Personal Trainers

[Eclipseguy]

Please mention his name so I can research his credentials. Its unusual for someone of his stature not to have any other credentials. Maybe he was originally a sociology major, but he could have undergone education and specialization in physical education, sports physiology or the like after he found out sociology wasn't for him.

 

Harvey S. Newton

 

He has an MA in sociology and went on to found the NCSA and also coached the US Weightlifting team, a team that (ironically), never fared well against the Russians, Greeks, and now the Chinese. He has no further formal education in physical education if you research his own bio. Experience got him where he is today.

 

In short, he's one of the pioneers of the most "respected" of all of the certification bodies in the NCSA (CSCS), but that's relative with respect to it's impressiveness, since again, the USA never fared well in most sports that have to do with strength.

 

So I'd take the knowledge or experience of an old Eastern-bloc coach any day over the raw foundation of a CSCS.

 

I'm not bashing the CSCS (or other lesser certifications), but I am definitely saying that it's only a very BASIC beginning for those who have no experience in science or dealing with athletes. If you have a degree in sciences or have dealt extensively with athletes or special populations and have produced dramatic results, nobody will pay attention to your credentials. I know plenty of people who are certified but cannot produce results and have given up in the realm of athletic training. I also know of several individuals, besides the ones listed above who are not certified by those commercial certification bodies who charge several hundred DOLLARS per hour, and have a waiting list. Even in Manila I know of several very good trainers who have dozens of clients and charge Php800-1200 per session or are hired as consultants and also are not certified.

 

I'd venture that Eddie Torres and Mon Dubuque of Zest Gym, one of the most respected gyms in the country are not certified or if one of them ever was, that certification has long expired (since you have to pay to renew it), yet they have dozens of records and have trained their share of athletes over the years in multiple sports. I know that Eddie was a shot-putter in the past and Mon was a weightlifter, so their experience came from being athletes and then extensive research and testing. That's the only way to truly learn what works. Even in my case, I experimented on myself for years in the gym, even before I met my first coach. Even to this day I gather data to refine my most tried and true programs. I keep that data secret as do all of the best strength coaches. Sports is a VERY competitive industry. For example, if I gave the Letran Coach Louie Alas my program(s), I'd be shooting myself in the foot and our team, JRU would have a much harder time keeping their strength and conditioning edge.

 

This is, and always will be, the reason that certifications are only a START, and often they are a "map" that can lead you down the road that can lead people to disappointment, or even career-ending injury since you didn't know where to place the theory into practical application. This is the same reason why doctors must attend many years of residency, especially if they are surgeons. One of the oldest jokes in medicine has to do with doctors out of medical school performing surgery...and this is exactly why they must observe for years before they are allowed to go near a beating heart or even a new pair of silicon implants. Then there's carpenter apprentices....electrician apprentices (2-year minimum), and on and on....

[Eclipseguy]

I'm not talking about a certification that you attended a seminar or a conference which is what they usually show here in the Philippines. A certification in a developed country is proof that you passed an exam that shows your competence. Credentials will still play a big part in any profession. A trainer who passed a course in physical education would still be more credible than one who just gained knowledge through experience. There is so much information and research in sports and physical development now that there is a need to make your competence known. For tennis teaching professionals for example, you will not be taken seriously in developed countries if you are not a certified teaching professional of a credible organization like the US Professional Tennis Association, Professional Tennis Registry or the International Tennis Federation. Even with aerobic instructors, they have there own highly respected certification organizations in developed countries. Unfortunately, here, there are not that many certified professionals in the physical fitness industry so the clients have to rely on word of mouth or other such recommendations which will not be as accurate as more objective, accurate and professional assessments and evaluations.

 

 

This is not true unless, MAYBE, you are trying to get a job with the IOC in Boulder, Colorado...but even then they'll require a Ph.D in Physiology or Human Kinetics. The certified guys without the science background or experience are allowed to stretch out the athletes or maybe setup the hurdles on the track.

 

Bill Starr and Louie Simmons, between the two of them, have probably consulted with literally EVERY professional and NCAA Division I team in the USA. Neither are certified, and I know for a fact that Louie Simmons charges thousands of dollars per day for his consulting fees for said teams. It's why he maintains a private gym and only allows maybe 50 people to see the inside of his gym, even though there are probably 10,000 people that would mob the place if he announced Westside Barbell club as open to the public. And he could charge $10,000 per month (at the very least) to the line of pro-athletes that would train there in the off-season.

 

Certifications are mainly so gyms setup and run by non-athletes have some sort of idea who to hire. If you present your certification to the DePaul or Michigan State athletic department, they'll pat you on the head and you'll work as an apprentice, and probably for free. I know since I did exactly that and there were CSCS's who had been there for a year who were still working for free to gain the experience required to secure a job on that team or another team with a position opening.

