Memorial Day, the unofficial start of Summer, elicits a lot of reflection upon the path I’ve walked and the path I’m creating. Undoubtedly, it makes me thankful to those who made the freedom I enjoy possible. The picture above was taken yesterday after church; that’s my 3 year-old (going on 13) son. In reviewing the pics within the small format of the camera, I initially mistook him for my 6 year-old, since I normally think of him as the baby, but apparently, that perception is already disappearing.  Time seems to accelerate with each passing year. I’d like to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger recalling a particularly hectic time in his life (1975) right after he filmed Stay Hungry and was in the midst of filming Pumping Iron:

“What it came down to was this: You have 24 hours in a day, and you have so many years to reach your dreams. I utilized the 24 hours more than anyone I know. You snooze, you loose. So what are you gonna do?”

Our time is limited, but do we really get that?

Fatherhood has been one big wake-up call for me. Before the kids hit the deck, the passage of time was a slow-to-nonexistent grind. However, seeing my kids grow and change on almost a daily basis reminds me that time is whizzing by whether we like it or not, and squandering the time we’re given is downright criminal. You might recall from the career series that I’ve cut my in-person client days at the office down to 2 per week, and work from home the rest of the week.

Necessary roughness

Some of you may have also noticed that I’ve had to resort to putting prospective clients on a 2-month waiting list to work with me. This is great in the sense that my expertise is in demand, but at the same time, I can’t help but feel bad for those who I’ve had to put on hold. But alas, managing my time is an ongoing learning process, and an art that might take me forever to master. During my lifetime, I want to be able to look back and be satisfied with the amount (& quality) of time I put into being the best dad I could. This, among other things, involves being physically & mentally present when hanging out with the kids. And yes, it also involves putting the brakes on how much work I think I’m able to do each day without disrupting the balance in my work & family life. Controlling the quantity of my work will also inevitably improve the quality of it. And that’s really what matters.

For those of you who aren’t parents

I know that for me, my kids are really the ‘hourglass’ that lights the fire under my feet to wring the most out of my time on this planet. For those of you who do not have kids (or don’t plan to), let me suggest you find your own metaphoric hourglass that reminds you that the clock is ticking away relentlessly. This is also the perfect time to remember that our forefathers have shed much blood, sweat, and tears to allow us the freedom to be the architects of our own lives and accomplish great things. So, let me encourage you all to get out there and do more stuff that matters and less stuff that doesn’t.

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That was then (left), this is now (right)

The above pics are of a client and friend of mine named Phillip. For the sake of illustrating a point, I’ll let you guess his weight in both pics (hint: they are not the same). One thing that is almost universally agreeable is that he looks better in the right pic. Some of you might disagree, but most of you won’t. Another thing that’s hard to dispute is that he’s probably healthier in the right pic, as far as a blood chemistry might show.

Bring on the pounds

To achieve the look of the left pic, Phillip fulked. That’s a word I made up that means he fat-bulked. Prior to my supervision, he perused the bodybuilding message boards and adapted a plan whose objective was to gain lots of size & strength quickly. His daily consumption was a pretty standard maintenance diet, but with an entire gallon of whole milk on top of that. Lots of strength was gained, and yes, a lot of weight was gained as well.

After the gain…

After the fulking stint, Phillip lost a bunch of weight due to an extended hiatus from the gym. This is when he sought my help. I put him through a progression that kept him within 10-15 lbs of his post-fulk deflation, but looking worlds better. I’d like to emphasize that Phillip is not genetically blessed in the muscle gain or fat loss department. He’s only had his monstrous work ethic to rely upon for results. I know I said I’d have you guess the weight difference between pics, but surprise, I’ll give it away right here: Phillip was 216 lbs in the left photo, and 176 lbs in the right one. That’s 40 fricking pounds!  Does he really look 40 lbs lighter? I’ll let you be the judge. What’s more easily apparent is five inches less waist girth, and a magic chest lift.

Men: afraid to lose?

Everyone’s familiar with the common scenario where female trainees can gain a few pounds and start panicking, regardless of positive changes in body composition. Well, a lot of men have the opposite but equally irrational fear that weight loss automatically equates to unsightly results. This makes them seek out the fulking route, finding comfort in seeing pounds rapidly pile up on the scale. This can be a good or bad thing – depending on how you look at it, and of course, depending on the individual situation.

Keep in mind that I am not blanketly condemning rapid weight gain.  What I’m trying to convey is that more isn’t always better when it comes to racking up pounds.

