Investment against Return

So to keep my own strength training going and to give me another environment to exercise in away from the studio I have joined a commercial gym not far from where I live. It is a very stylish health club with fantastic facilities and a multitude of equipment that suits the way I train. It’s been three months since I was last in a commercial gym and in saying that it was our old commercial gym in Glasgow.

When working as a fitness advisor you are exposed to many people and personalities, your normal daily routine will revolve around gym maintenance (i.e. cleaning) member interaction, design and delivery of member’s programmes and teaching classes if you are lucky. Our gym used to be laid out in a upstairs downstairs fashion and during my shifts at peak times I would watch over the members as they trained and look for someone to help, assist, train or coach. I used to categorise the gym users when I was a fitness advisor, the categories went like this firstly there were the gym idiots usually these were middle aged men who along with abundance of arrogance also knew more than the professionals around them they would month after month carry out the same routine aggressively attacking each exercise with horrendous technique while refusing to be coached or advised. Once approached usually due to the fact that they were in danger of causing themselves injury we would be told that “ I have been doing this for years and what do you know about it anyway” these morons are the ones who cannot be helped and will forever follow a non productive exercise routine all the time questioning why they are not getting their desired results.

Then we had the H.A.Ts these people would know what to do and how to do it correctly but they would only do half the technique so I named them the H.A.Ts Half A Technique. It was first frustrating then in the later years when I was self employed I found it funny some of these people had been doing the same routine for the last three years yet again good luck. Thirdly there were the random exercisers these people would randomly do exercises never following a set programme or routine just doing as they felt or what they saw other people doing usually with technical failure. Lastly I would experience the routine exercisers these people would follow a 6-8 week progressive programme ask questions while concentrating on the technical aspects of the movements they were training. They would get the results that they were aiming to achieve and were always a joy to teach, coach or train.

With exception of the gym idiots and please don’t think I am being harsh with that term downright abusive is too weak a term to describe the actions of these people. All the other categories could improve in some way by taking the time to listen or enlisting professional help.

With January coming up and this being the busiest time of year for gyms and personal trainers many people will make New Year’s resolutions and join a gym. After a few weeks some will give up and the others will plod on doing the random stuff they remember from their induction or exercises that they have taken from a magazine. Commercial gyms make their money from clients who sign up for a 12 month contract and then fail to go back, there is a huge percentage of people who this will effect and due to the fact that they don’t want to have a black mark on their credit rating will honour the contract. A 12 month contract will cost from anything between £300 and £600 and yes the client is provided with many services and facilities from the gym and the basic tools to achieve their fitness goals but by my experience this very rarely happens.

Let’s do the sums of course I am speaking hypothetically 3 x 1 hour gym sessions per week, 3 hours travelling time per week over 48 weeks of the year, gym clothes, trainers, petrol, juice, food money and of course the gym fees, so all in all time = around 250hrs (that’s 10.5 full days) with a financial investment of anything around £1500 - £2000. If we look at this from a business perspective all that money time and effort for a minimum return it’s not good. Yes there are exceptions to every situation and some individuals will get a return on their investment however as I am speaking from experience and from what I have witnessed those exceptions are few and far between. I know of many people who have been doing this year in year out and it’s a massive investment with little or no return for their hard earned cash time and sweaty effort while exercising.

My advice would be to take £300 and invest it in a reputable trainer try and find one with their own studio (then you won’t have to pay gym fees) and spend the 10 weeks of training you have bought learning from a professional if you pick the right one you should be able to see visible results in every area I average around a weight loss of 10-14lbs in a 10 week block while improving all components of fitness i.e. strength, speed, stamina, endurance, power, balance and co-ordination at the same time my clients will be taught about the essential components of healthy living and how to make the correct choices with food and nutrition. They will all have a good knowledge of how to warm up, cool down and recover and of what types of exercises should be done, why you should do them and how to carry them out with fluency grace and correct technical ability. They will also have experienced at some level specialised training whether it be kettlebell, suspension training or boxing training for fitness. Then after gaining the tools needed to succeed in their training and after securing the basic knowledge to take their own training further go and join a gym. At least by that time they would have a better understanding of what they should be doing and how to do it.

So the next time you hear of a friend, family member, colleague or loved one talk about how they are going to join a gym, get fitter and healthy please take this blog into consideration get them to read it, pass them my contact details and direct them onto the website.

“The decisions that you make today are the changes that you implement tomorrow”

As always

Yours in fitness

Davie

DMc Fighting Fit Training Systems Has a New Home

Over the last few months the business has been going through a huge transition and now that everything is complete, the new studio is up and running and I am very proud to tell you that the business is thriving and I have many new clients inducted into the team all of whom are excelling in their training and adapting nicely to their chosen change in lifestyle.

