A Different Kind Of Trainer To The Stars

In getting to know Patrick Murphy, we shared many similar views and frustrations with fitness. He is also one of the few corrective specialists that I know of who consistently trains high profile clients. He is NOT one of those all show, no substance type of trainers. I interviewed him to find out what his thoughts were on fitness, personal training, and client mindset.

What is your background and areas of expertise as a trainer:

I've been a full time trainer for 18 years. I started studying exercise science and taking nutritional courses during my college years in the early 90's. Funny enough, much of what I've learned in the 90's pertaining to both exercise and nutrition is now considered flat out wrong... i.e. how to stretch, how to perform exercises, what's healthy to eat, etc. This ever evolving factor makes health and fitness science so interesting.

Since becoming a personal trainer, every year I make sure I take continuing educational credits to keep up with the latest science. My numerous certifications range from performance enhancement, corrective exercise, pre-natal, and nutrition. I've used many different organizations but my last 3 have all been from NASM. I'm proud to say that I know I've arrived as a fitness expert when the organizations that certify me start to refer me their own clients.

My expertise as a trainer is in helping clients to reach their full, optimal potential in fitness and health. I've had much success with clients from all walks of life. There isn't a health and fitness goal that can't be attained. I'm excellent with helping clients becoming psychologically fit: establishing a healthy relationship with nutrition and exercise.

In addition, I know many healing tricks for back pain, knee pain and shoulder pain. I'm great at trouble shooting the CAUSE of pain vs dealing with the symptoms.

Who are some of the clients that you've had:

Jennifer Lawrence, Jena Malone, Meta Golding (Catching Fire), Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives), Olivia Wilde (TRON), Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Emily Blunt (5 Year Engagement), Roselyn Sanchez (Without a Trace), Mario Lopez (Saved By The Bell), Shelly Long (Cheers), Summer Glau (Serenity), Daniela Ruah (NCSILA), Robert Kazinsky (Pacific Rim), Justin Bruening (Night Rider), Alison Brie (Community), Jackie Warner (Bravo's Workout), and more....

That is a pretty impressive list of clients! So what makes training with Patrick Murphy different from training with any other Joe Trainer:

I'm not a rent-a-buddy. Don't get me wrong, I'm friendly BUT I take training very seriously. Achieving results with clients is a MUST. I've been program designing for so many years with so many clients that my varied workouts are super appealing even to the "hate to workout" person. I am able to adapt to each client and help them adhere to positive, healthy changes. I am a lifestyle changer. My testimonials on my website reflect that.

Going along with that, what has been the key to your success and long career, basically your appeal:

I've truly found my passion in what I do. I live and breath health and fitness, I practice what I preach and enjoy the constant learning. Being a fitness and health professional is not my 2nd job. I'm truly focused with every client I have and am 100 % devoted to them. I let new clients know right off that I'm excited to be on their team. When the passion is there, it all falls into place.

How important is the client mindset (and attitude) as far as them reaching their goals?

Everyone starts in a different place both physically and mentally. A fact must be realized, "Our Thoughts" are WHO WE ARE." Moving forward, our thoughts become words and our words become actions. Reaching your goals is about becoming your own best friend... which starts in your MIND. Holding on to a negative mindset develops chronic stress, which will wreak havoc on your mind and body.

How important is client effort in their overall success or is it all on the trainer?

It is definitely a TEAM effort. I have a responsibility to guide the client in the right direction for results, and the client needs to be willing to follow the guidance. Clients need to have trust in their trainer, and to get their own homework done. I'm not around all the time, only 2-3 hours a week on average. Early on, with new clients, I repeat factual, minimal requirements that must happen for results to occur. In fitness, the more you put into it the more you'll get out of it. I do tell clients the more frequently they see me in a week the more results they will achieve. I love taking on more responsibility. At the same time, even if someone trains with me 4 days a week but has a weekly, unhealthy food journal then obviously their overall results will be lacking. I can guide and give notes to clients on their food consumption week in and week out, but it's still 100% up to them to make the right choice.

What do you think a client should look for in a trainer or training program?

Look for a trainer who has experience. I'm obviously a much better trainer now than I was 10 years ago. The knowledge, the practice and the years of experience in dealing with client's needs both mentally (food relationships, body dysmorphia, etc.) and physically has me improving every year.

Find a trainer who is more focused on anatomical improvement, not someone who focuses on the "feeling" or "sensation" of an exercise. What separates me from most trainers is that I have an education in corrective exercise. I help people with forward head, rotating feet, pelvic tilt, protracted shoulders etc, etc...

If someone came to you looking to lose 40lbs right away, but they have never worked out in their life, and sat at a desk all day, what should they expect?

A new client who has never trained and sits at a desk all day is what fitness professionals call the "de-conditioned" client. Every operating system in their body is much older than their age. Being 40lbs. overweight also means the client is in a constant state of inflammation and more susceptible to illness and disease in the future. This person should expect a WAKE UP CALL!