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The fact of the matter is, I wasn’t always a model student. My original objective for getting a degree in nutrition was pretty frivolous – to have a unique credential among personal trainers. Amazingly enough, I intended to make a life of personal training – which didn’t end up panning out. Based on the evidence, I was destined to be glued to the computer rather than hands-on client work at the gym. Anyway, the point is, my underlying goal for the nutrition degree was to just get it over-with, so I could be more marketable than most personal trainers. In contrast to my lackadaisical waltz (& mediocre performance) through the undergrad, I got straight-A’s through my master’s degree in nutrition because I was actually interested in the topics. Timing is important; interest can’t be forced.

The class that shaped my future

The most profound change in my educational enthusiasm occurred during my graduate work in nutrition, in a research methods class. I had a professor in the late 1990′s named Brian Koziol, who had a brief stint as a part-time professor at CSUN. At the time, he was employed at Amgen, and as far as I know, he still is.

Brian Koziol’s passion was research — more specifically, dissecting it. What makes a good study? What makes a not-so-good one? What constitutes a true butcher-job of a study in terms of external and/or internal validity? Koziol actually tried to get the class interested in picking apart the strengths and weaknesses of studies. I’d say he succeeded with a handful of the class, but the majority were sort of lost on the point. In my opinion, he forgot to get across to the class why this exercise was important in the first place.

If I were to teach his class, I’d begin with the philospphy of science, and then move into the continuum of evidence. Heck, I’d even burden the class with the philosophy of evidence. I’d sincerely ask the class if they believed that science as an underlying philosophy is important, and why. I’d also belabor the elements of scientific thought, and why this is important in the battle against the bullshit products and protocols that pervade the health & fitness industry. 

Perhaps not too surprisingly for those who’ve followed my work, Koziol’s research methods class was my single greatest career influence. There were other catalysts (such as the work of Lyle McDonald) that led to the materialization of my research review, but Koziol’s class – which I took more than a decade ago – was the foundation for that.

Notes for the students

Back to my presentation at the career symposium… Each year it forces me to introspect upon what makes me tick, and what makes my career something I happen to be very happy with. Here’s a relay of some of the important bits of advice I threw at the students:

• Come to grips with what it is you’re absolutely nuts about (not just vaguely interested in). This is what you should be doing as a career.  Try to recall the last time you did an exceptional job at something you couldn’t give half a crap about, and my point becomes clear.
• It’s ideal to match your interests with your talents, but skill can always be developed; whereas the desire for a particular job cannot always be developed. Do not pursue a career merely because you think it’s a prudent or safe choice. This naive capitulation has been the kiss of death for many.
• There’s a market for EVERYTHING, but just be aware of how large or small that market is, in order to estimate your earning potential.
• Experience builds confidence. Don’t expect to be polished right off the bat. Get in the trenches, get dirty, but try to learn as much as you can from the mistakes of your predecessors. The career series I wrote to kick off this blog should give anyone contemplating a fitness career ample food for thought.
• Your perception of success will change over time.  Your interests & goals will evolve over time. It’s crucially important to be aware of this metamorphosis and act upon it regularly. We get so caught up in the mind-numbing routine of our work week, that it’s easy to lose touch with where we are, versus the direction we need to be moving. The solution? Do a “blank sheet day” at least once a year. This is an idea I got from a highly successful friend of mine, Daryl Wizelman. What you do is block out an entire day once a year to be by yourself. The whole day – with no one around you. I know that this is a horrifying concept, but bear with me.  Get a paper notebook (not something with internet access), and get yourself out into a secluded area  (a park, abandoned wherehouse, etc – whatever it takes to be alone), and VERY SPECIFICALLY write out your dream lifestyle. I’m not talking about compromising here, I’m talking about having the balls to actually fantasize for a moment about what type of life would make you truly happy. This obviously is gonna vary, but in all cases, be honest with yourself about what it is. Answer questions like: Where do you want to live? What do you want to spend your day doing? How many days a week do you want to work? What kind of life & career have you always dreamed about having, and what SPECIFIC steps can you take to get there if you’re not there yet? What sacrifices do you need to make? How do you want to give back charitably once you get the means to do so? How do you want to be remembered? Then, review your plan regularly through the year. I’ve been doing this “blank sheet day” exercise annually for the last 3 years now, and suffice it to say that I can’t even begin to tell you how much it has helped me personally.
• If you are enjoying the process of pursuing your goals and crafting your career, you can consider yourself successful. This principle is hammered so very eloquently by Robert Hastings in his essay called The Station. As cliche as it sounds, the destination is far less important – and certainly far less real - than the journey. Life is merely a succession of days. What you do with each day determines the kind of life you’ll create, and ultimately the kind of life you’ll look back on.