 

It's no different than paying $200,000 to go to Harvard Medical school and then getting paid $20,000 per year as a resident in an ER. That $20,000 will barely cover the interest on the student loans, let alone your most basic needs. So even though you're getting paid 1/10th of your medical school education (before taxes), you are still FAR below the poverty level. But that's the price of experience.

 

It's painful for most people to accept, but one way or another, you must pay your dues through time served to gain experience.

[Olympus]

Isn't harvey Newton the same guy who authored "Explosive Lifting for Sports"? One of the books we initially had apprentices read roughly a year ago?

[Olympus]

Here's the bio of Coach Harvey Newton

 

Harvey Newton opened his first issue of Strength & Health “a long time ago,” during the heyday of American weightlifting, and was immediately hooked on the world’s most powerful sport. From the beginning he has been a strong leader at all levels in weightlifting and strength training as an athlete, coach, administrator, and educator. Harvey competed in weightlifting for 17 years, achieving modest results as a local and regional lifter.

 

 

While competing and coaching at the University of Central Florida, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology, Coach Newton expanded his sphere of influence with sport-specific clinics and training camps for athletes and coaches of dozens of sports. Later, at the University of Colorado (Colorado Springs) Newton obtained his master’s in sociology, with an emphasis on coaches’ education.

 

Coach Newton’s first international coaching assignment came while he was still active as an athlete. Coaching weightlifting has taken him to all corners of the globe and culminated with his head coach position for the USA Olympic Weightlifting Team in 1984. He was USA Weightlifting’s first national coach (1981-84) and served as that group’s executive director (1982-88). Coach Newton is one of the original five US coaches to receive the coveted Senior International Coach status.

 

For the past 30 years Coach Newton has influenced countless individuals and teams with his knowledge of weightlifting and strength training. He has been the featured lecturer on several International Olympic Committee Solidarity courses and has consulted at all levels on athlete and coach education and development, in addition to organizing and conducting major athletic events. During the 1996, 2000, and 2004 Olympic Games, Harvey Newton was a key part of the NBC-Sports weightlifting team.

 

Coach Newton authored the popular Explosive Lifting for Sports book and DVD for Human Kinetics. Additionally he assists Dartfish, the leader in human motion analysis, on numerous projects, including his cooperative development of the DVD, Weightlifting: Beyond the Basics. His popular Strength Training for Cyclists videotape series has recently been updated and is now available as a DVD.

 

Coach Newton worked extensively with the late Ed Burke, PhD on several cycling educational publications and projects. He has co-authored or contributed to numerous books and publications on cycling. A Level 2 USA Cycling coach, Harvey was the strength training advisor to USA Cycling and continues to assist USAC in their efforts at educating athletes and coaches.

 

Newton is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching and the Annual Review of Golf Coaching.

 

Newton Sports was created in 1989 to assist those from all walks of life cut through much of the contradictory and sometimes confusing information on the topic of weightlifting and strength training. He’s a straight shooter, providing solid and easy-to-understand details on safe and proper resistance training methods. He is often quoted in popular media on a wide range of topics and has served as an expert in related legal cases.

 

Harvey Newton and Newton Sports are dedicated to helping others achieve success in the weightroom and in life. These days Coach Newton is found either in Ormond Beach, FL or on Maui, HI. He remains active with lifting, cycling, paddling surfskis, coaching, and writing.

[id6230]

WHAT A CLIENT AND A TRAINER SHOULD KNOW

By Ernesto P. Cruz, Jr.

ISSA-CFT

 

There has been a lot of debate recently about whether a personal trainer should or should not discuss nutrition with their clients. Liability issues in health clubs, lawsuits brought against personal trainers due to them prescribing nutrition and supplements, and heightened attempts of nutritionists and dietitians to protect their profession has caused personal trainers and their certifying agencies to re-evaluate their stand on nutrition.

 

Read more http://www.ironpinoy.com/fitness/fitfacts3.php

 

The trainer is the thinker; the client is the doer. However, the clients becomes doer and thinker too. The person who pays is the person in control.

[redax]

Thanks for the thorough information, Olympus. I guess you really couldn't say that Newton is just a socilogy major. Coaches and trainers in essence are also teachers and research shows the the most effective teachers are those who possess verbal ability, content knowledge, education coursework, certification and experience. It is fortunate now that there are all sorts of research information available through the internet especially here where there are not really that many books available regarding sports and physical conditioning. For the more fortunate who can buy books by ordering through the internet, that is a major advantage.

