Updates
I’ve been so wrapped up in filling my brain with personal training knowledge I keep forgetting to post updates. Here’s a quick up-to-speed….
I’ve been spending most of my time studying for my personal trainer certification (putting the nutrition certification on the back burner for now). There’s a fairly wide spectrum of things you need to know–general cellular/biological stuff, psychology of exercise, proper techniques for exercises, dealing with clients with special needs (children, elderly, pregnant women, eating disorders, diabetics, etc.), requirements for proper layout of equipment at a gym, legal issues, etc., etc. The main thing I’m struggling with is that there are a lot of details and numbers and stuff you have to memorize. I’ve been doing lots of flash cards to help me practice that. In terms of the concepts, I think I have most of that down now and I’m doing fairly well with the practice exam questions. I still have at least a couple more weeks’ worth of studying to do though before I’d be ready to take the exam.
One thing I’m doing to help me better commit some of the details to memory is I’m using some friends as guinea pigs so I can do initial consults, fitness evaluations, etc., with them. That experience of actually doing these things is 10x more useful than just reading how to do it in the book.
I was initially feeling like this new career would be a clean break from my old one and that there wouldn’t really be any transferable skills, but I’m now discovering otherwise. Doing initial consults with potential clients to establish their goals and whatever parameters and constraints and stuff they might have is a lot like doing a requirements document. There’s a lot of getting at the core of what people really want and a lot of re-stating things back to the client to make sure you adequately understand what they are telling you.
Another thing that has really come in handy has been my history of constantly having to shift gears and wear different hats and think about things from all sorts of different directions. As fatiguing as that got after a while, it has prepared my brain to be able to think outside the box easily and be able to shift gears as needed. I’m finding this useful when working with people who simply don’t like the idea of exercise. I have to try and meet them where they are and find exercises they’ll like doing rather than trying to force them to like the exercises I’d prefer to have them do. I think that flexibility will be a very important trait as I continue down this career path.
I’m also very primed to anticipate edge cases, because so much of what programming is about revolves around that. In personal training, you have to keep those edge cases in mind when assessing someone’s health status or dealing with any legal things or just communication in general. There are lots of types of interactions where words have to be chosen very carefully. For example, I can tell a client about the potential benefits of the exercise program I’ve devised for them, but I can’t tell them that this program will help lower their blood pressure.
My calendar is beginning to reflect my new life. Next week I have a CPR class, a thyroid lecture to attend, and various meetings with guinea pig clients. I also have a bunch of random odds and ends en route to me so that I can start doing in-home fitness evals and workouts with people. I can’t wait to try out the adjustable dumbbells when they get here tomorrow.