A person who is de-conditioned needs to establish stabilization of not only their muscles and joints, but also their cardio-respiratory systems. This person will also have postural and alignment issues that must be addressed before progressing into a serious program. De-conditioned people should expect 4-6 weeks of the professional trainer working on each of the issues stated above, which means that there will be more emphasis on structural and cardio improvement first. Weight loss will happen naturally as a result, but will be secondary as a focus.

Everyone wants a good trainer but no one ever talks about how good the trainer's program is. How important is the programming a trainer creates for their clients? How important is periodization?

The trainer is hired to give the client the best program specifically for them. Everyone is different and unique... family history, injuries, food sensitivities, postural issues, habits, strengths, struggles, etc, etc.. As trainers, we can help people immensely with the proper program, OR we can damage them further with exercises and foods that encourage negative effects. So obviously, the proper programming (in my opinion) is EVERYTHING.

Periodization is extremely important when designing a program. Stabilization, strength and power need to be established accordingly. Proper progression helps to avoid injury. As a fitness professional, it's important to know when to take clients to the next level and/or cycle. For example, I'm not going to take a new client and have them perform a bunch of power moves when stabilization and strength haven't been achieved yet to my satisfaction. A good trainer also knows how to avoid plateaus so clients can reach their full potential.

What drives you crazy about the fitness industry, from trainers, gyms, popular classes, trends, and so forth:

There are so many! HA! Here are a few:

-Health and Fitness infomercials that strengthen fitness myths, not facts.
-gyms that have 100 machines and no functional tools.
-group exercise where the members are in the worst postural positions possible without correction.
-cookie cutter programs like P90X and Insanity that cause more harm than good.
-Fitness magazines that promote horrible exercises for your joints and spine.. But hey "they look so cool."
-trainers who put people in high risk positions, I see it all the time.
-the fitness industry not evolving and still performing exercises that aren't good for the body, i.e. upright rows, bench dips with hands behind, russian med ball twists (disc grinder).

What's one tip you could give our readers before they start a fitness program:

The more motivating factors you have when you start a fitness program, the more likely you'll stick to it, and the longer you stick to it, the better chance you will have of establishing amazing habits that will last a lifetime.

How could someone contact you or find out more about you?

patrick@murphyfitness.com
http://murphyfitness.com/
FIT BY THE MINUTE
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Murphy_Fitness
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/patrickmurphyfitness
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Murphy-Fitness/122007864784

Choosing To Live

The art of movement, the art of being human.

The Love Campaign

Healthy is the new Skinny?

The Creation Of All Out Effort Part 2

Enter Cindy!

Read the Creation of All Out Effort Part 1 - http://www.allouteffort.com/2012/08/the-creation-of-all-out-effort.html

It wasn't long after, there was an immediate response. People were coming in. I was transparent about what I was offering and people were believing the message. I attracted a different group, a group that had always felt disenfranchised. I'm in Hollywood but these weren't actors, they weren't people just trying to look good, these were people trying to get healthy, and yes there is a difference. These were people who never liked personal training before, people who wanted to be motivated through education, who didn't want rah rah training but evidence based training, who didn't feel there was a right program for them...until now.

But I realized I couldn't sustain a one man revolution. I needed another coach. Not someone I could train to be as good as me, but someone who could potentially improve the process. Someone who was a health advocate, who cared about people, and bought into the All Out Effort philosophy. Someone who wanted to believed what I believed, that servicing others would positively affect every aspect of your life. I searched, interviewed. Finding a good trainer was not easy! There's so many who want to get paid, sure. But how many really cared, and how many really had the know how?

I had almost given up, but then in the middle of the night it hit me like a lightning bolt.We had met during the short time we worked at a health club. We bonded over complaints about the lack of education or passion among trainers.

When I saw her, she wasn't training anymore so I gave her every reason why she should be a trainer again and work with me, eventually in the middle of my rambling, Cindy stopped me and said, "Sam, you don't have to try to convince me. I want to be a trainer."

Listen to Cindy's story of how she became an AOE Coach.

- Coach Sam

My favorite law professor, full of knowledge and worldly experience, came to each class empty handed and told enticingly vivid stories about farmers, cows, random doodads having nothing to do with one another. Yet, he would magically and inevitably relate every story back to common law at the end of each class. Even though there was always assigned readings, the entire class, which started off diligently devouring every boring word of the assigned text, grew accustomed to skimming or never reviewing the text at all. One fateful day, the good professor decided to show up to lecture armed with our 1000 page textbook and began directing individual students with specific points from our assigned reading. The usual three hour story-time quickly turned into a contest of who can sink lower into their seats. A few picked up their bags and walked out of the lecture hall, with double doors slamming behind them. I, not quite as brave, stayed. Finally, the professor grew tired of our unpreparedness, sat down and told us something I will never forget.

