Nice Paleo dinner

So, I've been posting a few recipes lately and thought, what the hell, this isn't a recipe "proper" but it was a damn good dinner. 

Gilled Salmon topped with Mango Salsa

Side of grilled pineapple

Tomato-avocado salad

Broccoli-pine nut soup. 

For the samlon, just coat in some light olive oil and add a bit of fresh ground pepper to season. Depending on thickness of the piece of salmon, grill flesh side down for about 4-8 minutes. Then flip and grill for 2-3 times the length you chose for the flesh side. The Skin will basically grills off, but I like the skin. Once you flip it coat the top in mango salsa.

Place 3/4 inch slices of pineapple on the top shelf of the grill, flipping about half way through the cooking of the salmon.

For the salad just cut up avocado and tomatoes and add a tablespoon or so of light olive oil. You can also add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper if you like, but if the avocado and tomato are fresh and ripe there is no need.

Broccoli-Pine nut soup: 

Broccoli and Pine-Nut Soup, My (paleo)ancestors Way.

1 large onion, diced
1/4 clove of smashed Garlic
2 tablespoons of chopped chives
1 tbs oil
3 cups broccoli
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
¼ cup pine-nuts

Instructions
Fry onion in a large pan with oil on medium heat until slightly browned. Toss in the garlic and let it simmer a little more.

Add broccoli and stock and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes or until broccoli has softened. Make sure you keep a lid on!  Halfway through, at the chives (keep a little).

Cool slightly. Place in a food processor or use an electric blender to form a smooth texture. This will get it that lovely creamy feel!

Heat some more, serve in bowls and sprinkle with the leftover chopped chives & pine-nuts

Improvisational cooking: Caveman style!

So this morning I awoke to realize that haphazardly we froze all the remaining bananas for our nightly smoothie, thus leaving me without unfrozen bananas for my paleo pancakes. Initially my reaction was: F*ck! How could I go on without my regular breakfast. Actually, I was not that upset, I was just still pissed off from having to wake up to two crying dogs that had diarrhea in their sleep area. Oh Joy! Poor lil' fellas!  Anyhow, I digress, the dog situation had long passed and I was ready to make me some grub... but what to do, what to do without bananas....? I thought, well, I'll just microwave (really paleo eh) one of my paleo banana nut muffins, they are essentially the same recipe just cooked differently. So I started my eggs and opened the fridge only to find that right next to the muffins was a pre-cooked sweet potato. "Hmmmm", I thought. I wonder if I could make a sweet potato pancake. Add a little cinnamon, ok. It turns out this works just dandy! Sure, it's not nearly as sweet, in fact it's a bit savory, but it satisfied my warm breakfast, paleo craving! And it's quite filling! So, I thought I'd share the recipe and a few thoughts about my am experience. Firs the recipe:

1 small, or 1/2-3/4 medium/large pre-cooked sweet potato (it should be so cooked that it's mashable)
1 egg
1 egg white
a (small) handful of ground raw almonds
about a teaspoon to a tablespoon of coconut milk
cinnamon (as much as you like)


Grind almonds and place in mixing bowl
Add egg and egg white and stir around. It should be pasty, sort of.
Add coconut milk
Add sweet potato

Mix all ingredients together until it forms a batter. For my particular griddle pan the batter has to be very think, almost doughy, else the batter just runs out flat and I have one huge burnt unflippable pancake! Talk about a bad way to start your day :-(

Once batter is prepped, heat the griddle pan (I can't grease mine because the stove gets so hot it actually burns the grease off, but I have found that some butter flavored spray enhances the flavor just a touch, especially if you like the taste of butter. I go without greasing only because I have to).  Cook like any other pancake, until you start to see some bubbles come through the uncooked side at which time you should flip. Be careful, any paleo pancake is not going to have the stiff consistency of modern pancakes to use a big spatula so that you don't lift half your pancake and leave half on the griddle. I've done that several times and it's really F-ing annoying. In order to circumvent that issue either use large spatula or make smaller pancakes. I choose the latter and it makes a nice stack of pancakes that dupes your mind into thinking you are eating at IHOP or something.

OK, that's it. Cook and eat. I use honey to top these. You could probably get more creative with your topping, like pure maple syrup would probably be fantastic as it is on just about anything.

