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The Personal Trainer Project Teaching PT's biomechanics & the art of coaching so they can get both themselves and their clients t

02/05/2022

πŸ”πŸŽ π’π„π‚πŽππƒ π€ππ€π“πŽπŒπ˜ - 𝐓𝐇𝐄 πŒπ€πˆπ π„π‹ππŽπ—ͺ π…π‹π„π—πŽπ‘π’

The Biceps get all the love but let’s have a look at the other two big hitters in all things elbow flexion.

26/04/2022

π‚π€πŒπ„π‘π€ π“πˆππ’

If you don’t watch yourself back and edit what you do, you will always remain an amateur.

It’s that important.

If you want to practice standing out on social media, get your copy of my free eBook through the link in my bio!

26/04/2022

πŸ”πŸŽ π’π„π‚πŽππƒ π€ππ€π“πŽπŒπ˜ - 𝐓𝐇𝐄 π‹π€πƒπ˜ 𝐁𝐄𝐓π—ͺ𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐓π—ͺ𝐎 πŒπ€π‰πŽπ‘π’

Check out this super easy way I learnt from to help you remember which muscles go where on the front of the humerus.

25/04/2022

πŸ”πŸŽ π’π„π‚πŽππƒ π€ππ€π“πŽπŒπ˜ - 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐒

Let’s take a closer look at the Delts and what they do.

Balloons all day.

20/04/2022

π‚π€πŒπ„π‘π€ π“πˆππ’

You can never, ever, ever, ever, ever exaggerate too much…

Maybe…sometimes…if it suits you.

Just remember, don’t be boring.

If you want to practice standing out on social media, get your copy of my free eBook through the link in my bio!

π—ͺ𝐇𝐀𝐓 πˆπ… ππˆπŽπŒπ„π‚π‡π€ππˆπ‚π’ π—ͺ𝐀𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐀𝐒 πˆππ“πˆπŒπˆπƒπ€π“πˆππ† 𝐀𝐒 πˆπ“ π’π„π„πŒπ’?⁣One of my pet peeves is educators vomiting half the pages of a ...
14/11/2021

π—ͺ𝐇𝐀𝐓 πˆπ… ππˆπŽπŒπ„π‚π‡π€ππˆπ‚π’ π—ͺ𝐀𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐀𝐒 πˆππ“πˆπŒπˆπƒπ€π“πˆππ† 𝐀𝐒 πˆπ“ π’π„π„πŒπ’?⁣

One of my pet peeves is educators vomiting half the pages of a technical dictionary onto the small silver screen of Instagram.

Sure, mechanics has to have some of its own wordage, but far too often we have people say something like vector when they really just mean direction.

In which case, they should just say direction because it’s a word we all understand, whereas vector sounds like it was something concocted by some kind of Elon Musk figure in an attempt to obfuscate the point (see we can all use fancy words).

And look, even if you do know what the word vector means, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world or your audience does. And so, if I was to ask you to describe the concept simply, could you? If you can’t, that’s a problem if you call yourself an educator or communicator.

One of my favourite ways to try to communicate something seemingly complex is to find an every day example of it in action. That’s how we make sense of things we don’t yet understand.

Now, unless you happen to have had the worst childhood since Joseph Fritzel became a grandparent, I’m hoping you’ve been on a see-saw.

At the heart of it, all the terminology and the concepts of leverage and torque aren’t much more complex than understanding a see-saw.

On a see-saw, lighter things can overcome heavier things by simply being further away from the pivot point.

If you can staple that concept to the forefront of your mind, you’ll go a long way to grasping the foundations of exercise mechanics.

11/11/2021

π—₯π—˜π— π—˜π— π—•π—₯π—”π—‘π—–π—˜ 𝗗𝗔𝗬

History is a great teacher of gratitude. You can’t be grateful for what you have unless you know what could otherwise have been.

Were any of us born just 100 years ago, our lives could have been so very different.

The 1st World War is a horrific monument to humanity. Not because humans hadn’t killed each other in droves before, but because, for the first time, our technological capacity for slaughter exceeded our wildest dreams.

The Great War provided us with an almost unending number of examples of both the glory and the horror of which humanity is capable.

All great drama has both tragedy and triumph in it, and War is arguably the greatest drama of them all.

So, if you’ve never read Ernst Junger’s Storm Of Steel, please read it.

If you’ve never listened to Dan Carlin’s podcast series - A Blueprint For Armageddon, please listen to it.

If you’ve never heard the wonderful poetry of Wilfred Owen, please hear it.

I love both history and words, and so I wanted to share my favourite poem of the 1st World War as my own mark of remembrance.

Lest we forget.

10/11/2021

𝗬𝗒𝗨 π—¦π—›π—’π—¨π—Ÿπ——π—‘β€™π—§ π—•π—˜ 𝗙π—₯π—œπ—˜π—‘π——π—¦ π—ͺπ—œπ—§π—› 𝗬𝗒𝗨π—₯ π—–π—Ÿπ—œπ—˜π—‘π—§π—¦β€¦

Is one of the few fitness industry sentiments uttered that I utterly abhor.