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• The majority of health nuts will spend $100′s a month on useless supplements, but won’t spend a dime on actually educating themselves on the facts about the body.
• I love it when I hear folks say that human adults weren’t meant to consume milk, much less the milk derived from a different animal species. Are you kidding me? So who gets to decide which parts of the cow we should consume? Let me get this straight–we can eat the cow’s muscles, but not the milk that laid the foundation for the growth of those same muscles? Huh? The logic is just too rock-solid for me.
• Folks who carry the torch against milk consumption typically will have some degree of allergy or digestive intolerance to it, and they take the liberty to project their personal problems onto the world around them.  Go frolick in an organic wheatgrass field and spare us your self-righteous noise.
• Keep your eyes on YOU. It’s fine to get inspired by others’ physiques, but you have to set your own personal standards. People tend to fixate on their weaknesses, while at the same time obsess over the strengths of others. That’s a surefire way to stay eternally frustrated. It’s a healthier approach to acknowledge your own strengths, and use them as benchmarks by which to bring up your weaknesses. Learn to give yourself a pat on the back for the improvements you make. Keep your eyes on YOU, don’t let the achievements of others dictate your obsessions.
• March to your own beat. Everyone has advice to give, and it’s important to listen, but ultimately, you have to adapt and mold all advice to your own sensibilities. Although it’s not always easy, I try not to be inflexibly dogmatic about what I teach. In many cases, what’s known pales in comparison to the sprawling expanse of the unknown. Over time, you’ll get to know your body better than anyone else, and what some might sell as natural laws should really only be ideas or options to consider.
• Training and nutritional programs pulled from the “experts” shouldn’t always be followed to the letter, especially for advanced trainees. Beginners without a clue may need to follow a script with zero deviation, since the alternative might be tripping over their own feet. But with more advanced trainees who have a more highly developed sense of individual response, there should always be a margin for personal intervention and adjustment. The best programs out there are at best good guidelines from which to morph better stuff for the individual situation.
• Question fitness advice given to you by others. “Why” is one of the most powerful words you can put in your vocabulary. Investigating the reasoning behind the advice will often reveal that the answer is “just because”, rendering the advice anywhere from helpful, to dangerous, to just a plain waste of time and resources. I encourage my clients, students, and colleagues to question everyone’s advice, including mine. I firmly believe that the better you can sharpen your thinking, the better you can continue to sharpen your physique.
• Scientific research is not bias-free. It’s not free of financial interests. It’s not free of study design flaws, and it’s not perfect. However, it’s the best tool that we have for getting closer to understanding the way the body works, the way that nature works. As imperfect as research is, it beats the hell out of hearsay and gym dogma.
• Many folks into fitness & bodybuilding have this unproductive tendency to think in black & white extremes. They’ll scapegoat certain foods, while glorifying the magic bullets. They rarely see the integration of the various components that comprise the big picture.
• Maintenance of a given level of progress is indeed a legitimate goal. In fact, people should consciously build plateau phases into their programs. Everyone hates to hear this, but the plateau phases should get progressively longer. When you step back and think about it, isn’t the ultimate goal a plateau of sorts? It makes good sense to give your body regular practice at maintaining. Everyone is so hell-bent on perpetually pressing forward with their goals, that it actually holds them back.
• A major training mistake I’ve made in the past – one I think that we’ve all done – was to always go more by the numbers than by the feel, letting the numbers dictate the workout rather than letting the muscles do it. I was overly concerned with the quantitative awareness of load progression, rather than what one of my old training partners called finding the pump. This might be more of a bodybuilding thing than anything else, but people should work up to a point where they are indifferent towards the number stamped on the iron. This is particularly useful during maintenance phases, which are more flexible. Trainees should practice developing a sense of optimal resistance for the given goal of any set, even if you’re completely unaware of the actual weight. Blindfolded sensation-based training, so to speak.
• Don’t be overly cheap with your time off from training. Athletes’ careers are notorious for being slow-motion train wrecks. There are 3 main ways your body lets you know that you need a break: Fatigue, illness, and injury. Fatigue is a bit more insidious, manifesting itself as persistent stalls or decreases in strength or endurance. Most trainees out there wallow in fatigue most of the time, which is a damn shame. Illness and injury are the classic agents of forced layoffs. The best strategy is to stay not just one, but a few steps ahead by taking a full week off from training – I’m talking don’t even drive near the gym – about every 8th to 12th week.
• No one’s physique ever fell apart as a result of a periodic week of rest. On the other hand, there are plenty of folks whose great physiques won’t last very long, due to bad shoulders, elbows, and knees.
• Fad diets and fad diet practices should be avoided (and laughed at). Carbs will send you to hell. Sugar is worse for you than cocaine. Fat is no longer the bad guy, so now it’s time to drink a pint of fish oil after every meal. Protein is your savior, eat as much of it as you can. If it’s isolated from food and put in a pill, it’s GOTTA be better for bodybuilding. C’mon now. A mix of patience and realistic progress expectations is the best cure for the compulsion to adopt fad practices or try fad diets.
• Stop splitting hairs over the rules. The beauty of food is that, unlike drugs, its physiological effects have neither the acuteness nor the magnitude to warrant extreme micro-management, especially when it comes to nutrient timing relative to training. A half an hour difference here or there really isn’t gonna make or break your physique.
• The first law of nutrient timing is: hitting your daily macronutrient targets is FAR more important than nutrient timing.
• The second law of nutrient timing is: hitting your daily macronutrient targets is FAR more important than nutrient timing.
• The fitness & nutrition world is a breeding ground for obsessive-compulsive behavior. The irony is that many things people worry about simply have no impact on results either way, and therefore aren’t worth an ounce of concern.
• Worrying about how much fat is burned while doing cardio makes as much sense as worrying about how much muscle is built while lifting weights.
• I eat three whole eggs almost every day of the week, so as far as American Heart Association limits are concerned, I’m blowing past them like Stevie Wonder through a stop sign.
• Mother Nature winces every time a yolk hits the waste basket.
• If you have to chew it, it ain’t anabolic. [/sarcasm about postworkout nutrition]
• The better someone’s genetics are, the more of a dumbf#ck he is.
• Avoid food avoidance.

