afternoon that she needs to pick up little Timmy from soccer practice because he’s going to be stuck doing overtime tonight. So Thursday’s workout is scrapped, and since everyone is so pressed for time, she picks up pizza for dinner because she’s too exhausted to cook. Friday afternoon she’s still pretty tired, and just wants to go home at the end of the day, so Friday’s workout is a no-go as well. On the weekend she comes to the realization that there’s no chance in hell she’s going to look good in a bikini before her holidays, so she gives up because it’s just not worth the stress and guilt of trying to workout and then not. So she decides when she comes back from her holidays, she’ll start the workout plan again, and this time she won’t have the stress of preparing for holidays so it will be much easier. What then happens is Sally gets home from her holidays, and since it’s the third week of the month, puts the program off again until the beginning of the next month because she’s going to be really busy with catch up at work. She finally gets around to doing the full program, and although she’s not 100%, she’s pretty close, but her results are dismal and she can’t understand why. She only lost a few pounds, and when she looks in the mirror she can’t see any difference in her body.

Why hasn’t Sally got the results she wanted? What two critical mistakes did she make that kept her from reaching her goal?

Send me your answers to info@adonisfitness.ca and check back here in a couple days for the answer.

Yours in health,

RD

Supplements: Magic Bullet or Major Waste?

This morning I was making my way through my huge Monday monday morning stack of emails, sorting through questions from clients, and deleting the usual batch of viagra spam, and I came across a weekly flyer for an on-line supplements company that I've used in the past.

It reminded me of one of the most common questions I get asked...

What supplements do you recommend?

Well, that's kind of a loaded question, but let me tell you this...

When I was 16 and just starting to hit the gym and lift weights (and new absolutely NOTHING about anything) I used to walk by the supplements store in the mall in awe. This place was stacked full of 10 pound laundry tub sized buckets of protein and things with labels like "Obscenely Massive Hippopotamus Mass Gainer 8000" and "Ultra shredded lean cutz fat blaster XXL" (not real names of products - but not much of a stretch either).

I remember thinking to myself, "All I need is to save up a little money, get the biggest tub of that Rhino protein, and I'll be the biggest baddest dude in high school".

Man was I wrong.

Years later, and literally thousands of wasted dollars flushed down the drain I came to realize that 99.99% of the crap sold in these stores is just that...crap.

There is no magic bullet when it comes to getting in shape. If it were as simple as popping the right pill, or choking down the right powder two or ten times a day, then everyone would be in great shape.

The sad reality is, most of the stuff on the shelves of these places is absolutely worthless. Because supplements are sold as 'supplements to your healthy diet' they don't HAVE to do anything. They bypass the FDA regulations as they are not promoted as Food or Drug.

Have a look at the fine print on any supplement advertisement or bottle, and you'll find a little blurb about "These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA blah blah blah..."

And just because they don't work, doesn't mean they won't also HARM you. I can think of countless times over the course of my career when supplements have been pulled from the shelves because they were found to be harmful AFTER they had been in wide spread use for a lengthy period of time. Most recently it has been fat loss products containing the potentially deadly ephedrine, and steroid like prohormones such as Androstendione and the toxic Methyl 1-Testosterone.

The latter is actually a full blown steroid that was being sold in supplement stores! They got away with this simply because it was so new to the market that it hadn't been scrutinized by the FDA and classified as such yet. Of course once the government caught on it was pulled immediately, but not before thousand upon thousands of teenage kids had gotten their hands on this extremely harmful steroid and caused some potentially irreversible damage.

Proper nutrition, and exercise is the ONLY way to get the body you want, and no amount of supplementation will even make a dent in your progress until you have this down.

Once you have your diet dialed in to at least 90% clean and your exercise program has progressed well and you have been steady and unwavering for at least the past 6 months, then there are a few supplements that can be helpful to give you that little extra boost.

Until then, spend your money on home exercise equipment and healthy food and a good trainer - that will get you light years further then an overpriced jug of Mammoth 2500.

Yours in health,

RD

Why starvation doesn't work

You CANNOT starve yourself, and ever hope to have a great, lean body, PERIOD.

It is simply impossible.

When you cut the amount of calories you eat, your metabolism (the rate at which your body burns fuel) slows to a crawl.

If you are able to sustain this starvation diet for an extended period of time, your body will start burning muscle tissue for fuel (not fat) because muscle uses up a lot of energy.

You will lose weight, but you will actually be getting FATTER proportionately because you won’t be losing any fat. And because you now have less muscle mass, your metabolism with drop even further.

And when the inevitable happens, and you slip up on your diet, or have a ‘cheat day’, your body is going to hold on to those extra calories and store everything as fat.

What essentially happens, is that your body is being starved, and so when it finally gets some calories, it thinks “we might not be getting any more of this for a while, so we’d better store it quick! And you wind-up packing on extra fat tissue (even if you weigh less).

Then you give up on the diet completely, and go pack to your normal eating habits, except now your body is set to ‘storage mode’ and everything you lost, comes right back, except this time its all fat, and not the precious muscle you lost.

And the cycle continues.

You diet – you lose muscle

You slip up on the diet – you gain fat

After every diet, you’ve lost some muscle, and gained more fat so you end up getting fatter, and fatter, and fatter.

Deprivation does not work.

Strength train to build muscle and boost your metabolism. Get cardiovascular exercise to help burn off even more calories. Eat sensibly, and get enough calories of the RIGHT foods.

It’s a simple as that.

Yours in health,

RD