It’s just plain wrong. Flat wrong. Wronger than a square wheel on a canoe falling through the sky in space.

This video is actually taken from last year (hence the long hair) and features the daughter of my wonderful client deciding that I needed a bucket of leaves over my head.

Now, if you never become friends with your clients, you will never get a bucket of foliage poured over your head from their offspring. Or at least, it’s a lot less likely.

But do you think the above is a bad thing? Do the laughs and smiles in this video seem like a bad thing? For either myself or my client?

Is laughing and enjoying time with the people you coach antithetical to professionalism?

It might be for those who coach from a platform of fear or insecurity.

But for the rest of you, please know that it’s entirely possible for your clients to laugh and joke with you without undermining their respect for your professional opinions.

Be friends with your clients. It’s good for you. Tell them jokes, listen to their stories, play with their kids (if they don’t have kids, adopt some for them and tell them it’s legally binding).

If you think coaching is more about spreadsheets than people, you’ve got your job ass backwards.

π—ͺ𝗒π—₯π—ž-π—₯π—˜π—¦π—§-π—£π—Ÿπ—”π—¬-𝗣π—₯𝗔𝗬Balance, much like health, is a topic that almost everyone speaks about. A topic written on by folks ...
06/11/2021

π—ͺ𝗒π—₯π—ž-π—₯π—˜π—¦π—§-π—£π—Ÿπ—”π—¬-𝗣π—₯𝗔𝗬

Balance, much like health, is a topic that almost everyone speaks about. A topic written on by folks as far apart as Mother Teresa and Ellen DeGeneres.

But almost none of them give any detail. And that’s a problem because plans without details aren’t really plans at all.

β€œWe should catch up soon”, is a phrase you utter to people you have precisely zero plans to catch up with. Sure, it sounds like a plan, but it isn’t.

No, a plan sounds like this, it has specifics:

β€œWe shall catch up tomorrow morning at 8am in the east wing of my uncle’s castle. I shall be wearing red and making the sign of the cross.”

So, in the name of providing something a little more specific, here we have another of Dan John’s gems.

Before any of you atheistic people start freaking out about the word pray, just insert the idea of spending time with beauty and solitude, and you’ll be fine. That phrase doesn’t really roll off the tongue though so I’ve stuck with pray.

A couple of quick notes on balance:

1️⃣ When it’s going well, we tend to forget about it. We’re only really reminded of its importance when we fall over. Increasing our awareness doesn’t stop us falling every now and then but it may stop us smashing our face off the coffee table when we do.

2️⃣ Balance at one point in life is not necessarily balance at another. Walking involves reacting to external changes. If we want to maintain our balance as we cross hilly terrain, we must continually adjust ourselves. If we don’t, we fall over. The same concept is true of life. Only this time, both the environment and the destination can, and should, change as we go through it. As Muhammad Ali famously said:

β€œThe man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

ππ„π‘πƒπ†π€π’πŒ π“πˆπŒπ„A PT is someone who applies forces to anatomy. Your job is, therefore, to understand both of those things.H...
01/11/2021

ππ„π‘πƒπ†π€π’πŒ π“πˆπŒπ„

A PT is someone who applies forces to anatomy. Your job is, therefore, to understand both of those things.

How can I know what I’m doing to my client, if I have no idea what forces are involved? Am I not then doing something akin to advanced Zumba? In other words, teaching choreography. I move that here, there and wherever, not because I’ve a detailed understanding of what’s happening but because I followed the steps of someone I felt knew more than me.

A professional wants to be more than that. A professional needs to be more than that.

Machine analysis is a skill an exercise professional needs to develop if they wish to master their craft. Every machine is different, just like every client is different. A leg extension is the same as another leg extension is true in the same way that a human being is the same as another human being. They fit under the same umbrella, and there are certainly many similarities between them, but you must remember that Shaq is a human being in the same way Peter Dinklage is too. Things can be similar and yet very different.

Understanding what the machine in question presents for you and your client requires understanding.
So, let’s get to work. This one’s for you slightly more advanced folks, or for those who wish to be.

The key to understanding this is understanding the concept of an equilibrium of Torques.
There is a force at a certain distance on one side of an axis that is being fought by a force at a certain distance on the other side (in the sense that they are rotating in different directions).

It doesn’t matter how many axes a machine has, the process of discovering what w’re dealing with at each one is the same, it’s just moved sequentially along from axis one to axis two to axis three and so on.

This skill takes time to develop, but if you can, you’ll get to see inside the matrix. You’ll understand what forces you’re exposing your client to, and whether or not you think that’s appropriate for them.

If you want to learn how to go about doing this type of thing, check out the mechanics section of our education portal or get in touch for 1:1 mentoring, as I have space for 2 people.

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