So for those of you who don’t know, in July the commercial health club I firstly started my career in and lastly ran my business from was closed this was a very sad time for me as over the last three years I had progressed from being a part time still in college inexperienced fitness advisor to learning my craft as an advisor then securing the right to personally train members and lastly growing a client base and launching my business fully self employed. It was such an amazing place to work in and had a very strong team of highly professional young people I will never forget that health club or the team, those fond memories will stay with me forever.

The new studio is fantastic after spending weeks renovating it the facility now has everything the team and I need to achieve our goals while having fun and working hard. The location is fantastic; we are situated right in the centre of the city a stone’s throw from central station on the corner of Gordon St and Union St. On a good day the natural light from outside shines throughout the studio giving it tremendous warmth and the view is fascinating.
We have worked hard to ensure that the studio is well presented clean and tidy and I am positive we have all the equipment needed to provide a specialist personal training experience these being

1000sq ft fully matted and mirrored private training area

Private changing rooms and full showering facilities

Iron, ironing board and hair dryer

16sq ft elevated boxing ring

Boxing and kickboxing hanging bags

Boxing gloves for male and female

Full range of cast iron and competition kettlebells

TRX suspension training equipment

Pull up and chin up bars

145kgs Olympic barbell & dumbbell kit

Bosu, Swiss ball and stepper

Foam roller for SMR and muscle recovery

2009 has been a year of who knows and what ifs, the last part has made it all worthwhile.

Thank you to all the amazing people around me who have helped me make this happen especially my good friend, trainer and business partner Gary O’Brien and all his boys who grafted away for us during the renovation phase and of course my beautiful partner Julie who has stood by me all the way, without you two guys none of this would have been possible and I will be forever grateful.

Well done to Elsa Kerr who has had an amazing year and I am proud to write was selected to be in the last eight contestants for betting shop manager of the year!!!! Go Elsa you make me proud

“Follow Your Dreams with Conviction Live the Life You Have Imagined”

Yours in fitness

Davie

It's all about the Benjamin's

Over the last three years I have worked in a commercial gym in the city centre of Glasgow. During this time I have met with and worked alongside many fitness professionals some were extremely good at their job some were kidding themselves on and other were only interested in the fact that they could charge people £30 an hour for their services

Yesterday I had a conversation with one of them (he will stay unknown as he threatened to sue me today when I told him I was writing a blog about our conversation).

So it went like this I have just had a new web site uploaded check it out http://www.dmc-fightingfit.co.uk/ it was built by my good friend and awesome designer Claire Morrow of I was looking over it in my old place of work when this other trainer came in had a look and we chatted about the lack of proof of skill on many other professionals websites i.e. before and after pictures (he has none) then we got talking about clients and the effect of the credit crunch on our respective businesses fortunately I have not really been effected by the recession up to date (touching my head right now) and he was saying that he was only interested in rich clients because they were the ones with the money this is something that I feel strongly about hence why I’m blogging it.

I am lucky enough to have many clients from all walks of life and I’m interested in them not their purses and wallets where as his view was that it’s all about the Benjamin’s he is only after their cash this is the guy who stands with his arms folded and yawns as he put his clients through basic routines I know of numerous people who have jumped trainers because he couldn’t deliver the desired results and have watched over the last few years as his clients have turned over at a high rate. This guy has a set of qualifications that I could only dream about and half the alphabet after his name but all he is interested in is the cash.

Personal training in my opinion is about nurturing your client through a journey of adaptation and progression and about achieving their goals together as a team and finding a love with exercise and healthy living. each of my clients are individuals and I have a bond with each and every one of them from the 2nd year student to the multimillionaires that I have on my books I don’t look at them as pound signs I look at them as my students the industry that I am fiercely proud to be a part of is littered with these frauds and its due to these people that clients don’t get value for money don’t achieve their required results this leaves them with a bad personal training experience.

Yes I run a business and yes I charge £30 an hour and yes I have to make an income however my clients invest in me and I guarantee my results that why in the history of my business I have always offered a full money back guarantee and am proud to say after training 100’s of clients the question has never been asked my clients are what matter to me and not the money and this other well none fitness professional should be in my view ashamed.

