As a personal trainer, one of my responsibilities is to maintain a level of professionalism. Part of this is to keep my qualifications up to date, just like a doctor, solicitor or other professional would.
Therefore, I make sure I am always go to the very best educational courses.
This way I keep myself at the top of my game, both in business and for my own personal development. It’s nice being the go to guy that both trainers and clients come to when they need to know something to do with the body.
CHEK Practitioner
One thing I’ve been working on a lot recently is my CHEK LV 2 qualification.
The CHEK Institute was set up by Paul Chek, a holistic health practitioner and Neuromuscular Therapist.
Paul’s system is designed to treat the body as a system of systems, not only focusing on the physical but also the mental, emotional and spiritual (spiritual doesn’t mean religion, but more to do with your beliefs).
The practitioner LV 2 looks at the spine and it’s pathologies, and how you can correct them through corrective exercise and nutrition.
In order to start this course, however, you must first complete several other courses, such as Scientific Core Conditioning – a technical course teaching the in-depth muscles of the core (the abdominals).
Golf Performance Specialist
Another course I recently completed was the Golf Performance Specialist qualification.
As it probably sounds, this is a training course to help me work with individuals to improve their golf. The funny thing about the course is that you only need a basic level knowledge of golf to complete that part of the course.
Most of the course covers the biomechanics (life movement) and flexibility requirements that a golfer would need in order to swing a golf club effectively, and accurately, in order to get the ball in to that tiny hole.
Truly, golf is one of the most interesting bio mechanic sports out there.
Bio Mechanics
Bio mechanics is definitely one of my favourite subjects and something that requires a lot of skill when assessing clients.
It’s my firm belief that all trainers should always assess an individual’s bio mechanics – the minimum at the start of a training programme – so that both the individual and the fitness trainer understand exactly what exercises should and should not be performed.
Bio Mechanics in Real Life
Funnily enough, today I was out walking with a friend as a young girl jogged passed us.
I could clearly see she had several mechanical faults and my friend was amazed when I showed him what I was seeing in her: only after I had pointed out that her mechanics were mis-aligned – she had a bent shoulder and was over compensating – that he saw she was jogging rather awkwardly and looked like she probably would be in pain later.
How The World Works
I find it interesting how the universe works. Since I’ve been doing more studying regarding posture and bio mechanics, I’ve been getting a lot more individuals contact me with issues in this area.
Future Development
My next key course is going to be the Chek Practitioner LV 3 course.
This one is going to be tough: before you can even go on the course you have to have a case study passed by Paul himself. This should be interesting and I’m definitely going to have to find an interesting client for that one.
Fitness Fads
One of the things I see a lot is there are an increasing number of funky classes popping up and clients are always asking me if they are any good or not.
Cross-fit
Now, I have no love for certain classes and I make that quite clear. Cross-fit is one of them, but before you cross fitters come and hunt me down let me explain why. I actually have nothing against cross-fit or any other fitness class or fad.
My issue lies on the lack of personalisation that the classes require. There are many people out there training and doing exercises that I wouldn’t really class as being safe (for certain people).
Links with Fitness Education
Staying on the cross-fit theme this is where I tie in education for this discussion. I have always been educated to personalise everything I do to an individual.
Every single person I meet who has gone to cross-fit, tells me that ‘everyone does the same exercises and all the men use one weight and all the women use another weight – this means that all the men lift the same amount. The women get a different weight, but all will still lift that weight.
Well, that just seems nuts to me. Everyone has different strengths at different points and have specific areas that require more work.
Me & Fitness Classes
Now, I do teach group classes and I have actually gone up to participants and changed what they were doing that didn’t match the rest of the class, because that particular exercise wasn’t good for them.
This is my issue: one man’s cure could be another’s poison. Exercises must be specific to an individual. If you have 30 women all with the same upper cross syndrome, then you might just get away with giving them the same programme, but probably not.
This is one of the reasons I continue to update my knowledge: so that I can continue to help people heal and improve their bodies.
This means I also have the skills to help people correct weaknesses in their bodies that other trainers miss.
