Things I've Learned Today

Today, I learned two truths. The first is that I appear to be particularly out of touch with the 'kids', and more to the point, their choice of vocabulary; and the second is that camouflaged trousers earn you instant respect.

It all started as I walked to work this morning at the highly unsociable hour of 6:00am. As I approached Romford Train Station, two girls of about 16 or 17 stood in my path and said something to me with a twitch of the shoulder; something that I've grown to see as particularly 'Romford'.
"Pardon", I said, removing my headphones.
"Will ya buy us some fags mate?" the shorter and fatter one asked in her truly Essex manner.
"Erm, no".
"Why the fuck ain't ya gonna get us no fuckin' fags?".
At this point, I really wanted to get into depth about the triple negative that had been thrust in my direction, but I thought I'd let it slide.
"Because I don't advocate smoking", I told them.
"Don't fuckin' what?".
Oops. I'd used the word 'advocate', and now they were confused.
"What the fuck do ya mean?". The slightly taller one with braces and hoop earrings big enough to drive a bus through perked up.
"I mean that I don't think people should smoke, so I won't buy you cigarettes". I felt that was a reasonable enough explanation.
"You big fuckin' gay". Fatty was angry. "Bet he couldn't get 'em anyway innit", she exclaimed to her friend.
Ahhh. Reverse psychology. I'd seen this play before and wasn't going to be fooled.
Headphones were placed firmed back into my ears, I turned on my heels and head off for my train. I'm sure that if I didn't have noise cancelling I would have heard a torrent of abuse follow me, but fortunately, I do.

On to the trousers. It's Tuesday, and Tuesday morning means one thing, Boot Camp. Last week, the midges / mosquitoes played havoc, so this week I was prepared with what I considered highly apt official army camouflage combats and a black t-shirt which adorned "Chuck's Boot Camp *Trainer*" on the back in big white lettering. No little biters getting to my legs this week. When I arrived, everyone else came stocked up with "Jungle Juice" or something like that; it was a repellant, that much I knew. Anyway, I digress.

Maybe it was the outfit that made me look like I'd just stepped out of basic training, or maybe it was the matter-of-fact way that I marched through Liverpool Street Station, but I found that people seemed to spend all of their time moving out of my way or giving me a knowing nod as if to say "Well done mate". I didn't wish to burst anyone's bubble being as I've never actually been in the army, so I just plodded on down to Saint James' Park and let them believe, well, whatever they jolly well wanted.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only person who does Boot Camp training out of Saint James' Park, and even less fortunate than that is the fact that the other group, is the real military. That said, I don't think they mind too much, because when they went jogging past our training spot earlier, they all gave me the same knowing nod as well as a few "Alright mate" comments. Good old army.

Funnier though was a chap out running with his dog, who, as he ran past shouted "Go on mate. Totally destroy them. BEAST THEM". God knows what he'd had that morning, but it was strong, that's for sure.

In short, the army, or more to the point, their attire, totally kicks ass, where as chavvy Essex girls totally suck ass. Fact.

It's Not What You Know...

...it's who you know. It's one of the first sayings that I ever heard, but it stands as true today as it did back when I came across it. This weekend, it was made ever more apparent.

It all started on Saturday evening at a 'law BBQ' that I was attending. Now, as I went as a 'plus 1', a law BBQ for me involves being surrounded by lots of lawyers and not really understanding the majority of the things that come out of their mouths. That said, when the conversation came around to me and I explained that I was a Personal Trainer, all of the ears there perked up. It seems that in the past, pretty much all of the people there had used a Personal Trainer and subsequently they were major advocates of the profession.
"Finally" I thought, my time to shine. So, for the next 30 minutes or so, I filled a group with a load of information from my brain-box in order to show these lawyer types that us PTs know complicated things too.

After a while, one of the guests there informed me that she is a bit of a hot shot in her area too; and her area is sourcing ideas, script, guidelines and talent for various television networks. This is where the really interesting stuff starts.

It now appears that she's currently comissioning a show on "mind, body and spirit" for the BBC and thinks that I could be perfect as the Personal Trainer that works on the show. As far as I understood after a few glasses of champagne, it's a show not unlike some of the current "You are what you eat" etc type reality TV shows, but with professionals from various areas advising on 'cleaning up' your life, your mind, your spirit and you body; and it's in that last section that she believes that I could fit perfectly.