There you go, a decent new recipe to try for a morning variation. These sweet potato pancakes are not as sweet as banana pancakes and are probably high glycemic and not "true" paleo, but they satisfy the not eating artificial modern shit, for me anyhow.  Also, this event this morning got me thinking. Initially, I was really shocked to find that I had frozen all the bananas and left myself without a breakfast option. I was very upset, ok, just a little, but come on... So I improvised. I improvised like our ancestors would have had to do had they frozen all their bananas the night before ;-)  Seriously, though. Our ancestors survived probably in large part to their ability to improvise, to think on the spot, to be creative, to think "outside the box". No claws, no teeth, slow, weak, no camo, no fur, no spines, no poison, no exploding ass (see bombardier beetle), and no venom resistance (see honey badger) - we're left with one fantastic evolutionary adaptation: a frontal lobe that is disproportionately larger than it should be for our bodies. I love evolution, by the way! So this frontal lobe, our executive brain, leaves us with the capacity to solve problems, come up with new solution, and think outside the box. This is the evolutionary adaptation that 1) makes humans different from other animals and 2) drove the agricultural and industrial revolutions that our paleo lifestyle now is designed to combat. Strange how these things work right. Our frontal lobes, about 100,000-200,000 years ago started to expand with increased variability in diet. Then somewhere between 150,000 and 10,000 years ago Hominid ancestors started to cook stuff. They somehow learned to harness the power of fire, probably first for warmth and then for cooking. They also learned about underground cooking - that is burying meat and veg with hot coals. This was an evolutionary milestone that resulted in even larger increases in brain energy utilization and expansion. See cooking shit allows our bodies to extract way more nutrients from the food. It's less energetically demanding to breakdown and the energy is easily utilized because the proteins are degraded through cooking. So, simultaneously we reduce our bodies energy expenditure associated with digestion and increase the energetic extraction from the food. MMMM. This is why if you eat everything that you current eat now in raw form, you WILL lose weight. Yeah sure the USDA says raw has more calories, but you shit about half those calories out. Raw diets produce weight loss. There is no debate about that!

So here we have our caveman brethren having discovered, through creativity and ingenuity of the type we don't yet know about (no time machine), allowing or the generation of an industrial tool that increases energy utilization. Turns out our bodies capitalized on sending that energy to our brains: the human brain consumes more energy than any other organ system in the body, in fact relative to it's size it essentially hijacks a majority of the energy in the body. And I don't think any of us would argue with the fact that our brains, are, well, pretty important. But, take for example, neuronal firing (just one neural process) uses about 10% of the entire bodies energy potential. This shit is fucking demanding! So caveman brother finds a way to get more energy in the body by using a creative technique. Our brains were trying to grow but energetically limited. Cooking solved this problem. Then at about 10,000 (+/-) years ago, the modern estimate for agricultural (r)evolution we learned a new trick: farming. Farming allowed us to produce large quantities of energetically dense (read as loaded with sugar and protein) foods in one location (read as we did not have to forage, hunt, and gather). Another evolutionary milestone, the black stone in 2001: a Space odyssey. Right? And yet we now know, or many of us know, that this lifestyle, while hugely beneficial to our farming ancestors, was not good for our bodies. We've created a plethora of "modern diseases" as a result of agricultural evolution. OK, but we've also fed a lot of people, reproduced to almost planetary limits, and destroyed half the earth. Oh, wait, all bad too.... It's not bad though. This was a change in evolutionary history that further gave rise to expanding brain sizes. We know from the anthropological record (read as we think we know from fossilized skulls) that there were at least two distinct periods of hominid brain expansion that correlate very tightly with the discovery of fire pits remains and agricultural evolution. Neat, eh?  And yet, here I was, gutted in my kitchen that I had frozen all my freaking bananas and what was I to do. Well thank goodness for the ancestral fire pit and farmer - it's because of them that I have a modernized brain that allows me to improvise, think creatively, and survive (as if I would've died without my paleo pancakes! no seriously, I might have! LOL). I "foraged" (i.e. looked around purposefully) my "surroundings" (i.e. my kitchen, pantry and fridge [oh my!]). I discovered a food product - sweet potato - that is nothing like a banana, but somehow I knew (from experience) that it had similar properties, it was edible, and might suffice as a substitute. Then I engaged in an almost uniquely human behavior: I tried it! That's right, I went for broke, (whoa, I am really dramatizing this, aren't I? :-)  I experimented. Many organisms do not have the capacity for experimentation, tool use and creative thinking: they run on instinct. Humans (& crows, and domesticated dogs, and other primates) are among a few species that are able to do this. And, in closing, I must say, THANK GOODNESS, because I don't know what I might have done had I been woken up at 5:30 am to clean up dog diarhea and then not be able to eat my paleo breakfast >:-O

