Marty Gallagher
Ultimately, professional success in the personal training business is determined by the ability of the professional trainer to obtain tangible results for all types and kinds of paying clients and do so on a consistent and ongoing basis. When an individual goes to the time, trouble, and expense seeking and engaging the services of the personal trainer, they do so because they are profoundly dissatisfied with shape, configuration, and condition of their current physique. They are seeking professional help and are expecting to see measurable, visible, results in return for fairly and adequately compensating the personal trainer.
Ultimately, the cost-to-value ratio needs to balance, i.e., fair compensation for dramatic results. Clients do not pay money to stay the same. Clients do not pay money to reap minor, barely noticeable changes. Clients seek something quite profound: a radical physical transformation. They expect the personal trainer they have selected to have the requisite knowledge to engineer the sought-after transformation. How do you define such a dramatic transformation?
Some might quibble that these two goals, increased mass, decreased body fat, are identical to the goals of bodybuilding. The strength trainer seeks to improve athletic performance while bodybuilding is divorced from performance. On the day of the bodybuilding competition, the competitor looks his best and he is at his weakest. Drained, starved, and depleted, a Mr. Olympia competitor on contest day could not sprint 100 yards without toppling over.
Strength training differs from bodybuilding. Strength training amplifies athletic abilities. The athlete must 102% on the day of the athletic undertaking. To create muscle and mobilize and oxidize body fat, the athlete combines four modes, four interrelated disciplines: resistance training, cardiovascular training, nutrition, and Brain-Train (the psychological aspects of “the transformational process.”)
These four disciplines combine and blend to trigger the sought-after physical transformation: A sophisticated periodized template includes innumerable categories, not limited to resistance training. By way of example, here is a periodized template combining resistance training, aerobic training (AKA “sustained strength” training) and nutritional-driven body composition goals.
Periodized Checklist
Establish Goals
Set realistic physique and performance goals
Establish Timeline
8-10-12-16 weeks? Select one; the classic “cycle” length is 12 weeks
Periodize Bodyweight
We do not train for 12 weeks, three months, to stay the same
Periodize Four Lifts
Core4 - squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press
Periodize Techniques
Signature techniques are taught and used - an example is outlined above.
Periodize Tactics
Every four weeks institute changes in anticipation of stagnation - an example is outlined above.
Frequency
This is a flexible variable depending on life circumstances
Duration
This depends on strength, 30-60 minutes total
Recovery
Power nutrition, deep sleep, and stress-free living accelerate recovery
To learn more about the Core4 lifts and how to set up periodization planning for both lifting and cardio check out the posts below.
Remote Coaching - Tactical Tips
- 1The most difficult of all metabolic feats is reducing body fat while simultaneously adding lean muscle mass. At the end of a 12 week cycle, if you have lost 12 pounds, according to the scale, you will have lost 17 of body fat and added back five pounds of muscle. Muscle is added by attaining periodized weekly resistance goals and keeping protein intake high. Fat is burned by combining daily cardiovascular training with disciplined, consistent, nutrient-dense eating.
- 2There can be no fat burning without attentive nutrition. For the first 4-6 weeks, results, weekly reductions in bodyweight, can be accomplished by “switching out” empty calories for nutrient-dense foods. Deeper into the process food volume, meal timing, and food selections, will have to be tightened up. Protein intake is high, starch carbs are reduced, sugar foods and refined carbs, eliminated. The quality of nutrients is stressed; organic proteins and produce, equates to potency.
- 3Every Friday morning the official weigh-in, the periodized “bodyweight for the week” occurs. If the hypothetical goal is to lose 12 pounds in 12 weeks, a pound a week reduction is required. Cut calories too quickly and slam the brakes on the metabolism. Starved, the body eats muscle tissue to preserve body fat. A pound a week is easy for the first four weeks and creates metabolic momentum heading into the final eight weeks. Cardio is critical for amping up the metabolism. The secret to fat loss is tight dieting + cardio.
- 4The four lifts are done in this order: overhead press, squat, bench press and deadlift. If they have any time and energy left, we recommend power cleans and arm training, biceps and triceps, 2-3 sets are all that is needed to reach a top-set poundage. Super-set arms and hit 2-4 sets (4-8 total) in 10-15 minutes. Or not. If pushed for time or exhausted, let the power cleans and arms go. Arms are optional, squats, benches, deadlifts, and overhead presses are the meat and potatoes.
- 5Institutionalized yet intuitive: every week the periodized athlete know what is expected in the four-lift training session: sets, reps, iteration selected, whatever technique selected that is selected, the top set is recorded. Each week, mini-goals are attained. Inflight corrections are made. No cycle ever goes 100% as planned. Small weekly increases compound over the three-month life of a cycle. The caveat is that nothing less than complete adherence will accomplish this most difficult of feats: add muscle, melt fat.
Phone Video - the next best thing to being there
Coaching is based on visual impressions. The Iron Coach has technical benchmarks, ideal techniques crafted by time and empiricism, benchmarks against which he judges and adjusts the efforts of others. The modern phone provides an opportunity to provide the coach exactly the visual impressions needed to form an opinion and make appropriate coaching suggestions. Techniques can be overtly and subtly modified to improve performance and mold the physique.
A remote coach can sit 1,000 miles away and make subtle, progress-stimulating technical adjustments based on the videos provided of the athlete performing their “top sets” in the critical exercises. There is no substitute for seeing a set done: a “successful” set of five reps with 205-pounds for a new personal record sounds good over the phone and looks good on paper – but how did it appear in real time??
Were all five reps done crisply and explosively? Were the reps technically done correctly and consistently? Did the technique break down on the later reps? Is the forward knee travel excessive on the squat? Did the shoulders get ahead of the knees on the squat or deadlift? Is there a discernible “arc” in the bench press rep stroke? Does the lifter’s stance width or hand spacing on the barbell need adjusting?
The answers to these critical questions are only answerable if you can view the lift. A proper top set video is, for the elite Iron Coach, the next best thing to being there.
For more information on physical transformation check out some of our recent posts.
Learn more about our philosophies check out our site Functional Strength. Interested in remote coaching click the button below for a FREE Coaching Consultation. Please feel free to send us a question here or leave a comment below.
Frustrated? Not Getting Results?
Need An Expert?
