Becoming a female fitness model is very similar to becoming a female fashion model accept allot harder as you have to get your body in incredible shape that really stands out above 99% of women.  As a female fitness model you need to look strong and toned but not bulky.  It is important to look pretty and be feminine not too scary and muscular.

Pointers in the right direction-

• Create a portfolio, this may be expensive and take a long time to create, so save up and spend time getting good photos done.  Your portfolio is what will sell you to the agencies and magazines.
• Get a good photographer, someone who works already with female fitness models, look in fitness magazines and ring up agencies to see who they suggest you use.
• Concentrate on building defined abs but don’t go too extreme.
• Look at fitness magazines and see who the popular fitness models are and try and get your body to look similar.
• Make sure you live close to where the agencies are and always arrive on time to meetings and shoots.  Living in a big city like New York or London is your best bet.

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Becoming a male fitness model

Steps to becoming a good personal trainer

If you have developed a great looking muscular physique then you may be surprised at how easy it is to get some work, muscular athletic guys with well defined abs are in demand.  You do not need to be a huge bodybuilder to become a male fitness model but you certainly need to have definition and some quite thick muscle mass.  The most important thing is the abs, all the companies want killer abs, that means defined blocky abs not just a trim looking waist.  If your a muscular male you are much more likely to get work in fitness modeling than in fashion modeling, you will not get paid as well as fashion models but there are much more job opportunities.

Your first jobs as a male fitness model won’t pay well, lots of guys go in for fitness modeling to impress their friends and girlfriends, or to put pictures on their personal training website to help boost their personal training career.  Fitness photographers will either pay you a flat fee for your photos upfront or go 50:50 on the sale of the photo with you afterwards.

Getting fitness modeling jobs relies heavily on location to, you need to really be in a major city like London where you can easily travel to photo shoots, if you live too far away they will often not be interested as you may find it difficult to get to locations on time regularly.

Some pointers in the right direction-

• Mail your unsolicited photos to the editorial staff at magazines.
• Email your photos to fitness photographers who do the photos for major fitness magazines.
• Don’t worry about being in the perfect shape in your photos, the photographers can tell what you will look like coming up to the shoot so if your bulking currently it’s not a problem.
• Make sure your photos you send in focus on your abs and make sure to include a face shot.
• If asked for body part photos make sure to include just that, don’t put your head in that same photo it distracts from the muscle group and makes your muscle look smaller.
• Send in your body measurements with your photos e.g. arm size, neck size, chest size, height, weight etc

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Steps to becoming a good personal trainer

Allot of people who are a bit hard up at the moment tell me their diet is suffering because they can’t afford the good foods, this shouldn’t be a problem even when times are hard there is no reason you can’t get good sources of protein.  Below is a list of cheap good quality protein sources.

• Canned tuna – you can buy these in packs of 5 and they are really cheap
• Cottage cheese – buy a large tub very cheap
• Peanut butter – buy a tub probably around £2 have a tablespoon a day
• Eggs – one of the best sources of protein – Read about the healthiest way to cook your eggs
• Brown rice – one of the best sources of good carbs and protein, you can buy this in huge bags for very cheap

Read our “Sources of Vegetarian proteins” for more cheap food that is high in protein.

As you can see from above the items you need in your diet that I constantly mention in my articles in this blog are very cheap so not having much money doesn’t mean you don’t have to eat well.  The luxuries like steak, fish, chicken etc can be left till you have more money but you will certainly not suffer.  When I had little money as a student I lived of brown rice and tuna and that was when I was in the best shape of my life.

At the moment in London we are suffering terribly cold weather with temperatures of -2 and at the time of writing this article Google news has just mentioned that there will be 40 cm of snow in the next few hours, so how do we keep jogging in this temperature safely?  Firstly, get yourself some very warm running gear, shorts and a t shirt is a definite no, with spitting snow and freezing winds no matter how tired you are and how hard you have run this is too much for the body unless you are Wim Hof.  Normal tracksuits and tracksuit tops are normally no good as they are designed to be breathable and light weight so don’t offer the insulation and you will get very cold.  Buy yourself some warm water proof clothing specifically designed for running outdoor in the cold, buy polar neck jumpers to insulate your neck and a warm hat and gloves.  Helly Hansen make some great outdoor exercise clothing, when I used to row on the thames at this time of year in the past I relied heavily on my Helly Hansen thermal to keep me warm as larger insulating clothes restricted my stroke, something you don’t want as a rower.

