young_squatter said:
Whoa dude, I think your taking this way to far. Im not taking it to far at all, How can I learn from your mistakes when you guys have never hired a personal trainer to make you a program or diet? And if you have you have not told me about it. Personally the reason I took up dereks plan is because people that have been on his programs have made great gains.
So I have to learn from my own mistakes if this is one of them, I should not learn from your mistakes when I am not you. I know your trying to help but watch the stuff you say, Im not making any excuses for stopping marks routine. My excuse is I wanted to hire derek and thats the bottom line.
Thanks
Having been a personal trainer for a while when I was in college and over the years having met very very few (actually I've met none) that actually knew a good amount about training - and some were downright horrendous - maybe my opinion counts for something. When I was working in that job, I got my clients pretty solid results - a lot better than the soon to be IFBB pro who also was a trainer there (as well as every other trainer in what was a pretty major gym). Actually, one of my novice clients in 3 months made better progress than one of his mutli-year clients (they were friends) and the guy got so fed up he jumped on juice rather than thinking to look at the training his friend was doing under me vs. what he was doing under the BBer. So anyway, I was fairly successful at training beginners although I don't claim any special expertise other than just applying basics.
I didn't use 5x5 specifically, but training always revolved around the big compound lifts, sound technique and systematic progress. If you think this is novel or somewhat unusual today, go back 10-15 years in BBing and you can't even imagine it. Bent over rows were "new" from Dorian. No one deadlifted - and I mean literally no one besides PLs not just that it was rare (Chris Duffy was the BBer who sort of brought this back). And squatting - well it made your waist bigger and was dangerous so hardly anyone did that when machines "were just as effective".
Overall, I did fairly well. Explained basic training and progression to people. Told them the 'why's' and long-term 'how's' regarding progression toward their goals. People - even overweight housewives - made a ton of progress, were really happy, stuck to it, and had a proper perspective on their progress over time. Hell, they even laughed that I was right and that they were eating more and more often yet still losing fat and looking better. And yeah - if you were fit enough you deadlifted even if it was the bar off Rebock steps for reps. And if you could only get to the gym 1 time a week, you deadlifted, pressed, and squatted or leg pressed. So in total, I was alright - quite a bit different for the time but my results stood on their own and made others look like trash I guess. Most of all, the people got what they paid for, learned a lot to where they could train on their own for periods of time, and were happy.
That's my experience. Pretty solid overall and I guess I still have enough training info in my head that people seem to want to listen and impliment it. Obviously a number of people have been rewarded, most everyone here seems pretty happy and enthused about the progress they've made and exposure they've had to different ways of doing things.
So, in all of that I'm probably a pretty solid trainer of people. Whether beginner or intermediate. The results speak for themselves. All that said, I can't hold a candle to Rippetoe or Glenn. Not even freaking close. I have never seen in my life the kind of results that Rippetoe is able to get. Frankly, sometimes I wish I had a pool of novices that would listen (the real key) and who I could train just to experiment. Like I said, I'm pretty solid and I can get big results fairly consistently - but not on par with his. To be honest, I've never heard of results like his. I didn't think it was possible in all but some extreme cases and circumstances.
Maybe that lends some perspective coming from someone who was a trainer for a time and would probably be acknowledged as a pretty damn good one by internet or commercial gym trainer standards.
Regardless though, do your thing. There is more to life than muscle or training. Do what you want, get out there. Maybe you are right or maybe you are wrong, but remaining where you are and not doing anything is the surest way to fail.
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If you say so.
