Straight Shot Radio

Personal training is an alluring career for people passionate about fitness and health, and for very good reasons. It’s rewarding, challenging, always changing, fast paced, competitive, and puts you on the front lines of the battle against many preventable diseases and musculoskeletal dysfunctions. But it’s not as easy as walking into a gym and starting to train people. In fact, I teach courses at a local college just to help prepare potential trainers get a chance to break into the world of training. Whether or not you plan on working in this industry, the information my guest Rebecca Reifsnider and I share with you in this episode will help give you some insight as to what it takes to become a trainer, and how to be a successful one once you’ve gotten into this field.

I took questions from members at the Frederick YMCA and cover how to maintain total fitness while pursuing specific goals, whether or not you should buy organic, when and why to take vitamins and supplements, what to do when you hit a weight loss plateau, whether or not you need protein powder, where you can get your protein from besides chicken breasts, and why a certain gym staple needs to go.

I took questions from members at the Frederick YMCA and cover how to maintain total fitness while pursuing specific goals, whether or not you should buy organic, when and why to take vitamins and supplements, what to do when you hit a weight loss plateau, whether or not you need protein powder, where you can get your protein from besides chicken breasts, and why a certain gym staple needs to go.

I took questions from members at the Frederick YMCA and cover how to maintain total fitness while pursuing specific goals, whether or not you should buy organic, when and why to take vitamins and supplements, what to do when you hit a weight loss plateau, whether or not you need protein powder, where you can get your protein from besides chicken breasts, and why a certain gym staple needs to go.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, NASM CPT John Taylor and I write love letters to our favorite lifts: the Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, and Strict Press (overhead press). As a coach, I’m a big fan of variance in my programming of exercises. But these 4 movements are the foundation of my programming and show up every week in one form or another in my programming. Of course ALL of the other movements we do are important and are pivotal in creating truly balanced functional athletes, but these 4 lifts are the base for a host of reasons that we get into.

Things also get weird on some of the letters...especially with the musical accompaniments.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, NASM CPT John Taylor and I write love letters to our favorite lifts: the Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, and Strict Press (overhead press). As a coach, I’m a big fan of variance in my programming of exercises. But these 4 movements are the foundation of my programming and show up every week in one form or another in my programming. Of course ALL of the other movements we do are important and are pivotal in creating truly balanced functional athletes, but these 4 lifts are the base for a host of reasons that we get into.

Things also get weird on some of the letters...especially with the musical accompaniments.

You know how your workouts suffer on days when you don’t sleep well, and how it’s much easier it is to recover when you DO sleep well. Electrical muscular stimulation, compression, soft tissue work, cupping, and ice baths might be pieces of the recovery puzzle, but none can compete with sleep as the most beneficial recovery technique, along with nutrition and hydration. This is where sleep hygiene comes in. Sleep hygiene is the habits and practices that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis. In this episode , I discuss the best ways to insure a great night of sleep so you can recover from your workouts well, increase your productivity throughout the day, and improve your overall health.

You know how your workouts suffer on days when you don’t sleep well, and how it’s much easier it is to recover when you DO sleep well. Electrical muscular stimulation, compression, soft tissue work, cupping, and ice baths might be pieces of the recovery puzzle, but none can compete with sleep as the most beneficial recovery technique, along with nutrition and hydration. This is where sleep hygiene comes in. Sleep hygiene is the habits and practices that are conducive to sleeping well on a regular basis. In this episode , I discuss the best ways to insure a great night of sleep so you can recover from your workouts well, increase your productivity throughout the day, and improve your overall health.

Look around your gym and you’ll see signs that say “rack your weights” or “no cell phones”, but the gym etiquette list is a lot longer and more nuanced than that. For example, when is it ok to ask to share a squat rack with someone? Or when is it appropriate to drop your weights? In this episode I get together with a few of the personal trainers from the Frederick YMCA and we cover a wide range of gym etiquette topics, including the “why” “when” and “how” of grunting, and the importance of being on time for personal training sessions. The crew at the Y is always a blast to be around, and we definitely have fun with this one!

Look around your gym and you’ll see signs that say “rack your weights” or “no cell phones”, but the gym etiquette list is a lot longer and more nuanced than that. For example, when is it ok to ask to share a squat rack with someone? Or when is it appropriate to drop your weights? In this episode I get together with a few of the personal trainers from the Frederick YMCA and we cover a wide range of gym etiquette topics, including the “why” “when” and “how” of grunting, and the importance of being on time for personal training sessions. The crew at the Y is always a blast to be around, and we definitely have fun with this one!