As a personal trainer, I do not judge you one bit based on what your body looks like or what your fitness level is.
Whether you have “perfect abs” or you can’t do a single bicep curl, my focus is on helping you reach the goals that you set for yourself and on getting your waist size, waist-to-hip ratio, and body fat percentage into ranges that are generally accepted as healthy. I will push you at the hardest level that I think you can handle, and I will do my best to address any special challenges or old injuries that you have lurking (because everybody has some), whether you tell me about them or not.
As your trainer, I will do my very best to keep your training sessions positive and goal-focused.
Whether you took excellent care of yourself the last time I saw you or not, the only direction in which we can go is forward, so that is where I keep my focus. We might learn from the past or use it as data when it is helpful, but my goal is to help you improve during the time of that we have, which is today and now.
I don’t just think about fitness, nor do I expect you to.
Starting right from our consultation, I look at your life as a whole. I know that everyone has a busy schedule in their own way, and fitness should fit your life in a way that is comfortable, enjoyable, and sustainable for you. There is no one right answer for everyone. Sure, there may be a few changes or tweaks in order to get to your goals, but nothing crazy or overwhelming.
However, I am always working to improve.
When I’m not training you or reviewing your food tracking, I’m still working on things for you. I get a new certification every year to broaden or deepen my training knowledge. I research your issues and concerns using professional sources (not just Dr. Google), take courses, and try things out myself to help you get to your goals as quickly and easily as possible. I think I have valuable expertise in many areas, but I will never be done learning.
Our training sessions will not actually involve me screaming at you like you might have seen on TV.
If you are looking for someone to “kick your ass”, that might not be me. My workouts will, in fact, kick your ass, but you might not leave dripping in sweat and cursing your deity of choice each week. They will also help you fix your body’s alignment and overall musculoskeletal function so that you will stay injury-free, see changes as quickly as possible without early plateaus from poor form, and feel great in your everyday life.
Since I only train adults, I will hold you accountable as an adult for your choices and your actions – meaning that you will largely be accountable for holding yourself accountable. It’s not because I don’t care about you; I do care about you very much, and your long-term success depends on you choosing to step up and be your own best support. I am happy to be your second-best support.
I am dedicated to doing what is best for you.
I am not the kind of trainer who thinks that what has worked for me in the past is the best answer for everyone (especially since lots of things have worked for me in the past, and I use my body as a tool for fitness experiments all the time). I am focused on both your short-term and long-term goals and health. There are some shortcuts that I might offer to you, but there are lots of shortcuts I ignore because their long-term harm far outweighs any short-term good. For example, there are very few supplements, short-term eating plans, or emergency toning up plans that I ever recommend. The last thing I would ever want to do is set you up to be dependent on a supplement, gain rebound wait, or develop eating habits that will not serve you in the long run.
I want fitness to be enjoyable for you, and to make your life bigger. I don’t want healthy eating, activity, or any other aspect of self-care to be limiting. I can’t lie and tell you that you can eat indiscriminately, skip the gym 7 days a week, and still get results, but I don’t believe in busywork, either.
I have heard every excuse that you could possibly imagine.
You can still tell me yours, but if I am unimpressed it’s for your own good. The fact is, working out takes between three and five hours of your week, at most, and I am on your team to help you find that time. I also know that you will never regret investing in yourself. I know that my clients who get the fastest results are the ones who give me less than one excuse, roadblock, or “can’t” per month.
I get it.
As a personal trainer, I know a lot of crazy advanced stuff, but I never forget how it feels to be a beginner. I keep myself a beginner, too, by learning new disciplines, techniques, and tools all the time to make it easier and more fun for you to reach your goals. Since I began training full time, I’ve earned four additional certifications and I’m currently working on more.
I know that change is hard.
I know that old patterns are comfortable, even if they’re totally miserable and dysfunctional. Our brain rewards us for familiar dysfunction just the same as it would reward us for positive change. I know.
I know that you feel like life is going 100 mph and you can’t keep up, or that you’ve tried so many times in the past and all of those “failures” are being dragged along with you to your workouts.
But I also know that you can reach your goals and so much more. I have never had a single client who was incapable of reaching their goals within a reasonable timeframe. I have had clients who were afraid to succeed (openly or secretly), and clients who weren’t ready to make the changes to their lifestyles that they needed in order to reach their goals. But I’ve never had a single client who couldn’t.