This actually never was a question for me. I decided to major in nutrition with the intention of remaining a personal trainer. I knew a good handful of independent trainers without a degree who were making at least double the per-hour rate that most RDs made, so my frame of reference was quite different from the typical dietetics student. I figured that since ALL trainers dish out nutritional advice (and are frequently asked for nutritional advice), a nutrition degree would be the perfect way to strengthen my competitive edge in this department. 

As far as I knew, I was the only undergrad dietetics student in my class without the intention to become an RD. My professors wondered what on Earth I was gonna do with my life, obviously unaware of personal training as a bona fide career. To be fair, in the early 1990′s, very few who even heard of it thought of personal training as a real job. Luckily, I never gave a damn about whether a job was real by conventional standards, as long as it paid decently for doing something that truly interested me.

I want to make it clear that for anyone with the intention of working in a clinical setting, or anything non-entrepreneurial in the realm of nutritional counseling, becoming an RD is almost essential. Employers tend to seek out the RD credential because it instantly weeds out most of the wackos and quacks. If you plan on working in a clinical facility based on mainstream medicine, there’s no question you’ll need to be an RD. Since I don’t fit any of those molds, being without the RD credential was never a limitation. I’m self-employed, working with the healthy to athletic population referred to me mainly by trainers and existing clientele. The scant minority of my clients come from doctor referrals.

Take note that California is more lenient than other states in terms of the legal repercussions of practicing medical nutrition therapy as a non-RD. But again, that’s not what I do, so I’m exempt from that concern. For further reading about nutrition credentials, Stephen Barrett has covered it here and here. For more information about becoming an RD, the American Dietetic Association has it laid out here, with an FAQ page here.

My take on sports nutrition certifications

On the subject of boosting credibility, the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) has targeted trainers and coaches for the promotion of their sports nutrition certification. The reason I’m reiterating the ISSN’s certification is because it’s perhaps the first certification developed by individuals who have published a significant amount of peer-reviewed primary research in the area of sports nutrition. The ISSN also has its own scientific journal dedicated to sports nutrition-related research. One caveat is that the ISSN is sponsored by multiple supplement companies (scroll toward the bottom of the home page). The positive results of these companies’ products in the journal of the ISSN are quite predictable.