“Follow your dreams with conviction! Live the life you have imagined”

Yours in fitness
Davie

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So Girls aint Meant To Be Strong

While working in a commercial gym as a fitness advisor then as a PT it was commonly accepted that women were weaker than the men, shouldn’t do full press ups and generally women tended to stick to the cardio area of the gym and the men with exception of the females with advanced levels of strength and conditioning would train in the free weights and strength machine area.
In Jan of 2007 I went from being a member of a gym fitness team and part time pt to fully self employed and went about trying to build and secure a client base for the business I was lucky enough to take on 19 new clients within that first working week of January and take a little pressure of myself. Within that pool of new clients there were 5 middle aged women in the bracket of 45 to 55 years old. Honestly I had never worked with women either pre or post menopause and after doing my home work and needs analysis with them all, my work was going to be cut out for me as they all wanted to decrease body fat% and it looked like I was going toe to toe with mother nature. I remember talking to my mum about it and expressing my appreciation that these women felt comfortable hiring me especially as I was a 30 year old 100kgs 6ft 4 cage fighter.

To this day three of those clients still train with me and it was through my teaching of one of the ladies that I came to understand that strength is a skill that can be learned and with the correct prescription of exercises there is no reason why women cant perform at strength conditioning just as good as the men. ok they may not be able to lift as heavy r ep as much but they do not have to be excluded from tyring to master certain exercises just because they are women.

Client B came to me with no strength training experience what so ever. She was turning 50 years old very soon and had looked after herself over the years she was healthy and a natural size 10. She had been to a core conditioning class regularly but had never been a member of a gym and was very sceptical about the results she might get so much so that I was given an ultimatum get visible results within the first 5 weeks or we would be parting company, now you may be thinking that’s a bit harsh but I don’t client B is a very successful business woman and just the kind of challenge I love she was straight to the point she was paying me a lot of money and she wanted a return for her investment I did explain that I wasn’t a magician but that if we worked together and she did as I asked when following her routine at home (she came to me for 1hr per week and did the rest of her training at home on her own) then her strength would grow and that would mean tone in the muscle.

We worked on body weight compound exercise like squats and assisted push ups along with some free weights (dumbbells) to begin with. After a few weeks of that we progressed to some of the basic kettlebell movements needless to say her strength grew and it wasn’t long before we were training full press ups. Through my research and the teaching of Mr Kettlebell himself Pavel Tsatsouline and his book the naked warrior after training the techniques myself (how to generate strength through the muscle fibres) was able to pass them on to my client so in a way I used her after myself as a guinea pig so to speak and the results were awesome. It wasn’t long before she was doing multiple sets of full press-ups at 10 reps or more with varied hand positions.

After experiencing these results I was on a mission to teach as many of my female clients as possible how to do full press ups. I have always had a 50/50 male and female client base and was excited as to just how many it would work for, as it turned out this was just the start as over time they progressed to full press-ups and I now use it as part of my sales pitch when I consult a new female client the general answer when I tell them that they will be able to do it or when they do it for the first time is that they never thought that it would be possible. All you need to do is go to any general level group exercise class where press ups is part of the routine and you will see 90% of the females if not all doing the assisted version of press ups.

All my clients are strong in relation to their level of experience and it always starts with body weight, to me as a trainer there is no point in starting anywhere else.

Press ups was just the start throughout this year me and my girls have been working to master unassisted chin ups and I’m very proud to say that Jules, Pauline, Lee, Eileen and Lana are all on their way to be able to do multiple reps along with some crazy press ups routines and monster squatting

"The decisions that you make today are the changes that you implement tomorrow"

Yours in fitness

Davie

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How to find a reputable health and fitness specialist/personal trainer

Over the last two years since the consultancy was born I have had the amazing good fortune to mentor and motivate hundreds of individual and assist them in finding a love with exercise and healthy living. During this time I have met many wonderful people and personalities each with their own story to tell, this blog topic was born after a conversation with a new client who came to me after reviewing my advert on the NRPT (National Register of Personal Trainers).

Client A was interested in learning how to box for fitness and came along for his free consultation/taster session. He was a middle aged male in the overweight category and after reviewing his movement patterns and basic fitness levels it was found that he had limited co-ordination and his ability to lift, press or pull his body weight was at beginner level. The deal was sealed and he commenced his training with me the following week. As always the correct practise routines and exercises were prescribed to assist in his learning the basic fundamental of boxing and basic exercises to encourage his body to grow stronger as a unit.

Over the next couple of sessions the ice was broken and we started to bond as client and trainer. Client A had informed me at his taster session that he already had a personal trainer and that due to familiarity they were to part company. Now that he had started training with me I asked him to describe the kind of training that had commenced with his previous trainer. I was told they had taken part in physio ball, cardio, (jogging) pad work, (boxercise) and some wrestling. Nutrition advice was minimal and to be honest as client A was about two stones overweight and couldn’t do any more than 5 assisted push ups on his knees I wondered just how much effort this other trainer had put into advancing his client.