It was quite simple, the class has 60 officially enrolled UC Berkeley students. These 60 students embodied some of the brightest minds. But not all 60 students were equally deserving. The professor's job was to bestow his knowledge to all 60 unequal students equally? How does he do that? If he chose to tailor each class to only the most prepared, discuss only the most difficult concepts of the law, he would undoubtedly lose those students who were not prepared or even those of moderate preparation. Conversely, if he chose to lecture to the less prepared, he would end up creating boredom and laziness in the minds of the prepared and diligent. So what's a good professor to do? He has to mostly lecture to those few average students out of all 60, i.e. dumb it down. Is this fair, he asked all of us. Even though by this time, we were all too ashamed to answer, we all knew the answer was no, this is not fair. By the end of the semester, only about 30 students remained.

Lesson: you can't teach everyone the same, and you can't teach the ones who do not want to learn, to learn.

Sometime in January 2012, one of my hundreds of acquaintances on Facebook messaged me. It was a short and to the point, "are you still a trainer?" Not being an avid Facebooker, I had forgotten my password and didn't feel like jumping through hoops to reset it just to respond with a "no, I no longer train people."

Over a month later, I received an email from the same person, asking the same question. This Sam Yang who was emailing me was quite adamant about getting a response. Then I remembered Sam, we were both trainers at a Globo Gym (any typical franchised big gym where people go to work out but no one gets in shape) a few years ago. He was the only one who shared a consoling look when we observed dangerous maneuvers our fellow trainers were putting their clients through. Curious to what he was up to, I finally responded. That evening, he asked me to join him and his group of clients to watch a UFC fight. As soon as I pulled out of my driveway, my tire pressure indicator popped up. Hoping I was simply low on air, I pulled into a gas station pump. As soon as I surveyed the tires it was obvious the rear right tire was low, upon closer inspection, a nail glimmered under the bright gas station light. I had to text Sam with a raincheck, whatever he wanted to talk about was just not meant be, or so I thought.

Sam must have had something up his sleeve because he decided to get my address and drive over to my house the next morning and took me to brunch. As we sat across from each other, we finally engaged in the conversation that never took place while we were colleagues. He told me about his frustrations about the fitness industry, his recent marriage, his current success, and busy schedule while alluding to looking for another trainer. I updated him about my life and let him in on all the minute details he never knew.

I had met my ex-boyfriend at the age of 22 while he was 37. We had a truly tumultuous relationship that ended 4 years later when his fist connected to his bodybuilder physique slammed down with full force to the right side of my skull, slightly above the ear. The blow struck me to the ground, took away my immediate ability to breathe, my hearing, and my vision. Huddled on the floor, I tried to catch my breath and waited for my vision to return while my brain tried to center itself after the recent sloshing. It was the first and the final time he hit me. That blow took away more than just my hearing and sight, my sense of self fled my body with my breath.

I didn't know it at the time, but I began searching for ways to empower myself. Having always been a devoted hiker and rock climber, I began spending more time outdoors and training harder at the gym. My mere interest with functional training became a full-fledged obsession.

Not long thereafter, a close friend of mine was informed she was a diabetic. After sobbing for hours, we formulated a plan, I wanted to help her defeat diabetes. Even though she lived 30 miles away, I loved her so much that I would drive to her house every Saturday morning to review her diet and activity for the week and train her. We started off with a bang, she did very well. 6 short weeks later, her lab work reflected the hard work she had put into her nutrition and our workouts. I was confident she executed all the assignments I gave her and stayed active on her own during the week. 12 weeks later, she told me she didn't want to do this anymore. She said to me, "Cindy, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't even have sex!" All I want to do is eat, let me at least have that." The terminal tone in her voice crushed me. I had wanted her to be healthy more than she did.

In 2008, I resigned from my comfortable Beverly Hills office job to pursue a career as a firefighter. After meeting a handful of dedicated yet now obese firefighters who all suffered from various injuries due to the physically demanding nature of their job, I researched even further into health and fitness. I needed to prepare myself for the physically demanding career I craved while preserving the functionality of my body. In order to mirror many of the on the job movements, I abandoned the traditional gym setting completely. I began training with ropes, shovels, ladders, sledge hammers, axes, sandbags, kettle bells and weighted vests. I slowly shifted from training in an air-conditioned setting into the outdoors, my favorites being the Santa Monica stairs and the Sand Dune Park. While deeply vested in my own training, I shared my knowledge with my clients while working for the first time as a personal trainer at a Globo Gym, where I met Sam.

The most successful trainers at this huge corporate gym were the best salespeople. The goal was always to sign up more clients with the most expensive personal training package possible and make sure they renew at an equally or more expensive level. I felt my integrity dwindling fast. Even though I took advantage of all workshops offered in order to gain more knowledge into fitness, most workshops were focused on sales and marketing. Realizing how far I was from helping people, I left. At around the same time, I had also realized being a firefighter is not the right place to make my contribution.

I began working as an emergency medical technician ("EMT"). It allowed me to quickly see the fragility of humankind and more importantly, the absolute significance of health. Yes, health, not money, love, shelter, house, job, car but personal health. Without health, nothing matters. Without health, nothing good can ever follow.

