As a personal trainer there are certain essentials you could do with owning that will really help your business.  Below is a list of these essentials that we recommend.

• Heart rate monitor – A heart rate monitor will allow you to track your clients heart rate through out your sessions, this will ensure they are working out at the level you want them to.  Polar is a good make of heart rate monitor and probably the most popular used worldwide.
• Peak flow meter – A peak flow meter allows you to measure your client’s ability to breathe out air.  Peak flow meters can detect if a client is healthy, asthmatic and the power in their lungs.
• Measuring tape – Use a measuring tape to measure your clients arms, legs, neck etc every few weeks so they can see their improvements.
• Scales- Most clients will want you to measure their weight through out their time training with you, your scales need to be accurate scales that don’t give different inaccurate readings each time they step on them like many sets of scales do.  Salter scales and Tanita scales are a good choice of accurate scales.
• Body fat tester – either calipers or accurate body fat scales should be used to measure a clients body fat every few weeks.  Stick to the Tanita ones, these are great.  Any of the scales with the handles I find to give the most accurate reading.

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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

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Millions of people around the world lift weights regularly and tons of teens want to get huge to impress the girls at the beach, so imagine how many people want to become a bodybuilder or think of becoming a bodybuilder, loads!  So is it competitive?  Yes, very, and is there a lot of money in it when you are a pro, some, but still a lot of Pro’s struggle and it is only the very top few that make a great living out of it as it is not a mainstream sport.

Unless you have incredible genetics, that means narrow hips, wide shoulders and thick legs you are unlikely to make it, although some have in the past like Frank Zane, it is very very hard.  Look at bodybuilding magazines and compare yourself to people in the same weight and age categories as you and see how you compare.  If you beat him and become number one of most shows you will still struggle to pay the bills, you need to be right at the top to make a good living.  Look at Kai Greene for example one of the top 10 bodybuilders in the world, he still finds it hard to find enough money to eat.

Don’t give up everything to become a pro bodybuilder, if you give up college and you don’t make it as a bodybuilder what do you have to fall back on, the only jobs available will be bouncer work or removals.

Enter contests and see how you stack up against the competition, speak to pro bodybuilders and ask them what they think of your chances to become a pro is, thats what I did.  When I seriously wanted to go all the way I asked a Pro to look at my physique and tell me what he thought my chances were.

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Whether to go freelance or work for a big health club like Fitness First is something all PT’s face at one time or another.  In our personal trainers forum this is a common question debated about amongst different PT’s in the personal training jobs section. But what actually are the pro’s and con’s of the different choices.

Freelance personal training job benefits-

• You are your own boss
• You take home every pound you make
• Potential to earn a much higher salary where there is no limit on what you can earn
• Work the hours you want to work

Health club personal training job benefits-

• Constant flow of new clients to target
• All the equipment you need to train your clients
• Fixed salary to pay the bills with monthly regardless of the market

Freelance personal training job negatives-

• Salary fluctuates with the market
• Highly competitive market very hard to find clients

Health club personal training job negatives-

• Gyms are often busy making it hard to provide good one on one service to your clients e.g. waiting to use treadmill as it is already being used by someone else
• Health clubs make you work really hard making a lot of money out of your laboring and paying you very little in relation to what they are taking from the customers.

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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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ZMA is a supplement commonly taken by bodybuilders and weight lifters.  Victor Conte developed this sports supplement which is a combination of Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6.  ZMA is claimed to raise strength levels but scientific studies don’t eactly suggest this to be true.

When we exercise we lose vitamins and minerals, although we often drink water when training it is important to drink fruit juice and sports drinks as they replenish water soluble nutrients.  ZMA supplement is important for this reason as it makes sure we are getting the right essential vitamins also studies show that 50% of Americans don’t get enough magnesium.

The proportion of ingredients in ZMA supplement tends to be 20-30mg Zinc, 400-500 magnesium and 10mg B6.  ZMA should be taken before bed on an empty stomach and certainly not with cheese or milk as Calcium blocks the absorption of zinc.

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Tribulus is a vine that has been used as a general energy tonic and herbal treatment for impotence, it is found primarily in sports supplements for bodybuilders and weight lifters looking to increase testosterone.

Tribulus is known to raise blood levels of the Luteinizing hormone which indirectly results in an increase in testosterone.  LH is produced by the pituitary gland and one of its roles in the body is to balance testosterone.

Scientific studies- The main active ingredient in Tribulus is not known, but is thought to be a component called furostanol saponins.  There hasn’t been much research done on Tribulus suggesting that it causes a rise in testosterone like many Bodybuilding magazines and websites suggest.  Some european studies suggest that Tribulus can cause a raise in testosterone by 30-50%.

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Creatine powder can be absorbed by the bloodstream much faster in powder form as the coating on a pill must be digested first. The main problem with the capsules is the amount you need to take to complete the creatine loading phase, you would probably need to take around 40 tablets per day to load properly.  Capsules are nothing but hard work, they are designed to be a more easy way to take creatine but actually work out to be a much harder way of taking creatine.

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I used to perform cheat sets regularly so that I could apply the maximum amount of weight possible to the muscle, however, after pulling my neck rather badly recently I tend to avoid them.  Although I have been training for over 10 years, and I certainly would not recommend them to beginners, I pulled my neck as with cheat sets you swing the body it is very easy whilst doing this to pull a muscle.  If you keep proper form it is unlikely you will get an injury, I believe by keeping proper form and thinking about it at all times you are unlikely to get an injury throughout all your years of training.  I have met bodybuilders who have injuries regularly, these bodybuilders that spring to mind do cheat sets all the time and tend to have poor technique.  I have met bodybuilders with great technique and form who have never had one injury in the past 20 years.  One injury can put you out for months, is it worth it when you can get the same results, if not better from avoiding this type of working out.

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