There are other sports nutrition certifications out there, but their name-credibility and admission requirements are pretty low. An exception to this is the Comission on Dietetic Registration’s certification in sports dietetics (info here), for which being an RD is a prerequisite. For the record, I don’t hold any nutrition certifications, but I also am n0t gunning for acceptance by an employer or larger organization, nor do I place a lot of value in stringing letters after my name. Maintaining a sports nutrition certification is a great way to keep knowledge current, but in my case, writing AARR each month takes care of that in excess.

My take on personal training certifications

As far as personal training certifications go, the most marketable ones in my opinion are offered by the “big 3″ organizations: the National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA), the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The American Council on Exercise (ACE) trails a bit behind the aforementioned in terms of prestige, but is still considered one of the frontrunners.

Though these certifications are likely to have similar quality of learning material, the Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification by the NSCA has the most marketability among sports and fitness circles. A close second would be the Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES) by NASM. The reason for the CSCS’s marketable edge over these is the stricter admission requirement of a 4-year degree. Also, the PES is relatively new, whereas the CSCS has been around for a while and has racked up an extensive list of highly respected recipients. ACSM certification is generally perceived as more clinically oriented, and has thus not been as popular in sports and fitness circles as the rest.

One more certification I want to add here is the Resistance Training Specialist (RTS) developed by Tom Purvis, who formerly headed NASM but decided to start his own program and kick things up several notches. I’ll go out on a limb and say that the RTS program is the most in-depth training certification available, particularly in terms of applied biomechanics. It’s expensive, has multiple modules, and requires travel, so it’s not nearly as popular as the others. As such, it’s not as well known. This can potentially hinder its marketability to employers who are not highly informed about the available certification programs.

The initial allure and subsequent utility of an MS

Upon completing my undergrad degree in dietetics, my colleagues all filed off to internships en route to becoming RDs. Having the desire to stay competitive with them prompted my pursuit of a master’s degree in nutrition, despite my intention to remain a personal trainer. In an unplanned twist of events, this led me to switch my focus away from training. As I pounded through the degree, I gained a keen interest in the researching, writing, counseling, and teaching aspects of nutrition. It was also during this period that I began spending a lot of time online, discussing topics on fitness and bodybuilding message boards. Getting in epic debates (and winning them consistently) is what caught the attention of the forces that led to my writing career. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Having both the undergrad and graduate nutrition degrees under my belt, I saw a clear lack of sports nutrition education in the dietetics curriculum. So, I decided to teach RDs how to become better sports nutritionists. Since RDs need to receive continuing education units in order to maintain their credential, I knew I could fulfill a niche here. In addition to putting together and promoting my own courses (which was more expense than it was worth), I was invited to speak at various dietetics conferences, including a few biggies at California State University at Northridge, University of Calilfornia at Irvine and the heavily guarded FDA headquarters. Without an MS in nutrition, I would not have been given these opportunities to provide continuing education to RDs. I’ll also speculate that the combination of my training certifications with the advanced nutrition degree was marketable for lecturing to conservative dietetics audiences about the integration of nutrition and exercise.

Having built a good reputation in the fitness and dietetics communities, I was invited to speak in the corporate wellness context to the upper management of companies such as the Pfizer and Tesco. Although these speaking gigs only happen a few times per year, they pay $1000-2000 for less than 2 hours of lecture. It has crossed my mind to actively pursue a career in corporate wellness presentations because of the high pay per unit of time. However, I’d rather keep speaking engagements as occasional events rather than having a lifestyle involving a lot of dressing up and a hectic travel schedule. Sorry folks, but I’m very happy at home at the computer, close to my family, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt.

Writing: the final frontier (for me)

At some point back in 2006, Lyle McDonald told me that with all the knowledge I had, I needed to write a book. After some deliberating, I decided to go for it, and Girth Control was completed in early 2007. In a very ironic twist, Lyle’s mentioning of a factual mistake I made in the book (which was corrected immediately) gave me the impetus to start my research review. My aim was to create a vehicle that forced me to stay entrenched in the current research to a ridiculous degree. I will say with zero reservation that AARR is the project I’m most passionate about. It allows me to combine scientific research findings with ongoing client experience for the benefit of other fitness practitioners and serious enthusiasts. If that sounds too much like a gratuitous plug, consider it a dead-honest one.