I told Sam about some of the miraculous medical incidents I witnessed and had taken part in on the field and in an emergency room ("ER"). My incredible stories slowly migrated to stories about patients whose medical histories include but are not limited to diabetes, hypertension, previous myocardial infarction (i.e. heart attack), liver cirrhosis, etc. Many of them come in still intoxicated or under the influence. Too many diabetics are brought in by ambulance completely unresponsive to pain. The lucky ones are stabilized and get to return home with more prescriptions after a few days of observation. In the ER, we always talk to them, tell them what to eat to get their health under control, show them pictures of foods to avoid if there is a language barrier, instruct them to be more active, suggest walks and better habits. The doctor will always tell drunks to stop drinking, call social services, followed by nurses telling them to stop drinking and I will stop by and chat with them then finish with telling them to stop drinking. They usually walk out of the ER after being discharged only to come back a few days later completely intoxicated again.

Here, I'm reminded again, I cannot help people who care less about their personal health than I. While talking to Sam, I had to keep myself from sounding too pessimistic of human beings through my experiences in the ER. Why do I keep trying to help people who don't want my help? I desperately missed sharing my knowledge with people who want to learn and work hard to earn their health, happiness, and pain free longevity.

"Health is not guaranteed but earned," as Sam says.

When Sam bared his mind and told me honestly why he had been trying to get a hold of me, drove to my neck of the woods, and took me to brunch in an effort to convince me to get back into personal training, I told him, "I don't need any convincing."

I didn't give up on my diabetic friend completely. I researched group fitness classes in her area and encouraged her attendance. Group classes are just that though. They are not meant to take your fitness to the next level. Like my favorite professor said, the class is only as good as the average person in class. It is never tailored specifically for you. People who care deeply about the quality of training they receive will seek out coaches dedicated to individual goals and interests and never a one size fits all training regimen. We have to focus on changing those lives who desire to be changed. 

- Coach Cindy

The Secret To Top Level Personal Training

It begins with assessments...

When human beings started to understand natural sciences, they began with observations of nature. Without assessments and observations of our clients, it wouldn't be a scientific process.

I like to say, without an assessment, it would be attempting to get the client "fit" on accident. Even without injuries, its the system that will keep them injury free and injury resistant during our training program.

With that said, the difficulty is the client comes in with certain expectations. They don't see the celebrity trainers using assessments and in their minds the trainers they have already seen on TV are the authority. Why are they the authority? The viewership makes them so. Just the same as all our clients make me an authority. If I had 0 clients, no matter how skilled I was, I would just be a guy who knew stuff.

I overcome the issue before it begins. I tell them from the first day what to expect, I become transparent. I explain to them though why it's more effective, you can use a host of analogies comparing their bodies to cars or what not. But people are not stupid, if they are explained the value up front they will buy in.

Once they believe that figuring out their weaknesses and minimizing it as much as possible is the key to a good program, program design becomes easy. They just needed to know why. Once they know why they begin to believe. Once they believe, they want the same things I want for them: good health. Why would I need to assess them if all I was trying to do was make them look good? I only need to know more about them when I am trying to make them healthy. So if I don't really care about their health and well being, I an skip it. But I thought diet and exercise was originally created to try to improve our health?

- Coach Sam

Family Bonding

It starts from the top down. Set an example. All we can be are guides.

To quote an old anti-smoking ad from the 90s, "I learned it from watching you dad. I learned it from watching you."

Is The Glass Full Or Not?

And is the glass full of diet water?

The Creation Of All Out Effort

Read Part 2: http://www.allouteffort.com/2012/08/the-creation-of-all-out-effort-part-2.html

I have always been a fitness nerd. Actually let me rephrase that, I have always been a nerd. Ever since I started martial arts at age 6 I always wanted to find a way to be quicker and faster than my opponents.

This lead me into a path of training with collegiate level, national level, and world level athletes. But all the training I learned, I never thought of it as a career, more of a passion. I was under the impression your career and your passion were two different things. 

I graduated from UC Irvine with Suma Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa and went into the world of financial advising, and eventually transitioned into home loans for a large bank. You ever see the movie Mary Poppins? Remember the dad? He was supposed to have the stuffiest job in the world, know what it was? He worked at the bank looking at loans all day. One day I had had enough, and quit. I told my boss I was leaving to take a road trip, they asked where? I told them I didn't know. They thought I was having some kind of life crisis.

So for months I lived out of my car driving aimlessly around the US like in Jack Kerouac's book On The Road. But what I learned from the road was, America was truly a large country. I mean its citizens were large.

I decided then, I would be a part of the revolution to change all that. It didn't make any sense to me.

How could the country with the world's greatest athletes ALSO be the fattest country in the world?

