This is a training blog post by Grant Lofthouse

Hey hope you are doing great in your little area of the world,

Thats coolest thing about blogging is that I get to share my knowledge and experiences with people from all over the world and not just my little suburb in Rowville which is located in Melbourne, Australia.

Which brings me to a question I received the other day from a reader in the states…

Hey Grant, wicked blog bro; I live in the states so obviously it would be impossible for me to train at your gym. But I was hoping you could do a future post about how you train your clients and what you do from when they walk in to when they leave and even just how you run your gym from the kind of clients you attract and who gets to train with you. All the best, Steve – Orange County.

This is a great question because I was actually going to do a post like this in the future. But since you asked there is no time like the present, so ‘this is how we do it’ in the gym…

I’ll start off with the general gym stuff and then I’ll move onto the training. So currently I’m training people in groups of 4 (due to space) but over the next few weeks I’m going to be doing a bit of a renovation to free up some space which will allow me to train groups of 6-8. I don’t do one on ones anymore simply because I hate them – they are boring and have nowhere near as much atmosphere as the groups do. It’s like flying first class, once you do it you cannot go back to domestic.

But not only that I would rather help 4-8 people change their lives in an hour rather then just one. Same reason why I started this blog I only have to write a post once and literally anyone in the world can read it without me having to repeat myself 100 times (after telling people that “eggs are good for you” for about the 367th time it gets a bit annoying) and the same goes for 1 on 1′s.

At the moment I’ve put a bit of a barricade up to who gets to train with me. So currently I offer a week ‘try out’ to see if they are the right kind of client for my style of training and to see if they are serious about the goals they want to achieve. It’s not because I’m the best trainer or anything because I’m not.

I do it because I love my job, I mean REALLY love it – in fact I don’t even consider it as a job. But if I work with people who whinge, whine and are energy suckers, that will bring me and my current clients down. Then I will have to call it a job and I don’t want that. They don’t to have to be athletic or gifted they just need to have the right mindset, determination and be willing to change that’s all.  So basically after the week ‘try out’ I let them know if they are in or out – with no hard feelings if I don’t think they will fit in.

I dont leave them out in the dark – I hook them up with a couple other personal trainers numbers that can help them out. I simply dont have the patients to deal with those kind of people, where as they do which is cool and I take my hat off to those kind of trainers. I wish I had that kind of mentality I guess you could call it… but it dont. I only have the patients for the kind of client who wants to take the stairs, not the escalator.

So when my clients walk in the first thing they do is take their shoes off – I have all my clients train with their shoes off (or wear shoes with no heal). The reasoning for this is because when you place your foot in a shoe that has a heel (aka runners) the weight is now distributed unevenly. Runners place a heavy load on the knees and take stress away from the glutes, so if you go to deadlift with the primary objective of training the glutes it won’t be as effective because the shoes distribute your weight forward onto the quads rather than back onto the glutes and hamstrings.

Next they will grab a foam roller and roll their glutes, hamstrings, calves, itb, quads, middle and upper back – this acts as self-massage which helps get rid of the ‘nots’ in their muscles that are accumulated from day to day living.

Then they will move onto stretches, this is usually individual. For instance I have a dude with a knee problem at the moment so he stretches his calves, itb, hamstrings and hip flexors. And I have a girl who has some rounding of the upper back and shoulders so she stretches her traps, chest and anterior deltoid. For everyone else it’s usually hamstrings, hip flexor, abs and chest which are usually the most common tight muscles due to sedentary lifestyles.

Now we will move onto some dynamic mobility drills which help promote blood flow, fire the CNS and active the ‘sleepy’ muscles which are usually the glutes, rhomboids, core and rear delts. This is done in a circuit style fashion so something like…

Star jumps

T Push ups

Scap push ups

Fire hydrants

Bird dog

Plank

Side plank

Glute Bridge

Mountain climbers

All this warm up and correction stuff usually takes about 15 minutes and then we move onto the weight training…

I don’t do the cookie cutter program thing (that’s where everyone has the same program) but I do have a system which is…

A main lift, 3-5 assistant exercises and a finisher. The program goes for 4 weeks were each week we try to improve our numbers whether it be reps or weight, doesn’t matter as long as we improve. We all keep a training diary for reference and that’s really about it – plain and simple.

First we have our main lift which is usually squat, deadlift or bench (I dont really like bench press, but everyone else does so I leave it in there). But to change it up every now and then we might use chin up, push press, high pull and a few others. Rep ranges vary from 1-5 with around 3-5 sets. We may work up to one single heavy set or we might use the same weight for each set. It depends on the exercise for instance squats would be something we work up to simply because if you do an all-out 3 rep max it will probably take you 10 minutes to get yourself up and do it again. On the other hand if we have something like push press we can keep the weight the same for the whole 5×5 simply because it’s not that mentally and physically draining as an all-out squat or deadlift. I haven’t yet but I’m going to put up a personal best board up on the wall so we have a sense of competition and bragging rights (which is always fun).

After our main lift we will then move onto our assistant work which usually consists of…

1 x upper body push exercise

1-2 x upper body pull exercise

1-2 x lower body single leg exercise

1 x dynamic core exercise

These exercises are usually split up into a superset to save time and keep things moving. Sometimes I might even do a tri set (3 exercises in a row) or giant set (4 exercises in a row).

I prefer to use body weight exercises the most simply because when you move your body through space as opposed to just your limbs you have a greater neuromuscular demand which equals to greater strength and muscle gains, so I will always take a chin up over latpulldown anyday. Also they are a lot easier on the joints and don’t burn you out as quickly. To check out the best exercises click here

I will usually use higher reps for legs simply because I find they get a better response from high rep training so they are usually in the 12-20 rep range and upper body is usually in the 6-10 range. I always try to use trx straps, weight vests, and bands to change things up and add a variety of different challenges.

Once all the assistant work is done we clear the room with all the stuff on the floor such as kettlebells, barbells, benches, bands and plates and set up for the finisher.

Lately I’ve been getting them to do the same finisher for the 4 week block so Monday might be swings, Wednesday – med ball slams and Friday – a circuit of push ups, inverted rows and lunge jumps. Then the next 4 weeks when the program changes and so do the finishers.

But I’ve now decided that every workout the finisher will be completely different because that way it keeps things exciting because of the unknown. After all the finishers are there for a bit of fun, mental challenge, competition and conditioning.

The finishers will be stuff like in the eBook that is downloadable on this blog and few other cool things. There are really no rules when it comes to finishers for instance last night in one of my groups we had a 1 set max to see how many clean and presses we could get with an aqua bag (aqua bag is like a log with handles filled with water). Other nights we might do the traditional sets and reps stuff like 5 x 20 sec of medicine ball slams.

Then they will usually lie on the floor for a few minutes and play dead and have a laugh and then we do it all again in a couple days.

And really that’s about it! That’s how we do it at the cardio hater’s gym. I like it to stay fresh and fun to a certain extent were  it still remains a training session not a ‘workout’. We all strive to improve each session whether that be stronger, faster or even just technique wise. As long as they improve somehow I know that they will get to the body of their dreams.

Well tomorrow I’m off to Queensland for a week for a holiday, which will bring me to my next post about how to train when you’re on the road.

If you enjoyed this post or if you have anything to say please done be hesitant to place your comments in the box below…

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