Warming up, as its colder you need to warm up longer don’t just sprint out the door full pace you will easily injure yourself.  Secondly don’t go running along way away from people, houses or shops, if you have an injury you could die being out in the cold for just a few hours without keeping yourself moving.  Just yesterday when out running I pushed myself very hard so wanted to walk after sprinting for a bit and I soon got very cold so luckily I found a shop doorway I could stand in to warm up for a minute or so before going out running again, if there wasn’t a shop doorway this run wouldn’t have been very enjoyable and I could easily have injured myself.

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Treadmill vs outdoor running

Injury tips

4 big mistakes that will easily injure you

I have often in the past suffered from aching elbows around the joint where the tricep connects.  The reason for these regular pains was because I was over training but didn’t realise it.  Commonly injured muscle groups are the triceps and biceps, do you know why?  Because these are used in most upper body workouts and we forget this when training so often they are getting trainer many days in a row.  If you do shoulders one day chest the next and triceps the third you will have worked out triceps three days in a row because they are used in all the muscle groups, remember this.  My tricep injuries were also caused by the fact that as my triceps were the strongest muscle group I was lifting very heavy and training them multiple sets so they were exhausted and even though I was training chest light the following day they needed a proper days rest.  Always listen to your body, if you have injuries it is a sign you are most likely doing something wrong.

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Injury tips

Anyone who trains will get injuries time to time.  Not necessarily because you were performing the exercises with poor technique but because you may have under eaten that day, not drank enough water or overtrained without knowing.  There are tons of reasons for minor injuries, but there are tips you can follow to ensure you reduce you risk of injuries.

• Always warm up
• Always drink lots of water whilst training
• Perform exercises with proper technique
• Don’t overtrain always have at least 2 days rest a week
• Don’t bang weight together at the top of reps
• Don’t lock joints out to full extension
• Always eat before a workout

The tips above are some basic but crucial tips to prevent injury and should be remembered by all people who workout in gyms.

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Elbows aching from training

4 big mistakes that will easily injure you

How do you get to the gym?  If the gym is not too far from your house why not power walk or jog to the gym.  If it is a bit too far why not take the train or bus there and jog or power walk back.  When I go to have a workout I always take the train or bus there and then jog back as it is around a 40 minute jog back so don’t have time to do both ways.  Also, I like to have full energy for when I get to the gym so I can put the most into my weights workout.  I do no cardio at the gym only weights and then jog home, which is my cardio.  If you find it hard to get cardio into your busy schedule then why not try this approach and see how it goes.

Sports rehabilitation centers nowadays commonly use underwater treadmills with their clients.  Underwater treadmills allow athletes who have suffered an ankle injury for example to begin running again on a treadmill with reduced impact, allowing the personal trainers to view exactly how they are running on the foot and help correct its shape and movement. Underwater treadmills help promote early range of motion, early gait training in a low impact environment, improved cardio, mimics land training, muscle toning, increased strength in injured tissue promoting healing, reduces blood pressure, reduces joint stiffness and allows you to work with a huge range of plyometrics.

Even dogs today are using underwater treadmills!

The fitness bootcamp is a class for both beginners and advanced people in fitness taken by Paul.  The bootcamp is in Queens Park and will be classes of around 10-20 people.  The classes are £10 a time or £90 for 10.  All you have to do is turn up to partake.  If you are already training at Personal training studios W10 why not give your weekly fitness training a boost by doing one bootcamp a week as an extra.  If you are not already training at Personal training studios W10 why not do both bootcamps a week, there is no need then to join a gym as you will get the adequate fitness and resistance training out of the bootcamp.

When I started training I had very little knowledge on fitness and strength training and trained wrong for months.  Most people who go to gyms don’t know what they are doing and go on what they think is right.  Once I gained the information I needed from a bit of personal training and reading magazines my workouts improved dramatically.  More knowledge you have the better your results.  Last week I spoke to a guy who knew nothing about the gym he told me he had been doing 100 reps of 3 kg weights to get big arms, now, if you know anything about weightlifting you will know that this will not build big arms but enhance the tone of your arms thats all.  if this guy trained this way for a year he wouldn’t get big arms and would be wasting his time, this is why knowledge is crucial.

1. Sign up to fitness blogs like this to get the latest health and fitness news weekly.
2. Read fitness magazines
3. Browse fitness websites
4. Watch fitness videos on youtube
5. Get a personal trainer
6. Watch other people in the gym who already have good bodies