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On last note about Paleo (or ZONE-ish) healthy eating. I've now been doing this again for at least a month, maybe a bit longer, and I have noticed performance gains that are just awesome. Now, part of this is mental, psychological. I went for Level 1 certification, and I've been following CrossFit for a while now, and I've tried to become part of the CF Community, so all those things are driving me to do work harder, faster, again and again. But, I do really think the diet has a combinatorial effect. I am not the first to suggest this, not by any means, in fact it's partially prescribed by CF, but I did want to comment on the personal, self-experimentation aspect of it. Take for example the fact that I max deadlifted more than I ever had, while eating paleo. Then just yesterday my wife, a few students and a professor from the college's new fitness club SPORT (Students Participating in Organized Running and Training) ran a 5K for Georgia Fallen Heroes (actually it was longer than 5K, 3.7 miles) and I ran it in a personal record time. I am convinced that this works.... It's hard at times, but the longer you do it, the more people you recruit as supporters and collaborators in this effort, the more like-minded people you surround yourself with - the easier it gets!

You should be able to talk while working out? Really!?

I used to hear that while you were working out you should be able to talk. The gist was that if you could still talk while you were working out then you were not over training. This always seemed strange to me, because as a competitive ice hockey player I could never talk, let along think about talking while clearing the net or skating at full throttle. And that was athletic fitness. Well today at the GLOBO I saw a trainer training a pair of clients. He trains them at least 3 days a week (read as they are paying big bucks to get a summer ready body!) I've noticed them, I've also noticed them noticing me doing CF, but I digress. So, I've often noticed them working out. He runs them through what appears to be a boot camp. The trainer has them lunge, sometimes swing a kettlebell (half ROM however, I guess the risk is too high to hold a KB over your head, LOL), pushups on stability device, etc. He usually trains them quite far (relatively speaking) from me, but not today. Today, while I was executing Tabata Something Else in the stretching, warm-up area he was also training his clients there. Whatever, they didn't bother me and I didn't bother them. But, as I was leaving, I walked past them. Today he was running a chipper of sorts: one of the two dudes had to do a minute of box steps (they are either not able or willing to do box jumps, but I've never seen them do box jumps) while the other did a sequence of push-ups and lunges. When I walked past the guy doing box steps and the trainer I was aghast to hear the two of them having a conversation about what they were doing this weekend. I even heard a chuckle! WTF!?! I realize it's Friday and sunny and ... WTF!?! These dudes are so getting ripped off. Not least because they've working out with this trainer for at least a month, but I think actually 3 months and as far as I can tell have made minimal, if any gains in fitness, but because the trainer is obviously not bringing any intensity to the game. I don't even know where to start with this: it would be one thing if they were talking about the workout. If the trainer was demonstrating or verbalizing proper execution of the movement, the ROM, or intensity. It would be one thing if the client was saying, I can't go on, and the trainer responded "yes you can!" However, it's a completely different thing to be talking about the evening's activities and laughing about it. Another GLOBO travesty. 

Unfortunately, these types of things, these bastardations of fitness, training, and simply good practice get me thinking and writing. At this point, since receiving and even before receiving my L1 Cert, I've noticed (heightened perceptions to such things) "travesties in trainings at the GLOBO!" 

So, today's "travesty in training at the GLOBO" = the trainer allowing his clients to talk while working out. What exactly are the fitness faux pas with this? There are several: 

1) if you are talking, if you are able to talk, then your intensity cannot be at a level conducive to production of good fitness outcomes and results. 

2) if your trainer is holding a conversation with you that does not revolve around discussion of your movement, your ROM, or your intensity, then s/he is not doing their job and you should ask for your money back. If your trainer is talking to you then s/he does not have your best fitness interest in mind. You are simply a paycheck a $ and you should, quite frankly, be insulted that they are insulting your intelligence and want of good training.