So now it's a fingers-crossed waiting game whilst I wait for a call with any more information, but from the sounds of things, this could be a very exciting step!

What A Load Of Pants

Cameras, phones, jewellery, locker keys, water bottles and even the occasional sock. They're all things that I consider pretty 'normal' to find lying around the gym, but yesterday I came across something a little more unusual.

Being as I'm highly dosed on Vitamin C tablets at the moment it means that I'm constantly running off to the toilet to relieve myself. Now, to get to the men's room you have to go all the way through the changing rooms, but the disabled toilet is huge and right on the gym floor, so most of the time I use that, purely for convenience; and also because I've never seen any disabled gym users whose valuable toilet time I would otherwise be stealing.
That in mind, I nipped in there yesterday, and what should be lying on the floor, but a white woman's thong. (I mean that the thong was white, not necessarily the woman). Had someone been up to something that a disabled toilet wasn't intended for, or is there some other reason that this bit of lingerie ended up there, I don't know. Suffice to say, I left it there. Who knows; maybe its owner would return for it, but if not, I'm sure the cleaner would dispose of it; or take it home. God knows what those cleaners are up to these days.

Officially My Shortest Day Ever

Ok, so some days being a Personal Trainer is awesome, and today was one of those days. Sure, I had to wake up at 5:45am in order to be in the gym for a client at 6:30am, but after an hour of training, that was it, done for the day. It was 8:10am, and I was back home and curled up in bed for a couple of hours snoozing before starting the day properly, again. It’s quite nice knowing that you’ve done all you need to do for the day before some people are even out of bed. I guess that’s how a farmer feels; except that I slaughter people, not sheep.

It was a good session to have first thing in the morning too. It was a new client, and as I always like to do, I started her off with a fitness test. I find that they’re really effective as they allow you ascertain a ‘standard’ for your client as well as highlighting their various strengths and weaknesses. Also, you can repeat the test after training them for a few weeks and see how they’ve progressed. It gives them something to aim for and it lets both of you see how much better they’ve got in different types of fitness; whether it be their strength, muscular endurance or cardiovascular potential.

I actually have five different tests that I like to do depending on the fitness level and the training environment. They’re Gym Beginner, Gym Intermediate, Gym Advanced, Gym Elite and Outdoor Boot Camp. As of yet, no-one has attempted Gym Elite, and considering it begins with a 4km row and ends with an 8km run, it’s obvious to see why.

I’m not going to give away all of my testing plans, but I’ll share Gym Intermediate with you now in case you want to try it for yourself and compare your time with everyone else. And if you’re interested, the current record to complete all nine exercises with no break in between is 14:09. Happy testing.

Exercise	Male Reps	Female Reps
Row	1km @ lv 10	800m @ lv 10
Dumbbell Bench Press	30 @ 15kg	20 @ 5kg
Burpee	20	15
Curl w/ Shoulder Press	20 @ 10kg	15 @ 5kg
Cycle	3km	2.5km
Box Dip	40	30
Split Box Jumps	30	25
Crunch	40	30
Run	2.5km	2km

Boot Camp - Fresh Air, Sunshine And Mosquitoes

Ow ow ow ow ow. If you were to look at my multitude of tiny red marks all over my arms and legs you’d think I’d been attacked by someone who wields a needle for a weapon and has a tendency to be a little ‘stabby’, when in fact I’ve just succumb to the main problem associated with outdoor training; mosquitoes. At this time of year, you can’t train in a park, or anywhere with trees for that matter without running into the little buggers. So this morning I was down in central London instructing my latest boot camp recruits, and suddenly, out of nowhere we were covered with mosquitoes… or midges… or maybe both; I have to admit I don’t really know the difference, but I do know that they like to bite. The thing is though, when you’re half way through an hour’s routine and your session is invaded by unwanted critters, what can you do? The answer it seems is nothing, but grit your teeth and bear it. You have to make a choice between good workout and an afternoon of scratching your ankles or cutting the effort short and not having to reach for the antiseptic cream; so, not being one to let a little thing like Mother Nature get in the way of exercise, we plugged on regardless.