I've been reading up a lot on physical conditioning, speed and weight training and the like since 3 years ago a friend of mine requested me to handle the training of his son who is the top ranked junior in his sport here in the Philippines. I was a national coach way back in the late 80's until I decided to go back to school to switch carreers. Before I handled the kids training, I had to do a lot of research to be updated on developments in my sport. Being a certified teaching pro in my sport, I would have full confidence to train him in the sport, but when it comes to the off court aspect, I would still prefer to have specialists handle that training. Like professional athletes in individual sports, they have different specialists to handle their different training requirements. In my case, I was fortunate that the player, being an endorser of Adidas, had access to the Adidas camp where he underwent plyometrics training.

As I said, I've read up a lot on different kinds of training, and there is a lot of disagreement even among experts on certain types of methods. From what I've read, especially in my sport, plyometrics is recognized as a very effective way for muscles to reach maximum strength in a short time. Then again, I wouldn't recommend it for regular people. This training would definitely be for serious athletes only.

I am just curious though since from what you are stating, your gym trains all sorts of athletes, would you happen to have fitness ranges charts based on your own data? To clarify, I base my fitness range information based on data gathered by a US organization, so it would mostly be based on Americans. I wonder if you would have such data based on Filipinos. To be clear fitness ranges would be a chart that would specify whether the athlete is in the excellent, good, average or needs improvement on the specific skill being measured.

[Olympus]

Thanks for the thorough information, Olympus. I guess you really couldn't say that Newton is just a socilogy major. Coaches and trainers in essence are also teachers and research shows the the most effective teachers are those who possess verbal ability, content knowledge, education coursework, certification and experience. It is fortunate now that there are all sorts of research information available through the internet especially here where there are not really that many books available regarding sports and physical conditioning. For the more fortunate who can buy books by ordering through the internet, that is a major advantage.

I've been reading up a lot on physical conditioning, speed and weight training and the like since 3 years ago a friend of mine requested me to handle the training of his son who is the top ranked junior in his sport here in the Philippines. I was a national coach way back in the late 80's until I decided to go back to school to switch carreers. Before I handled the kids training, I had to do a lot of research to be updated on developments in my sport. Being a certified teaching pro in my sport, I would have full confidence to train him in the sport, but when it comes to the off court aspect, I would still prefer to have specialists handle that training. Like professional athletes in individual sports, they have different specialists to handle their different training requirements. In my case, I was fortunate that the player, being an endorser of Adidas, had access to the Adidas camp where he underwent plyometrics training.

As I said, I've read up a lot on different kinds of training, and there is a lot of disagreement even among experts on certain types of methods. From what I've read, especially in my sport, plyometrics is recognized as a very effective way for muscles to reach maximum strength in a short time. Then again, I wouldn't recommend it for regular people. This training would definitely be for serious athletes only.

I am just curious though since from what you are stating, your gym trains all sorts of athletes, would you happen to have fitness ranges charts based on your own data? To clarify, I base my fitness range information based on data gathered by a US organization, so it would mostly be based on Americans. I wonder if you would have such data based on Filipinos. To be clear fitness ranges would be a chart that would specify whether the athlete is in the excellent, good, average or needs improvement on the specific skill being measured.

 

Right now, we are working on a database of and a profiler meant for different individuals from the most sedentary to the elite level athlete. This would take a few more years to further improve as we will need more data to get significant data.

 

Right now, I'm personally working with the JRU basketball players, the MMA fighters and some average Joes.

 

In just 3 months since we opened in Shaw, I have seen extreme cases from a guy who could barely squat the bar to a guy who has never done squats in his life and managed to do 300 for reps, to a guy with a chronic back problem, which required months of strengthening his back. All of these cases I would not have managed to handle if not for my previous experiences with such cases or seeing a senior coach handle the case, something that certifications would not teach you.

 

Again, take note that we are not against certifications, we are just saying that having one would not make you a superior coach since it is but a startup.

 

Like one client of mine, who is a lawyer, said that once you pass the bar, its blank state once again and what would separate a great lawyer from the rest is the number of cases he has won.

[Eclipseguy]

Like professional athletes in individual sports, they have different specialists to handle their different training requirements. In my case, I was fortunate that the player, being an endorser of Adidas, had access to the Adidas camp where he underwent plyometrics training.

 

 

To be eligible for plyometric training, the athlete should be able to perform at least his bodyweight in snatch or power clean and be able to squat AT LEAST 1.5-2 times their bodyweight...as in FULL squat...not partial or half squat.

 

I have yet to meet a pro or amateur athlete outside of our facility, Zest, or a private club at UP that can has this kind of foundation. Even the UP club and Zest focuses primarily on powerlifters while we focus on basketball players and MMA practitioners. But even our teenage swimmers can squat twice their bodyweight and this foundation greatly improved their times.