They say money doesn't trickle down from the elite to the regular masses, well hell training science doesn't trickle down from the elite to the regular masses. From get rich quick schemes to get fit quick schemes, America was getting its information from late night infomercials and TV shows. Not from the real elite who are really doing it. That type of elitism didn't sit well with me.

So I decided to become a trainer, no more than a trainer, a coach (because that's what athlete's have) but instead of training athletes I would train the regular masses with the techniques that professional athletes use. Instead of raging against the machine, I wanted to TRAIN AGAINST THE MACHINE. Go against what everyone else was doing.

Athletes train in a way where they slowly get better than eventually PEAK before their event. Regular people get trained in a way to get a lot of results early then plateau right away or lose their results. It's completely backwards.

So how do I create a system to address all these problems? How do I create something different?

Mindset - We have to change how people think. Luckily regular people don't have the egos of professional athletes (and if they do I'd rather not train them). The difference between you reading this blog and a person who competes at the highest level in anything isn't genetics, it's mindset. The athlete has been coached from a very young age to see nothing as a barrier, everything is just a hurdle that can be overcome. If you ever read Outliers, Talent Code, Talent Is Overrated, Bounce, or many other books like these, the professional athlete got to 20,000 hours or more in their respective sport whereas most people stopped at 500 hours. 

Most people have never been coached and if they have, it's been a long time and coaching is something they never expect to get from a trainer. Otherwise we would be called personal coaches, or fitness coaches, or strength coaches, not personal trainers. Even life coaches are called coaches, when coaching began with physical education! Most people don't even know how to be coached. This is where then we have to begin, focus on the mindset and thinking like an athlete.

Motivation - Some people hate exercising. They will only do it if its fun or someone makes it fun. So let's add music, let's take classes, lets buy a DVD where they keep changing it up randomly! Athletes don't train randomly, they don't accidentally get in shape. It's carefully choreographed. They don't train because its fun. If they did they would only train on days they were in the mood or days it was fun. But they train day in and out and they are still motivated. Why? You only hate exercising or lack motivation if exercising or whatever activity you are doing for that matter doesn't mean anything to you.

Let me repeat that, you only hate it because it doesn't mean anything to you. But if it means something, if practicing your sport, exercising, playing the guitar provides your life with meaning, or it means more money, or a future for your family, a way out of poverty, it defines you as a person, or it somehow positively affects every aspect of your life, how can you hate that? But most people exercise mindlessly, need to be told what to do, need to be distracted, need to watch TV or listen to music while you do it. Yes athletes get burned out or begin to hate their sport. But why? It's when it doesn't mean anything to them any more. It's when they question "why am I doing this? what's the point?" Maybe it never meant anything to them. And THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM. 

Most people exercise when it doesn't mean anything! No wonder people never workout or get a gym membership and never go! So exercise needs to be connected to a deeper meaning. This is why you need to write a mission statement stating why this is important to them, whether its self confidence, feeling more powerful or worthy, or maybe some even deeper meaning based on your past. And post it on your fridge, on your phone, on your forehead, just never forget it. Every workout will mean that! Every workout should and will MEAN something. Otherwise you will fail. That's the truth. You know your friends who you call the workout freak? Even though they never stated it, doesn't it seem like their workouts mean something greater to them? That's the key.

Comfort Zones - It's unfortunate but change happens whenever you're not comfortable. If you only like the things you are comfortable with, why even attempt to change? Change is all the unknown stuff you've been avoiding. Our greatest strength is our ability to adapt. It's not survival of the fittest, we thrived because we are the most efficient at adapting. If you only like cardio or running, and your familiar with that, and asked someone to focus a workout program on what you already like, your asking them to give you what you know and produce something different with it. That makes no sense. An athlete would never ask their coach to train them in all the stuff they are comfortable with, then nothing changes. All they ask of their coach is to make them better than they already are. How can you change doing more of the same things you've already done? You have to train your weaknesses. So if you only like huffing and puffing and cardio, maybe just working on balance feels like a waste of your time. Well that's change my friend. Adapt. Step into the unknown and get comfortable there. The only zone you should focus on is The Zone, the one Michael Jordan talks about where you are performing in athletic overdrive. 

Periodization and Programming - Athletes train in phases. Each phase builds on the last until you are at your peak level as a human being. Most people train the same things every day, or do something random every time they work out. Or their phases instead of being stability, or muscle endurance, or hypertrophy, its just called phase 1, 2, 3, or cardio phase, fat burning phase, summer body phase. And they get results early and plateau or lose all their gains after that. That's the opposite of peaking, that's the opposite of periodization and that's the thing missing from all non-athlete training programs. No programming, no periodization. Typically I'm sorry to say it's either random or stupid or poorly designed. There's a reason why professional strength coaches will design a program for someone, not even train them, just write it down and sell it to someone for thousands of dollars. It's that IMPORTANT. That's why you can't just hire any random Joe Trainer to train you properly. It's not just about proper form, can they design a plan? Maybe the trainer is good as in they are engaging, but is the program good as well? It better be.