Next week, I think I’m going to move everyone to an area with a few less trees and hopefully that will make it better. And maybe coat myself in mosquito repellent before training. And wear trousers instead of shorts. And a top with sleeves. And a hat. Actually, woah, stop there. I think I may have gone a little far with the hat. And the long sleeve top. And the trousers. You can’t spend all this time working out only to cover yourself up. I mean, what’s the point in that!

Wanted: Human Guinea Pig For Performance Drug Testing… Kind Of

As a Personal Trainer, people often ask me about training supplements; whether they’re any good and which ones would be best for their needs. Usually these questions stem from the newer gym users who want a body like the latest airbrushed models adorning the cover of Men’s Health or Zest magazines. The catch though is that they pretty much always want it without actually having to step into a gym and huff and puff in front of a group of intimidating strangers whilst they struggle to lift the unloaded bench press bar. But we all have to start somewhere right? Anyway, I digress.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve never really played around with any supplements outside of the occasional protein shake and a little bit of time spent using Creatine, so a lot of the time I have to ask someone else before passing off the information verbatim as if it’s materialised from my own brain; but I’ve now come to the decision that it should be something that I know about rather than relying on another person’s knowledge or simply recommending “Hydro-super-bulk-fat-loss-mega-cut-extreme” before scuttering away and hiding in the toilets.

After much deliberation, I figured that the best way to find out what these supplements really do is to take them myself and see what effect it has on my figure and my training. Don’t get me wrong here; I consider myself in pretty decent shape at the moment (current stats and pictures at the bottom of the post), and being a Personal Trainer, I know that my training regime and eating plan is excellent (though I’ve recently changed from fat-burning workouts to a more hypertrophy based training); but I’m also genuinely curious to know what all those products in GNC with the fancy names do. Who knows, one may have been created by some underappreciated genius and will grant us the body of our dreams without lifing a finger… maybe.

After asking around, and considering that I’d rather be lean and mean than big and bulky any day of the week (think Brad Pitt’s Mickey in Snatch over Daniel Craig’s Bond) I’ve decided to go for a combination of the following:

Hydroxycut – Fat-Loss Support Formula
Taurine – Essential Amino Acid
Vitamin C Tablets

So, what and why? Well, let’s begin with Hydroxycut. Hydroxycut claims to be the “#1 Selling Diet Brand in America” and “Supports weight loss, increases energy and boosts metabolism”. I’ve done a little research on it, and it seems that the general idea is that it raises your body temperature and subsequently your metabolism so that your body feeds on significantly more of your fat stores. At £42 for a months supply it’s not the cheapest supplement on the shelf, but far from the most expensive either.

Moving on to the next choice, Taurine (which I’ve actually been using for a few weeks now) is one of your essential amino acids which your body optimises the use of to store and convert protein for muscle building. Two months supply cost me just £2.50 when I picked it up in a Holland & Barrett’s sale. Bargain.

Finally, Vitamin C. The tub of 100 tablets states that you should take one tablet (1000mg) a day, but I’m actually starting with six tablets a day for the first week and will be moving up to eight, and then ten tablets daily over the next couple of weeks. The idea of taking that much Vitamin C is that it forces you to need to urinate a lot more, and if your intake doesn’t increase massively (I’m currently drinking four to six litres a day) then you start to remove a lot of the excess water from your body, giving yourself a significantly more ‘cut’ appearance. Professional body builders have tendencies to do this on the build-up to a show, so hopefully it’s going to do some good.

So, day one, and as I write I’ve just taken my second daily dose of Hydroxycut and Vitamin C and I have to say, already, it’s weird. I feel really hot, like I should be sweating all over the place, but I’m not actually sweating. It’s kind of like being in a sauna, but in reverse. I put it down to the Hydroxycut and I knew this would happen; that it would be a little uncomfortable, but this is just odd. I feel a little floaty and my hands are really moist, but I reckon that’s because my laptop is blasting out 5.2 billion degrees of heat.

Anyway, I don’t expect loads to happen over the first couple of days, but I’ve also been told by people that I could see very fast results, especially with my current training and eating regime. I guess time will tell. I’ll keep you up-to-date, but right now, I’m going to go and stand under the air conditioning. Lovely cold air!

Current Statistics

Height : 175cm (5'7")
Weight : 73.5kg (11.5st)
Body Fat : 10.80%
Chest : 101cm (40")
Waist : 81cm (31")
Arms : 34cm (13.4")
Thighs : 56cm (22")