 

The basketball players on the JRU team as well as my PBA players had nothing good to say about plyometrics. It didn't make them faster or jump higher. Squats and the Olympic lifts, on the other hand, did. They attempted plyometrics at the "leading" plyometrics facilities here, so I don't need to name names. In some cases, their teammates said it made them slower and a few suffered serious injury with plyometrics that required knee surgery.

 

So once again, you can chalk this up to inexperience, certification or no certification. I know how to teach plyometrics, but I have to talk everyone out of it since they are not ready. Once they can do the weights that are universally recognized as the bare minimum, then they can use plyometrics. Even then, plyometrics only adds maybe 2-5% and it's only to be used for 3 weeks at a time, and maybe 1-2 times per year as a shock method to break sticking points in the squat or Olympic lifts.

 

Olympic lifts are the key to sports and explosiveness. Plyometrics are just a tool to break sticking points, and not a means to an end themselves as they are touted to be. Plyometrics touted as the "holy grail" shows exactly how backwards is the level of understanding and experience, and certifications are not helping to lessen this.

[redax]

The junior player I was handling was training with PBA players and outperforming some of them. This guy was in the top 100 in the world in juniors last summer in his sport so we're not talking of a weekend athlete here. From what I read about plyometrics as long as you do so progressively, you'll be ok. I mean for sure you would not be doing depth jumps at the start, you would have to work your way up to it. There are a lot of plyometric exercises that are not as physically demanding. I mean jumps in place, standing jumps, multiple jumps and hops, and bounding after all are considered as plyometric exercises. When it comes to upper body training, the throwing of medicine balls is not that physically demanding or highly techinical at all.

Again, I stress, with todays technology, there is so much information floating about, you only have to seek it. Unfortunately, there also are disagreements or inconsistencies in said information. As a fitness trainer or coach, I guess you would have to determine what to follow. In my case, I would follow the research with its empirical data. Research and experimentation unfortunately takes resources which I don't think can be undertaken by anyone here in the Philippines. Most of the people into this research and experimentation of course are mostly experts in said field and not in the actual training process because what they do is make measurements to determine results. Measurements are very important in determining the effectiveness of a program. Evaluation of a method of training should be based on objective and specific data.

I believe that as long as your program is based on the best available information and data and you monitor progress through observable and measurable assessment tools, then you would be alright. If your system is defective, results will reveal this. Unfortunately for coaches, especially in high skill sports, getting the athlete to be speedier, stronger or more agile does not necessarily translate to sure success, because its only the winner who gets all the glory, the second placer and beyond would have to try harder the next time.

Olympus, your effort to set up a database for fitness range profile would probably be the first one in the Philippines. I believe that would be very helpful, especially for the junior athletes as I believe the size factor at this age level would make the American or European profile not that suitable to Filipinos.

[mark_pogi]

mahal din pala per session. :thumbsdownsmiley: :thumbsdownsmiley:

[micsp2002]

The rates for personal trainers in Fitness First are:

 

Single PT Session - 999

11 PT Sessions - 9000

30 PT Sessions - 21000

 

 

Magdala nalang kayo ng trainer with you to the gym para mas mura. pm nyo ko, may kakilala ako na dating trainer ng FF.

[Olympus]

The rates for personal trainers in Fitness First are:

 

Single PT Session - 999

11 PT Sessions - 9000

30 PT Sessions - 21000

 

Outrageous and overpriced rats, most of these trainers have not even produced results for their clients.

[id6230]

My opinion is only get a personal trainor if you have establishment a self effort establshed discipline with your health regiment.

[BEaST-RiPPed]

Anyone here knows the rate of personal trainers?

Gold's and fitness first etc.

I'm a little bit in need of motivators at tsaka tagabigay ng workout pla tAga sabi kung tama yun workout ko. thanks mtc

 

 

listen to eclipseguy, mr. bwalkin

he knows what he's talking about

ako hindi na kelangan ng PT at may injury pako (partida na yan ha) pero im getting good results

 

ang mahal naman pl magsearch nalng ako s net ng mga manuals hehehehe..........PEACE

 

asus! bkit kpa magpapaka duling kaka-search sa net when you can visit eclipse gym and see for urself if what EG is saying is just pure hearsay or fact

trust me kitzsen, di mo na kelangan ng PT (unless may naghihintay saung photo shoot at kelangan mging sexy papable luking ka inj ust 2 months) para gumanda itsura ng katawan mo

 

 

mahal din pala per session. :thumbsdownsmiley: :thumbsdownsmiley:

 

 

wag kna mag bayad para sa PT

sa eclipse khit hindi ka i-PT ul improve in less time sa akala mo

:thumbsupsmiley:

[raeminstrel]

dami gwapong trainers sa fitness first fort and rst. gawd