As I mentioned earlier, I had many prodigious debates online that caught the attention of people who ended up facilitating my writing career. Alwyn Cosgrove gets credit for alerting features editor Adam Campbell about my writing mojo, and the next thing I knew, Adam offered me a regular spot in Men’s Health magazine, as well as a position as their nutrition research consultant. This led to a friendship (bro-ship?) between me and fitness editor Adam Bornstein. I’m currently writing an article for Men’s Health on fat loss supplements, and the cool thing about Men’s Health is that they don’t have any supplement sponsors that they cater to or tiptoe around when it comes to product critiques. The big print magazines pay anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar per word. Men’s Health can afford to pay the latter, since they’re the largest men’s magazine in the world.

Online article writing was another unplanned avenue that surfaced. Lou Schuler invited me to write for tmuscle.com (which then was called t-nation.com), resulting in A Musclehead’s Guide to Alcohol. In related news, my dealings with Tmuscle went south in an amusing chain of events which I’ve described here. Lou is no longer with Tmuscle, but is probably on better terms with them than I am. I’m still involved with online article writing, currently working on my second article for wannabebig.com.

I would encourage those with a knack for writing to start by seeking contributorship to online magazines since the chances of publication aren’t as remote as they are in print mags. Clearly, there’s a demand for good content to draw site traffic. Maintaining scientific integrity might be a challenge with companies that aggressively hype marginally supported products, but legitimate alternatives are out there. Online outfits pay $250-500 per article depending on word length and notoriety of the author. This isn’t enough to pay your kids’ college tuition, but it’s great exposure, and also a good medium for observing the public’s non-vested critique of your material.

That’s a wrap!

Well, it looks like we’ve reached the end of this opus. Future writing projects are in the works, and I’ll alert you to them as they materialize. Your best course of action is to get familiar with your options (many of which I provided in this series), and match your career choice with your strengths and interests. Yes, I know that’s easier said than done. Feel free to review the elements I’ve discussed, and I’ll try to address your questions the best I can.

Picking up from part 1, it’s time to move on to nutrition. This gets a little complicated, so stick with me. In addition to being a trainer, I was also the club’s nutritionist. I eventually dropped my role as a trainer within the club (voluntarily), but continued to see outside training clients. SportsMed, a subsidiary of the Sports Club Company, contained a team of dietitians of which I was a part. I was stationed in their sister franchise, the Spectrum Club. Among the five nutritionists, I was the only one  who wasn’t a registered dietitian (RD). However, the fact that I had a master’s degree in nutrition pretty much kept the dietitians from glaring at me.

On a related tangent, here’s an amusing story. Our director did a company-wide survey of what term, registered dietitian or nutritionist, should be placed on the business cards. The vast majority of people surveyed said they’d know more immediately what a nutritionist was than what an RD was. The dietitians were indignant at having to bear the “nutritionist” moniker on their cards, but it was also a sweet moment of vindication for my lack of the RD credential. More on that in the final installment, let’s look at the pros & cons of the job.

Nutritional counseling: health club employment pros & cons

Similar to being a club-employed trainer, the massive membership and built-in traffic of the gym made it easy to get business. The sales staff forwarded all new members to me, as did the trainers, so there really was no struggle to capture clients. Since there was only one nutritionist per club, I didn’t have to sweat any competition. Perhaps the biggest benefit was that I got to realize my strength in counseling and teaching. I was much more content sitting on my butt at a desk talking about nutrition rather than handing off dumbells, switching plates, and counting reps. Not to mention, none of my nutritional clients have audibly farted while straining to tell me the truth.

Again, this is a different strokes thing. Some people go into training because they’re sick to death of their desk jobs. For that kind of escape, training is great; I just had opposite interests. The rest of the benefits were the same as training – free membership, overall job predictability and convenience. I have to say that in retrospect, the benefit of starting my nutritional counseling career as an employee allowed me gain my footing and make my newbie mistakes while the company shouldered the risk.

What bugged me most about this job, funny enough, were the same things as training: dress code and pay. By now it should be pretty clear that I hate anything remotely close to a uniform. The nutrition staff was required to dress in business casual. Ugh. Our pay was approximately $20 per half-hour session. Not too bad, but then again, not too good – especially for someone who was going to support a family. After spending some time watching the company keep about 50% of what my clients paid, I decided I’d be better off keeping all of it, and absorbing the risk of being on my own. Since I knew that I could do this with training, it was time to leave and navigate my own ship with nutritional counseling.