3) if you are talking while being trained, able to talk during a WOD/exercise then you are probably not being trained well. If the trainer allows you to perform things at such a low level of intensity then your results are probably not his/her highest priority. Rather, again, you are probably just a $

Take these 3 points as evidence that the GLOBO has one thing in mind: MAKING $$$. They do not have your fitness in mind. Rather, they design programs, they design and sculpt trainers, to be sales people and not trainers of fitness. They treat their clients as bodies and in most cases I think the GLOBO Gym would prefer their clients don't even come to the gym. The GLOBO stand to make a lot more money by selling memberships and hoping their members do not show up. That way they can bill your account every month, but if you don't show up then you are not producing any wear and tear on their expensive machines (expensive to buy and maintain!) But if you are one of those rare (I don't actually know the statistics, but would love to) that actually show up at the GLOBO, then they try to sell you personal training. Here they walk you through a series of over priced programs "designed to make you reach/attain your fitness goals." But it's a sham, isn't it? Because I have only seen one client trained by a GLOBO trainer that has shown any improvement in fitness. I've even heard the trainers talking, in the locker room about how this client or that client is not really into the training so they just take them through the motions. TRAVESTY! Why are you a trainer if your goal is to not make people healthy and fit. If you don't care about that, then why'd you become a trainer and get your certification? If you are happy with substandard "taking people through motions" you should go flip burgers! Your clients are not burgers! They come to you for help! They NEED your help! They trust your help! They trust that what you tell them to do is correct. They trust that your advice, training, and "expertise" is utilized to its fullest potential to help them, as an individual, reach their fitness and/or health goals. To not know that, to not treat them like a superstar, to ignore what your discipline is designed to do, and to take for granted the fact that you somehow have people's respect without ever having to gain it is a chronic travesty! I would disabuse the clients about this, but I've already been threatened that I can't even train my own wife. I can only imagine what would happen (my membership would probably be revoked) if I started telling clients that they are not getting their money's worth! Ha!

THIS is my sport!

Today at the GLOBO I saw a new friend of mine - Todd is his name. He's been trying CrossFit main site WOD's for a few days now and loving it. And he's killing it! He is super fit and in no time will look like a perfect CF specimen, I am sure. At any rate, in addition to the WODs he's been actively perusing the main site for materials, demos, etc. He mentioned to me today that he saw somewhere on the site where it said something to the effect (paraphrasing here) that people use CrossFit to train for "their" sports (e.g., MMA, football, baseball, hockey, volleyball, gymnastics, etc). He says to me, "THIS, CrossFit is my sport; I want THIS to be my sport!" Fucking awesome! I knew he and I would get along. 

This got me thinking about the "sport of fitness". That's what Coach Glassman refers to CrossFit as, the sport of fitness. I totally agree with this contention. Each WOD is a personal journey, sometimes in pleasure, often in pain, and in competition with yourself (either your last time for that WOD or just kicking ass at the current WOD). It's a sport and sometimes you've only got one participating athlete. For Today's WOD (3 rounds of 275# deadlifts, 10 reps + 50 double unders) I could've used a little help from my friend(s). I was killing it, but slipping on some of the double unders reps, which got m frustrated and made me make more mistakes. I needed a teammate, a virtual slap in the ass to say, come on SP, you can do it! No rest for the wicked, dude! KILL IT!

THIS is my sport! I will continue to kill it, as best I can, until I no longer can participate, I will work hard. My benefits are not trophy, medal, money, but personal gratification at surpassing a previously unknown ability and fitness. What more could you ask for from a program in fitness: Fun, personal satisfaction that transcends the gym, and fitness? I love my sport!

A sense of community at the GLOBO...?