Strength and Length - A little known fact about muscles. You CANNOT make more muscles than you already have. You can only grow or shrink the muscle fibers you already have. Whether you go up to 200lbs or down to 150lbs body weight, you still have the same amount of muscles and muscle fiber, they are just different sizes. Because of this, when muscles grow bigger, their is limited space, this creates tightness which can lead to injury or poor performance, and worst of all it can make you look bulky or blocky. 

That fear of looking bulky and blocky has made some avoid all weight and resistance training at all when they work out.

The other problem is, when you avoid creating bigger muscles with resistance training, you have no good way of burning fat. Actually without muscle mass, there is NO good way of burning fat. 

Unless you are expecting fat to burn fat. So there is the paradigm. It's why a lot of women avoid weights and only run or do yoga or pilates. The key is to lengthen and strengthen. If you can make bigger muscles, you can also make longer muscles. We focus on flexibility and length, then we focus on strength. It gives not only a more athletic and injury resistant body, it makes for a lot better looking body as well.

Diet - Calorie counting doesn't work. It doesn't. We need to eat the way we were designed to eat. There needs to be a comprehensive discussion about how you should be eating and how it can be done sustainably. None of this will work without the diet component.

Safety - You ultimately have to make it safe. Not only deal with current injuries but also prevent future ones. This is done through corrective exercise and prehabilitation. You can't be fit unless you are also resistant to injury. If you look good but are always hurting, you aren't fit. You're broken.

This is the humble beginnings of All Out Effort. It started with an idea and since then it's taken off. It's not for everyone. But for the ones who this is for, this is everything.

There is a more personal reason as well to why we are so unique. Read about it here: http://www.allouteffort.com/2012/10/why-did-you-even-start.html

- Coach Sam

Your New Daily Mantra

Let's Drop Your Cholesterol Once And For All

An e-mail I received from a client while I was on vacation. And yes I check my e-mail on vacation:

"Hey!

I hope you guys are enjoying Bali!

I want to share the good news I received from my doctor about my blood test results!

Cholesterol in Feb: 170
Cholesterol in Aug: 127
-43 point drop. This was my cholesterol level in my early 20's.

Triglycerides in Sept '10: 200
Triglycerides in Aug: 96
-104 point drop. The high triglycerides count was plaguing me for YEARS.

HDL went up and the LDL went down. I don't have the exact numbers but she's forwarding me a copy in the mail.

I saw my doctor back in October. For the first time, she requested to monitor my health via blood tests 3 months in February after seeing my results. First time she requested this so I knew I was in trouble. She was very concerned about where I was heading. My numbers improved in February after I stopped drinking and ate better...but I don't think my cholesterol has been in the 120 range in years. These are some of the best numbers she had seen in years.

I never ever want pop pills. I've seen how crappy my relatives are doing with medication. I am very surprised how my grandfathers liver can process all that medication wo failing..3+ types of meds!! Sure he is alive but I can tell he is miserable and suffering from dementia. All of that drove me to find you.

Thank you. Those words don't even convey a fraction of my gratitude to you. You and Cindy definitely changed my life for the better.

Hope that lands you on a good start back to work next week."

All Out Effort Involved In UFC Spoof

I along with several of the AOE athletes were involved in a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) spoof. See if you can spot me, hint I'm in the red gloves yelling out "come on champ" as I beat on Boucher. UFC 150 Mathis vs. Boucher, who will win?

A Letter From A Past Client

How are you? I have been meaning to write for months and months. Basically I just came back to New York many months ago… just for a visit...and then I just stayed. I found freelance work pretty quickly.

But more importantly, I also wanted to thank you. I am doing some training here, but it just makes me appreciate your methodology and the effectiveness of your workouts.

I am still subscribed to your Facebook page. Hope you're well!

Again, thank you for everything!

Leslie K.

Not Easy Being A Women

It's hard I'm sure dealing with all the expectations placed on women by the media. There is concern over what men consider beauty, but more often, women have concerns over what OTHER women find as beautiful. They sometimes can be their own toughest critics. I think this picture reminds us to take it easy.

See This Almost Every Day

Hey all you fitness experts. And I mean ALL of you! It's spelled "lose weight" not "loose weight!" Get that straight!

It's Never Too Late In Life To Start Living

How To Improve Posture

And begin to alleviate some back, shoulder, and neck pain.

What I've Learned As A Trainer

More than anything else, I've learned that compassion is what's most important in dealing with people. We are in the business of changing lives.

Russian Olympic Domination

There was a time when Russians and the Eastern Bloc were dominating the Olympics.

Outside of the controversy of steroids aside, they had made one significant change that challenged all traditional thoughts on exercise. Since then every other country has adopted this secret into training their Olympic athletes.

For a long time a huge part of training athletes were to make them run for a long time at a slow pace.

The Russians had replaced long distance running for short sprints. It didn't take long for this information to get literally smuggled out. Since then elite athletic training has never been the same. Even for marathon runners.