Nutritional counseling: self-employment pros & cons

The pros, just like self-employed training, were full conceptual and operational control of the pricing, policies, and protocols. Once again, I was immediately able to charge triple the 20 bucks I made per session I made as an employee. This is about the same per-session pay rate as I made training independently, except now my sessions are 30 minutes of yapping instead 60 minutes of busting ass. Another advantage to being on my own was the prestige associated with having my own private practice. So far so good, now for the cons.

The single biggest expense facing independent practitioners is the rent for office space. A tiny office in my neck of Southern California can run you as little as $400-500 a month, whereas a little more comfy setting will cost about $700-800. I had my sights set on a large office in a health club with built-in traffic. In a cool twist of fate, I was able to secure a space in the club I was formerly employed at. They wanted $1200 a month…ouch. I took the general manager out to lunch, gave her some puppydog eyes, and negotiated my rent down to $800.

The club eventually switched management and brought in the Apex nutrition system, which was software that generated plans with the Apex supplements baked into the diets. It pissed me off that the trainers were being forced to act as nutritionists despite my presence in the club, so I approached the new manager and negotiated my $800 monthly rent down to $400. To my benefit, the Apex launch floundered and was canceled due to a lack of interest, but my rent stayed at the re-negotiated low.

My current practice

I have since been invited to move my practice into an upscale personal training facility. When I say upscale, I really mean that. A good portion of my clientele are professional athletes, successful actors, and CEOs of huge multinational corporations. The facility (Elite Fitness Plus) is owned by a friend of mine who I’ve been trying to work together with for years, and have finally gotten the chance to, and feel really blessed to be in such a great spot.

The downside? My commute one-way is 30-45 minutes. Yeah, I know some of you drive double and triple that, but one of my pet peeves, along with dress codes, is having an insipid date with traffic as part of my workday. Being self-employed puts me in control of my schedule, so a simple solution to minimizing the time and expense commuting was to cut my office days to two longer days per week instead of five regular days. The 10-second trip from my bedroom to my desktop computer is one of the things I love about online consulting, which  comprises a significant portion of my practice.

Next up…

In the final installment, I’ll discuss the remaining aspects of my career: continuing education lecturing, corporate wellness consulting, and writing books, magazine articles, and my research review. If anyone’s still at a loss of ideas for building a fitness career after reading this series, I’ll be at a loss for words (ain’t gonna happen).   [see part 3]

The fitness field is so appealing to so many, and why wouldn’t it be. The combination of looking good, staying healthy, performing better, and affecting these changes in others is quite idyllic. Given this, it’s not surprising that one of the most frequent questions I’m asked - other than how many milliseconds are allowed to elapse between meals - is how to secure a career in fitness. A fair amount of people who follow my work want to eventually do what I do. That’s very flattering, and the least I can do is offer some insight into the process that led me to a place where I feel empowered enough to talk about it.

In this article series

I’ll start by discussing the pros & cons of being a gym-employed trainer and a self-employed trainer. I’ll do the same with nutritional counseling (yes, I’ve done both), then I’ll cover lecturing. Next, I’ll give you the amusing scoop on how my writing career snuck up on me. My aim for this article is not to provide the end-all set of answers. What I can do is offer my own experiences to give you ideas and a solid framework for making decisions. There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll break this up in parts, and wrap it up with some action steps and resources.

Training or nutrition…or both?

The question of how to build a fitness career comes from a wide range of people – both students and professionals who’ve already succeeded at their original careers. Rather than folks asking about the mechanics of succeeding, they’re stumped about what direction to take at the start. After all, fitness is a very indistinct field. Many people have an equal interest in nutrition and exercise. Unfortunately, there’s no simple or direct path to a career that equally involves the two areas. This is where the confusion and frustration lies for many who want to pick a focus, especially college students who need to pick a major (and somewhat commit to it). Having been in that same position myself, I can recount the steps that have been fruitful.

Many possibilities

Being equally interested in nutrition and being interested in the work involved with a nutrition career can be two entirely different things. The same can be said with training, and I’ve had a chance to walk down both roads. I remember the precise point that I made the decision to major in nutrition after deliberating over that, or going into exercise science. My girlfriend at the time suggested that I kill two birds with one stone by getting a nutrition degree and a personal training certification. It sounded logical to me, since I was well aware that trainers with a quick certification earned comparably to dietitians. I proceeded to work as a trainer while getting my nutrition degree.