Today I experience something new, strange, and yet wonderful at the same time at my local GLOBO Gym. A sense of community. Now, this was not your typical meathead community where we exchanged weightgainer recipes and flexes of our biceps in the mirror. Rather this was a community that I felt was CrossFit like. Well it happens that it was... Let me explain. I've been doing CrossFit at my local GLOBO now for a a few months, 9 or so, I'd say. People know it because I'm not shy about letting them know, or letting them know that "No, I am not done with that pull-up bar just because I go running across the gym to the squat rack to do some thrusters (ah, Fran!). Many people are, well for lack of a better word, frightened by what I do: handstands, and the push-ups! My goodness... what are you crazy, I would hear. But today was different. A few days ago, I mentioned in another post on intensity, that a fella asked me about my workout. He actually asked if I was training for an Ironman Competition and I disabused him about that and informed him about CrossFit and their website. So today I walk into the gym and I see him in the basketball court trying to do a HSPU. He comes over to me and says he's been perusing (my words) the main page and is trying to WOD. It included HSPUs and he could not do it. He was discouraged and ready to quit. I stopped my warm-up and I told him NO! This stuff is infinitely scalable so let's see what you can do. Turns out he can do a modified HSPU with his legs on a bench or box. So he did them. His pull-ups are weak, and his kip is ugly, but we worked that a little too. I of course was not trying to "train" him, proper. I'd been reprimanded for doing that with my wife just a few days earlier - d baggerston trainer told me I could not even train my old lady - I mean WTF!? Right? But after I warmed (him and I) up, we ran through the wod together. It was great fun. He was a little nervous, but held his own and he had no choice because I was cheering him on, loudly mind you, and I was not going to let him give up! Turns out that was contagious because near my max, he started cheering me on "Come on you got this!" Others were taking notice and the one trainer, we'll just refer to him as Douche Baggerston, was not happy. I could tell. Odd looks from him weren't what I noticed, but it was the onlooking from his clients, veering attention away from him and onto us that I did notice. I kind of wanted to tick my tongue out at him, and would have if it hadn't already been hanging out panting. The workout was great, he loved it and wants to do more together or on his own! I am stoked! I feel like I made a difference. 

It gets better. As I am walking out I see the spinning instructor - bad ass older lady that has more endurance capacity then a fucking camel! Well she's been doing CF at a BOX a few towns over and knows that I do it at the GLOBO. So she starts talking to me. I leaned through her that another gym had actually closed down because the trainers had defected to a CF model. So this GLOBO does not like CF. I can only assume that it is a huge slap in the face to think that 1) they spent all this money on all this shitty equipment that sucks (read my post about machines) and 2) that this new model-free system produces results. That is, they'd rather see their clients use the machines, get personal training from their trainers (which apparently is where the $ are) and not get any fitter, but yet still take their money, membership fees. Fucking unconscionable! They are selling a bogus product, a fraudulent claim. And people are fucking paying for it! I am ashamed for them, but that is their business. In fact, I reckon they make more money off people who join (e.g., new years resolution-ers) and never show up. At any rate, as disgustingly dishonest and fucked up as that is, the smalle community of 3-4 that I've started to get to know have been wonderful. They've even expressed interest in training with me outside the GLOBO, under my supervision, at my garage (i dont have any equipment yet) or at a park. This is freaking crazy - by being honest, hard-working, and having a shred of integrity about what I do, plus revealing my secret (CF main site) these people want me to train them! I love this stuff and had left the gym with a fantastic feeling about what I am doing and how CF has changed my life. 

Cheers, to more community everywhere....

... more to come on this over the weekend....

Intensity evokes remarks

OK, so I've written about these two ideas before: the need for intensity and compliments, or remarks. Yesterday it happened again. I really brought it to the house for my WOD: Murph - run 1 mile, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, then run 1 mile, again! Poor time of 54:57 because I attacked it all wrong, but now know for next time how to do it.

At any rate, I was rolling in my workout, wrapping up the brutal second 1 mile run, sweating, breathing, working! Afterward, I cooled down and did some NF and isolation stretching to make sure I was able to walk to my classes. While I was stretching a guy at the gym who I've come to befriend simply by seeing him on a daily basis, approached me and asked, "Can I ask you a question?" I immediately got a little defensive and thought great another person is going to ask me why I don't do the typical weights routine, etc blah blah ... But no, this fella asks me, "Are you training for an Ironman or strongman competition?" Holy cow, I was flabbergasted to say the least and highly appreciative. Not because I care to do an Ironman or Stronman Comp, but rather because this guy was giving me a really nice compliment. Really made my day.

 

Gave me something to think (& write) about as well. This guy obviously saw me working, hard, noticed the intensity I brought yesterday, everyday to the gym. Any of us can go into the gym/fitness center and walk around and see a lot of people just standing around. I've always sort of been puzzled by this, you come here to workout, right, so why just stand around. OR why talk on your damned cell phone. The whole idea that you should be able to talk while working out (with exception of a few conditions, like cardiac or pregnancy) seems ridiculous. If you can talk while you are working out, then it's my wholehearted conviction that you are not really working out. Rather you are just moving it: that is, going through the motions. Now there are times when talking is capable, in between 1RM's, etc, but for the most part the gym should be a place where you push yourself. Spend one hour at high intensity work capacity instead of talking on the phone for 33% of the time you are there, looking at girls asses for another 20%, talking to your "workout" buddy, etc. I mean come on. They don't call it working out for nothing. You are supposed to be working. Else they might call socializing out, cell phone talking out, douching out! Just sayin'