I was even more astonished and disgusted that this fraud had the audacity to be charging £75 per hour (o.k. you can pick your chin up now) and that he had been training client A twice a week for more than 4 years. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing as standard PT from home price is between £35 - £50, also because it was weekly double sessions then a further discount would normally be offered. Altogether client A had invested over £15,000 over four years in this so called fitness professional.

So I could go on all day about the trainers moral standing and professionalism or that client A was gullible and naive that would go on forever so all I am going to say is for that kind of cash I would be wanting to train in a first class facility with a highly successful top of the league fitness celebrity.

So guys when looking for a trainer follow this advice
· Relevant up to date qualifications and experience NRPT and REPS (level 3 or above) is a good place to start
· Previous success (any good trainer will have before and after pictures of their clients) and can introduce you to them
· Book a free taster session so you can meet your proposed trainer in person. if they dont offer a free taster/consultation be weary.
· Make sure that your trainer is still active and training themselves (overweight trainers is a sign that they are inactive though not always the case especially where injury is involved)
· If interested only buy 5 sessions to begin with even if you are pitched for more this means your signed up for a short time so if you do not bond with your trainer then you will not be out of pocket.
· Don’t be fooled by fancy websites or letters after a name I have experienced in the past trainers who had excellent web sites and had written their testimonials themselves (always look for pictures for proof) as with letters after the name and special qualifications just because someone has theoretical ability this doesn’t mean that they will have the practical ability or personality to motivate and teach you correctly.
· Pick your trainer wisely especially if you have limited exercise experience, at the end of the day you want a return for your investment and don’t want to end up like client A and out of pocket.

Client A is now doing great after 15 weeks of training (1hr per week) he gets stronger and leaner leaner every week. He is boxing well and his strength has improved dramatically (he now does full sets of press ups with varied hand positions)

“The decisions that you make today are the changes that you implement tomorrow “

Yours in fitness

Davie

Next blog “so girls aint meant to be strong”

Welcome to the blog of Davie McConnachie

Founder and Director of

DMc-Fighting Fit Training Systems

• What is DMc
  DMc Fighting Fit Training Systems is a cutting edge health and fitness consultancy that provides individual one to one sports specific training advice and coaching. The consultancy caters for all individuals from the complete beginner exerciser to the professional competitive athlete. No matter your individual fitness or sports specific need you will be provided with a state of the art fully functional progressive programme that ensures to deliver the results you desire. From being an inactive clinically obese person to becoming a competitive and champion athlete the founder and director of the company Davie McConnachie can and does relate to all and any level of aspiring exerciser or dedicated athlete, these skills can only be delivered fully from someone who understands and has experienced the truly negative effect of an unhealthy lifestyle and understands the apprehension towards change.
  


• Who is Davie
  Davie McConnachie is a health and fitness specialist, personal trainer, certified kettlebell trainer and competitive MMA and Muay Thai fighter. He has a background in Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and Self Protection previously he holds a black belt level apprentice instructor in Bruce Lee’s Art of Jeet Kune Do. Davie has been enjoying studying, following and training in Martial Arts and fitness for many years and especially enjoys all aspects of strength conditioning and functional training.
  


• Relevant qualifications
  IKFF Certified Kettlebell Trainer
  National Register of Personal Trainers
  Register of Exercise Professionals –Advanced Instructor Level 3
• H.N.D Fitness Health & Exercise
  Sports Related Nutrition
  Weight Management
  First Aid

• Why start blogging
  This blog is an opportunity for me to express my thoughts, theories, reports and reviews of anything and everything fitness, exercise, healthy living and martial arts training related. Other passions like creative writing, music and my love for food and cooking will also be touched on. I love to teach and pass on as much knowledge to my clients as I can the health and fitness world is a black whole of information and as evolution commences this blog will allow me the vehicle to keep my team and anyone else up to date and informed. As my health and fitness consultancy and client base has grown over the last three years this blog will give my clients and anyone who wishes to follow it the chance to share in the latest information I find, review, agree and disagree with. It will also give me a vehicle to express my thoughts and feelings on any related topics.
  
  Thank you for taking the time to read my blog I trust you may find some interesting topics. I look forward to training with you in the very near future and remember team!
  
• “The decisions that you make today are the changes that you implement tomorrow “
  
  Healthy Regards

Davie

Next blog how to find a reputable trainer