Now if only someone could tell all the regular gym goers...

Shakespeare In The Park

Thanks everyone for coming out. A lot of fun and culture was had by all.

Olympics Are Here

Daily Schedule

Synergy

I truly believe if you surround yourself with positive people, you will gain from their attitude, and they will gain from you. I have seen our members succeed in family, financially (even to extremely high degrees), get out of bad relationships, change their health, cure themselves.

They have also watched us grow from an unhappy stock broker who didn't feel like they were really helping their fellow man, to driving around the country and seeing the health of our nation and blogging about it, to being a nerdy blogger who threw bootcamps in the park for free just to get people moving, to being the clipboard holding trainer at a health club, to starting a one man fitness revolution inside of a personal trainer's gym that was shared with many other trainers, to leasing a small section of a martial arts studio to train people, to our own private studio inside of a bigger gym, to bringing in a second person to help run what is All Out Effort, to bringing in a third person to help with the self defense aspect, to finally getting our own giant retail space! All in a matter of a few short years!

I truly believe our members and the coaches work with each other to make things happen and both sides have benefited.

Why People Need Trainers

To protect them from themselves.

The Loss Of Motivation

When do people lose motivation for training? 

I wanted to find out. So I looked through my files for the last 2 years.

Here is what I found. Out of the majority of people who lose their motivation:

1. Most lose it right after a long vacation.

2. The second group lose it after some form of minor illness, injury, or accident.

3. The third group are the insomniacs. People who have troubled sleep, who are either too tired from not sleeping to work out, or overslept and don't work out. Along with them are people who have to miss training due to work or school.

4. In some tough financial situation that does not allow them to train.

5. They moved.

6. Some other reason.

I saw a pattern emerge. Almost 70% of people who lost their motivation, lost it after missing training for an extended period of time. I looked back on my days working at the health club, and my lifetime of martial arts. It holds true, the more training you miss, the harder it is to come back. It has something to do with routine, and not sticking to it, especially on vacation. I know guys in martial arts who have been training 10 years who average around 30 days of training a year. They keep stopping, and trying to restart.

Now people who leave on business trips, even if they are extended business trips are immune to these statistics. Why? It goes back to routine. Work is part of their routine, and so these people tend to still work out while away on their business trips. Something about vacations, being sick, being an insomniac, you just want to turn everything off. You are not shut off on a business trip, in fact you have to be on.

People who work out on vacation as well, never lose that motivation. Now you can be active, hike, swim, walk, bike, etc. But your mind still considers it part of the vacation experience. So it still feels out of the routine. Its the ones who still hit the gym, step out of the vacation stuff and back on their routines of working out who never lose the motivation.

I tell our members, you can take a vacation from here, but you can't take a vacation from your goals.

Now with people who never stop training, they stay motivated, and their statistics of reaching their goals are almost a foregone conclusion.

Even if you take classes, go to the gym on your own, or take martial arts, it's hard to come back from a layoff and get back in there.

It's The Old You Vs. Future You

There is this idea, that fitness is about creating a new you, and getting rid of the old you. This is a psychological fallacy and couldn't be further from the truth. Yes it is about old you vs future you, but old you is who we must root for, the new you is our enemy.

Yes you read that right, the new you is our enemy. The old you, the one who first began training, who made it a priority, who came in and sat down with me for a consultation, that person is who we must stay true to. We must stay true to the resolve of the old you. Future you, will constantly try to sabotage you, get tempted, handicap you, lose motivation, get sick, go on vacation, have troubled sleep want to indulge in eating, hit hard financial times, be too busy, drink too much, stay up too late, have personal problems, etc.

It's why most people have a lot of results their first month and either taper off or plateau or lose it. Because old you had the most motivation.

We cannot forget about the old you, the one who had a reason for training. The one who said I'm sick of always being tired, I need to train to have more energy. Future you who couldn't sleep will forget why you started training and will tell you its not worth it.

The one who said they want to always be productive, who train to give their life meaning. Future you will come back from a vacation and want to use all your time for leisure, and will not remember why you even started training, that its getting in the way of your leisure time.

The one who wanted to start a new business, who wanted to prove they could stay committed, strong, determined. Future you may forget and need a reminder.

The one who said you could. Future you will say you can't.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Eviction Crisis

Why Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson explains what training means to him, why he started, and why he is so intense about it. When you have a goal beyond the superficial, is when you won't quit.

3 Year Old Boxing

This is a look at our physical potential. We humans are more amazing than we think. Don't set limits on yourself.

Batman Training

Functional Training Defined

Why Do You Think People Eat This Way

For those who think the eating I outlined is too hard, think about this. There must be a reason I am so adamant about it right? Yes its hard and there are other eating styles I could have adopted but something about doing it for a while must have made me a believer right? Actually all those people who are beginning to talk about this evolutionary eating and living it must have gone through the same thing. Right now you don't get it, it seems hard, and every other person doing it found it hard, but something happened to each and every one of them including myself that made the difficulty worth it. Don't you want to find out too?