Another thing I've noticed is that intensity, my intensity is what I've noticed, either worries people or upsets them. People are often put off by my rather frantic fast paced walking between stations, sometimes running between stations, or constant monitoring of my stopwatch. Sometimes they approach me and try to talk to me, and I get the distinct feeling that some of them are trying to bring my heart rate down. They do that strange long pause between words and phrases and talk about nothing of real importance at the time. I must seem like a rude dick (like I normally do) when I look down at my watch and say, "excuse me" as I walk past to my next station, start a new set, etc. I am not trying to be rude, rather I feel they are being rude by interrupting my work.

At any rate, this post is not about what I don't like about when people talk to me during a workout, it's about the nice and courteous folks that do talk to me, but have the where with all to know to wait until the end of my workout, to talk me up during my stretching and cool down. To notice that I am using a stop watch and that interruption will probably mess up whatever I am doing. It's quite a nice compliment to know, or observe, or be told, that someone has noticed that you are doing these things. It suggests to me that the intensity that you bring to the gym is observable, socially observable to those that have social skills. It certainly makes people feel uncomfortable because it's not what they are used too. They've never worked out, with or without, a trainer, and been told to watch their time. Rather, often they are coached into a rest period between sets. Rest between sets has it's place, but not everyday. Bring the intensity, or as so eloquently put by one of my favorite raps songs: BRING THE PAIN. It doesn't last that long. So thanks to those people who notice my intensity. It really surpasses just about any compliment, verbal compliment, that I could ever receive. It demonstrates to me that you value intensity. People who value intensity in fitness are probably the same people that value intensity in other walks of life: their occupation, their love life, their family life, their hobbies, etc. I can respect a person like that. I like a person like that!

I think this is interesting: I wonder if people who bring the intensity to the gym/fitness center, also bring the intensity to other domains of life. In my experience this is the case. With people I know, this is the case, I wonder what others' thoughts are.

Really? I can't train my wife?!

What a joke! I was in the gym the other day, the gym I pay for a membership for my wife and I, helping my wife workout. I hesitate to use the word "train" at all, because really she just needs a little motivation (13 weeks prego will do require that) and some ideas about new workouts and exercises. So I was running her through a workout, at this stage a warm-up - some Samson stretches, jumping jacks, squat thrusts, etc. The workout was not even that strange - sumo deadlift high-pulls, push-ups, and lunges. 20 minute AMRAP. However, one of the trainers says to me quite pointedly, quite intentionally, obviously with meaning, "are you working out too, Steve?" I said, "No. I am just showing Austen a new workout." He says, "be careful, they don't allow independent trainers doing work in here." Ok, if it were a warning, then I totally appreciate it, and actually at the time, I was very thankful and just threw in a few sets of push-ups and burpees here and there to make it look like I was working out too, not just training her. But, damn. This really got me thinking and a little ticked off as the thought percolated. I am like, really dude, it's my wife. She's not paying me, she's not a "client" - WTF!?

I am now not sure if the fella was trying to help me or be a tool bag. 

Turns out, that for the past month or two this guy's good pal, also a trainer at this gym, was trying to get my wife to pay for some training in Kettlebell workouts. Well, a few problems with this. 1) why would she pay someone else to show her how to swing a kettlebell when I can do it for free? 2) Why would she pay to have someone show her how to use a kettlebell when the gym does not even make the kettlebells available. No, they are locked away in the secret personal trainer room where the average member cannot access that equipment. And finally, 3) why would she pay for training from a man who is obviously out of shape. The dude is fat. Fine, he can throw around a kettlebell, but what about looking the part?

I tend to think about shopping for personal training, not that I shop for that, like shopping for anything else. If a horse farmer started telling you all about "horse power" would you buy an engine from him? Would you buy health food products from this guy (LOL) or Kirsty Alley? Would you buy a cat from a puppy mill? Would you buy a fancy rat from a pet store that specialized in reptile sales? No! Hell NO! So why in the world do some trainers think that clients will sign up to pay (a lot) of money for personal training with an individual that looks ostensibly out of shape, or at the very least in worse shape then the people they are trying to gain as clients. How do these folks sleep at night? I've written about this before here. But thought I'd update it a little here, because of this past incident. Now the guy who "warned me" and I am greatful, because I'd hate to have lost my gym membership or something, is fit as a fiddle. Ripped, strong, muscular, etc. But he is one of 2, maybe 3 trainers that are in what I would refer to as "good shape". The other 3-4 are, well, turds. And as far as I can tell they aren't even gold plated! LOL. 