Those who are more inclined towards exercise can do the opposite of what I did, thanks to a recent sports nutrition certification by the ISSN (I’ll talk more about certification specifics in an upcoming installment). There are many other possibilities for involving yourself in both training and nutrition. You can choose to steer clear of universities and just grab certifications, granted you can market yourself beyond the lack of degree – which is pretty easy to do if you have a compelling physical presence. Or, you can get your undergrad degree in one discipline, and a graduate degree in another. Let your preference of day-to-day work dictate the focus you choose.

Personal training: health club employment pros & cons

I began my fitness career training at an upscale health club chain. The main advantage was that all you had to do was show up and do your job. Advertising, new client flow, accounting, and a fully stacked facility were taken care of. Everything was systematic and relatively predictable. Full-time employees received medical benefits. Everything was convenient, from the breakroom to the in-house cafe, to the free membership. If you’re a people-person, you’ll have plenty of face time with plenty of people. The camraderie among the staff kept things fun, as did the competition over who could be the most productive.

The cons of employeeship boiled down to two things for me: the goofy-assed uniform (picture a bright teal-colored polo shirt tucked into frumpy black shorts) and the pay. Although the earning potential as an employee in a health club has increased since my day, it still falls in the range of $20-$30 per session after the club takes their cut of about 50-60%. My earnings eventually became insufficient to compensate for what evolved. It’s a given that the employees are pressured to sell sessions, which is fine. However, some gyms are more militant about this than others. Luckily, I never experienced the “used car lot effect” felt by many trainers in commercial gyms. One thing I shouldn’t forget to mention is that some health clubs have an overpriced supplement product line that the trainers are forced to sell whether they like it or not.

Personal training: self-employment pros & cons

After gaining some experience at the club, the next logical step for me was to go out on my own. A big advantage was being able to charge triple what I was paid as an employee. As for earning potential, a friend of mine who mixes in-home training with training at a studio charges $90 a session, and does roughly 30 sessions per week. In my observations, this is near the upper limit of what independent trainers can expect to charge. Charging into the triple-digits per session is not unheard of, but it’s an unrealistic expectation unless you’re able to maintain a steady stream of super-rich clients.  A much more common scenario for independent trainers is charging $45-75 per session. Where you fall in that range depends more on geographic location than academic qualifications.

By far, the biggest benefit of being self-employed is that it fit my personality much better than having to answer to a boss. When you’re in charge of all the conceptual and operational decisions, they get done fast. Gym employees can also impact company-wide changes, but these generally take forever to happen – if they happen at all.

With that said, the cons were numerous. Training people in their homes entailed lugging around my own equipment. Some people had home gyms, but most didn’t. The time and expense of traveling ate up a good portion of the extra money I was able to charge beyond my health club pay. In retrospect, it would have been better to find a good personal training studio that catered to independent trainers. Places like these either charge rent, or take money off the top of each session. However, a common problem with many of these studios is that their existence is temporary. Although It was gratifying to see clients reach their goals, I grew to not really enjoy the day-to-day work. At the same time, I know people don’t bat an eye at training 50 hours a week, and seem to love every minute of it. I just wasn’t cut from that same cloth.

In retrospect

I could have set up my own training facility, but opted out of that path. Those of you who know the work I put into AARR each month might find this ironic, but I’m a stickler for simplicity and low stress levels. I see owning a gym as sort of like owning a restaurant – lots of potential for prosperity, but also a lot of headaches. I may be a little extreme in this regard, but my career goal has always been to not only avoid having a boss, but also avoid having any employees of my own (ooh, I just heard some eyes bug out at that statement).

The newer personal training business model of holding bootcamps and getting a lot more buck-for-the-bang really was pretty far under the radar back in the dark ages of personal training. Bootcamps may have struck my interest more than owning a gym, but it still wouldn’t satisfy the independence, operational simplicity, and intellectual engagement that I crave. Once again, this is merely my personal preference and perspective. I’m sure Alwyn Cosgrove would disagree that owning a gym is more of a pain than it’s worth. He’s expanding his own facility, and even buying more (note for those at work: this links to a video). Different strokes, for sure.

Next up…

In part 2, I’ll move on to my experiences as both a club-employed nutritionist, and then a self-employed one. Along with this, I’ll talk about my decision to skip becoming a registered dietitian, and my decision to go through with a master’s degree in nutrition, and how this impacted my career. I might even fit in corporate wellness consulting, continuing education lecturing, writing for Men’s Health, and other projects. One thing’s certain — this post has been long enough. Stay tuned for Part 2, I gotta get some work done.  [see part 2]