Former Clients

A client from 6 years ago messaged me, asking if I remembered him. I told him what job he was working on back then, what college he went to, his injuries, what city he grew up in, how much weight he had lost with me, siblings he had, and so I said yes I remember you.

Arthur's Testimonial

Source: http://www.yelp.com/biz/all-out-effort-sam-y-personal-training-los-angeles#hrid:ogCT4isOXUpp5-SWXPRCYw

"I've been to the other Personal Trainers; The dime-a-dozen, amped-up fitness freaks, of which there are so very many in this town. People with frozen smiles and that perpetual groaning noise caught in their throat after they say what they think you want to hear.

People who will tell you anything to make you feel like you're making progress. People who coddle you and make you feel good about yourself so that you continue to give them money for their unlicensed, unregulated business that they conduct with little to no training requirements or expertise. Such is the usual business practice of the Hollywood Personal Trainer.

I'd hate to sound clichéd, folks, but Sam is not the average Personal Trainer. He shouldn't even be in the same category. At this point, I find that referring to him as a "Personal Trainer" belittles him due to the mere association it creates with the rest of the fitness morons in this town.

Sam is, to me, a remarkable individual with whom it is a privilege to train with and be helped by. Unfortunately, that's not a catchy title but it captures the spirit of his practice far more than "Personal Trainer".

He is not here to tell you what you want to hear. In fact, you're probably going to hear a bunch of stuff you didn't want to hear. About your diet. About your posture. About your moods and your personality and the way you conduct your life.

He approaches you from a clinical, almost mathematical point of view. Just by looking at your musculature and the tightness of your joints and nerves, at the way you move and run and interact, he can somehow see the kind of life you lead and the kind of person you are and, make no mistake, to Sam, that is important.

He's not trying to improve your body. He's trying to improve you. Body and mind. Hardware and Software. Improve it, shape it. To him, it's all connected, as I've come to learn that it should be.

Let me explain; He will constantly look at every aspect of your life. Your diet. Your exercise. Your work place. Your personal life. All of these things come into play and he evaluates all of it and forms a plan to improve every facet of your life. And he will explain to you, in detail, why and how these parts of your life must change. Get ready to absorb some info, because Sam does his homework. He is learned and very informed in everything that he does. This kind of dedication from a "Personal Trainer" is not the norm. I cannot stress it enough when I say he doesn't NEED to do what he does, he does it out of pleasure and kindness.

And as much as he might seem like the hard-ass, he's a softie. He puts a LOT of emotional investment into you. More than many people should. So much that you won't want to let him down. It's not a guilt thing, he actually cares. He puts effort into you, tries to help you in any way he can, professionally and personally because he approaches you like a PERSON, not like a body or a client. That's why he's so effective. He tries to fix problems from the source.

And he feels more like a good friend than a coach. The only reminder that I'm a client of a business is that every few weeks he mentions that I'll have to make a payment soon. The rest of the time, he approaches me with a balance of professionalism and friendship that is exactly what I need to turn my life around.

Which brings me to my final point; By far, the most important thing you must take away from this review is that he will stress that it is YOU who's got to make the change. YOU who has to put the work in and the belief. I know I've made him sound like some flip-a-switch solution to your problems, he's not. He just gives you the support and information you need for YOU to become the solution. And that's worth a whole lot more than he charges.

Before Sam, I was half-assing life. I was just trying my best. Now, I'm trying to be the best. There's a big difference there."

Beyond The Shake Weight

So even skinny Asian people get fooled by gimmicks.



This reminds me of another product I saw where they attach a ball on a suction cup and you stick into your stomach as you do ab exercises.

Drought In Corn And Soy

Heads up athletes, drought this year in corn and soy farms equals higher food and restaurant prices next year. Stay informed. Watch for it.

Corn and soy goes into just about everything. You can avoid eating cattle, but do you avoid eating cattle feed?

FDA Approves Weight Loss Drug

Qysmia was approved by the FDA this month. It is the second drug to win FDA approval this summer, the other being Belviq which was approved only three weeks prior. These are the first weight loss drugs to be approved in 13 years. A third one is in review called Contrave. With 2/3s of Americans suffering from obesity, the FDA has changed their stance on the benefits of weight loss pills not outweighing the costs.

The FDA took its time reviewing Qsymia, formerly known as Qnexa, because of fears about the side-effects, which can include a fast heart rate and metabolic acidosis. Metabolic acidosis is where the blood becomes highly acidic, and in severe cases can put people into a coma or even kill them. It can also cause kidney stones and damage bones. There is also a risk for birth defects for expecting mothers. There is growing debate over whether it's worth the risk of taking drugs that could potentially damage the heart to fight obesity.

Second Self Defense Clinic

Because it is so important for our clients to learn not only how to eat healthy, be healthy, live healthy, we also want to provide them some baseline skills to be safe at all times. So we provide this service FREE to our clients.