So, this got me thinking a bit. What's the strategy here? There must be some marketing scheme behind all this "mess" right? I think there is. Let me expound my hypothesis and see what you think. 

If I am a gym, and I want to get business from the largest possible most disbursed clientele around in order to rake in the $$ then I need to cater to people who are "serious" about working out and those that are what I've heard referred to as "fair weather worker outers" or "resolution lifters". I'll start by describing the first type of individual: The serious worker outer. These individuals have been dedicated to fitness for a while now. They are already generally fit, some very fit. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors: from marathoner to body builder to ex-collegiate athlete to the mom/dad who is just trying to keep up with his kids. They most likely do not need personal training. They've gotten this far on some good coaching, reading magazines like Men's Health, by watching and talking to others in the gym, or by simply having a "knack" for understanding their own kinesthetic sense of awareness and how musculature and exercise work. These are what we might call "naturals", right?   The second type of gym goer is not that fit. They might have joined, bought a membership as a new years resolution claiming, "This is going to be the year I knock off these 20 pesky pounds!" They might be the person who, one day looks in the mirror and then looks down at her plane tickets to Cancun and thinks, what am I going to look like in that bikini? They join for a completely different, acute (or short-lived) reason. They may not even appear to be in bad shape, although many do in my opinion. 

Knowing this, I think that the gyms target their clients with personal training - because to be honest that's where the real money is. Personal training is like the drinks at a restaurant and the membership fees are simply the meal. In case you did not know, most places make the majority of their profits off of drink orders and meals are designed to make people thirsty so that they can make more money off of drink orders. Cool, well sort of.  SO the membership just gets them in the door. Then they are approached, targeted, I would say by PT. It does not take Einstein to see where my thinking is here: if someone comes in and is reasonably fit, then approaching them with a fatty PT is stupid, moronic. This is what happened to my wife. My wife can back squat her body weight, bench press 3/4 - 2/3 her body weight, clean and jerk, snatch, and she can max overhead squat over 100 lbs. Oh and did I mention she's 13 weeks prego? Wrong approach strategy here. Rather folks who are already fit are generally approached (and I must admit that there is probably a reasonable rate of error based on some sort of signal detection theory, think loose clothing, prego belly, etc) by one of the two really fit trainers. One just looks like a great athlete and the other is a competitive body builder. "Yeah they look good, many people would want to 'look' like that!" Hell yeah! On the other hand, there are those folks - the resolutioners or fair weather fitters - that need attention too. Approaching them with someone who is obviously a real athlete could be very intimidating, right. That kind of mental discrepancy wreaks havoc with our minds. Let me give you an example where it often pops in and we loathe it. The car dealership. You walk in wanting to buy an updated model of your, say Toyota Corolla. The salesperson is not happy with that because the commission is low on that car. So they try to sell you the Sequoia or the Land Cruiser. Yeah, mucho dinero there. Your Bullshit detector goes bonkers and you head for another dealership. 

It's a clever little scheme (and I mean scheme in it's proper definitional sense, not the Dr. Evil sense) to target the ends of the fitness spectrum. An additional added benefit of this strategy by gyms is that those individuals in the middle 68% of the distribution will usually fall in one of three categories (in my experience and humble opinion): 1) they will be happy with where they are and their $25 / month gym membership and not care to do any personal training; 2) be impressed by the ever present fit personal trainer and desire to look like or be as strong as them which results in them seeking training by someone better than them; and 3) be intimidated by the super fit trainers and default to the turd trainer with the idea that once they get a little fitter then they will feel more comfortable training with the fit trainer. Ingenious, not ever sure it's been planned, scheme, IMHO. 

At the end of the day, I feel really honoured that my wife would even want me to train her - not sure what end of the spectrum I fall in from the above discussion, but I do feel like I've become fitter and am pleased she trusts me and respects me to train her. And the fact that the folks at the gym think it's bogus for me to do so, is well just upsetting. Sorry, turd, she'd rather train with her old (and by old I mean aged) man then you....