Primer.

My first Killsession blog. Welcome gentle viewers, to the land of pontification and, most likely, bewilderment. I can't always guarantee the spelling or grammar, but I should be able to impart wisdom beyond the likes of which you're likely to find this side of a Buddhist temple! In my humble opinion of course (to be clear, that was a joke). The aim of this blog is to get the latest information out there, my opinions, my agenda, whatever you want to call it, to my clients, and anyone who chooses to "listen".

A lot of exercise knowledge currently circulating, with trainers and trainees alike, is a hosh posh mix of body building from 20+ years ago, government subsidised "bare minimum training" ("30 mins a day, doesn't matter what kind of exercise it is), and a number of Internet guru's (er, I'm not one of them?) trying to make a quick buck. The information I will be presenting to you in this blog, will be referenced (most of the time), verifiable (if you choose to not take my word for it) and the most up to date available. I will be drawing upon the smartest and most hard working strength coaches, dietitians and exercise rehab specialists and journals in the world! So when I say what I say, it is not my personal opinion, but demonstrable fact (well as close as we can come to facts, in this world), garnered from people who have up to 30+ years of training clients and athletes "in the trenches" so to speak and scientists backed by peer-review.

This leads me to one of the hugest frustrations a personal trainer can have, and that  is misinformation. To say there is a tonne of it out there, is an insult to understatements, my advice? Forget all you've read, all you've heard about, chances are if you know about it (not being a professional in the field after all),  your information is out of date, useless and/or just plain wrong. When I, as your trainer, someone you're paying for advice gives you a program, diet etc, it is absolutely within your rights to; ignore it, ask for another trainer or just plain not do it. But you need to ask yourself then, "why am I paying this person for a service I don't support?". Would you go to a mechanic and tell them "yup I heard on the news that carburetters cause this problem, so fix that for me", would you go to the doctor and say "I think I have hepatic encephalopathy"? No, you go to people with specific skill sets, generally with a rough idea of a problem and pay them, using their specific, trained skills, and differ to their judgement I might add, to solve your problem for you. Having said that though, I'm open to dissent, to discussion, and most importantly, to accomdation. Tell me what you need, tell me how I can help, and I'll make the pieces fit. But many personal training clients don't do this, many go on what they've read somewhere, some article, something a friend told them, these things always seem to supersede what I, as a qualified, experienced trainer, am trying to impart. Now this isn't all clients, and to those clients who follow what is handed them to the letter, get results, 100% guaranteed, I've seen it time and time again. The clients who "um" and "ahh" about it? Get nowhere, and I mean it, nowhere, and spend a lot of money doing it! As a disclaimer, and perhaps as a bit of introspection, maybe it's me who is the failure in regards to my clients ignoring my advice, I'd accept that burden, as they're my client I have to make them listen, perhaps that's a common element to working with humans, maybe that's not excuse, all I can say is I try to reach everyone.

So what do I positively stand for? What claims am I making that set me apart from other trainers? Well, I'm against distance running/walking (for the most part), almost any long slow steady cardio, bodypart splits (training your chest for like an hour), isolation movements (I'm talking flyes, tricep pushdowns, front/lateral raises etc), machines (almost anything except crossover cables) and classes.  Allow me to explain, these things are the perfect representation of training 20 years ago. I tend to favour, over these principles, generally, interval training, full body training (complexes, circuits and alternating set system). In terms of diet I prefer low carb/high protein/moderate healthy fats, and yes I will have a blog about all of this, just covering the basics so you see what I'm about. And in future blogs where I specify the details on all this I will go into the times I vary from these principles.

So you get what I'm about and what I believe, I'm more than happy to provide evidence (with myself, clients and scientific resources) for anything you might want to question me on. I understand I may sound, somewhat caustic, but keep in my mind, I am! Joking.  I spend a lot of time trying to reach people, trying to convince them of the knowledge that is out there and generally to drop what they love in favour of what is currently known by scientific research, I fully accept it as a failing on my part if a client doesn't pick up what I'm putting down. But I believe it to be all about education, about debunking the mainstream crap and really finding out what they cutting edge guys are doing. There is a large psychological component to training, and I admit, particularly in the case of women, this is where I fail and I think you'll be able to see this as the entries pile up on this blog. Men are easy, tell them to lift something they lift it, we don't need a reason, whereas women tend to come from an emotionally motivated place, their training is as much a relaxation thing as a physical benefit thing. For example, I was explaining the negative aspects of running to a client this morning and I think I ended it on something like (referring to women in general) "keep running if you wanna stay fat", I prefer hard terms to dancing around issues, in general. But to defend my position, I believe people need dramatic examples to push them out of what they're comfortable with and sometimes a little offense shocks people enough where they are offended at the time but go away and think about it. If you can reach one eh? Like I said, every person, every single one, who has adopted the principles I have pushed, have had results, so as much as I may sound like an arrogant ass, the proof is in the pudding.

Well I can go all day on this, but to get the ball rolling I'll move on to another topic, again, welcome and please, don't leave just cause I'm a jerk. . I'm just passionate, really!