Who knew you could be this productive before 9am! I'm usually just waking up at this time, but this morning I woke up around 4:30am, started thinking (and getting excited about) my new job, started coming up with good ways to approach clients on the floor (the part of the job I'm most nervous about) and around 5am I decided I wasn't going back to sleep so I started the coffee and started to get to work. I figure if I might be getting 6am clients very soon, so I'd better figure out what it feels like being up and productive this early.
Over the last couple days I've been putting together a giant spreadsheet of strength exercises with columns for muscle groups worked, progressions, regressions and variations, so that I have one place I an go when I'm putting together a work-out for a client without having to skim through all the books/websites I have. I'm also doing one for warm-up/flexibility exercises and fitness assessment exercises. Worked on that for a while while listening to a fresh air podcast.
Started thinking about my nutrition, started analyzing my zinc, iron, protein and B12 intake (all things vegetarians have to pay close attention to), started considering and researching various supplements (in addition to the supplement bars I already eat), trying to figure out another supplement to take without too much vitamin A (I already get a ton of it and too much can damage your liver).
Then I started contacting all my facebook friends who live in uptown, finding out if I have any friends or friends of friends who work out at World Gym. It would be great if the first few fitness assessments I do at the new job could be with people I know or friends of people I know, it would be a great way to get the ball rolling!
This was all before 7am. Then I read my friend Heather's blog for a while, she's a trainer I work with at TeamiFit and has a really great fitness blog. Ate some toast, had more coffee, watched the latest episode of America's Next Great Restaurant on Hulu, contacted my favorite photographer, Tyler Core, about getting a great athletic/kick-butt/fun shot of me to represent by business and to hang on the gym wall in exchange for some free sessions, (all the other trainers have really great shots of them in their given sport), woke up Sawyer, walked/fed Sawyer, did yoga/stretched for a goodly time...
It's raining pretty hard outside or else I probably would have run too. I told Jason and Jameson I'd do their Insanity Cardio workout with them later so I'll skip the running today. Plus I'm taking a slow-motion strength training class tonight at TeamiFit, which I'm already sore just thinking about. Also still have really sore lats from my strength work-out on Sunday (yes, I did a strength work-out the day of the race...I was feeling really energetic!) I have a goal to be able to do chin-ups/pull-ups by summer, so I started doing negatives to strengthen my lats and OWWWWWCH I could hardly reach my arms forward to turn on the faucet yesterday. Good kind of sore though.
By the way, the race went AWESOME on Sunday! It was SO MUCH FUN and I can't wait for the next one. Ran 8k in 39:45, a personal record. Had a great time with the friends I ran with, got soaking wet in the rain and SO enjoyed the free Guinness we got after the race after a week of being on antibiotics and not drinking at all.
Alright, time for another breakfast and some more Hulu. Add to the list of early morning productivity: blog post.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Toes are peeking over the edge of the diving board at the deep end which is full-time employment
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. SO MUCH is happening in my little life right now I can barely wrap my head around it.
For anyone who DIDN'T feel like checking my facebook after my exam last week (OMG that was just LAST WEEK?) I PASSED! Hooray. I am now officially a 100% certified NASM personal trainer. I got my fancy calligraphied certificate in the mail and everything. The exam was actually a LOT harder than I thought it would be (harder than the practice exams). I went over and over every question a million times before I finally clicked the "finished" button and took the long walk to the trinidadian lady at the front desk of the testing facility to get my print-out. I honestly was not sure I had passed until she came around from the back office scanner with a smile on her face. They are lame and won't tell you your exact score, but I know it was better that 70%!
So ok, that was last Monday, last Wednesday I started my work study at TeamiFit. I work 3 hours on Wednesday nights checking people in for classes in exchange for a membership. The membership is nice because they offer a ton of awesome classes which gives me a nice variety of workouts to add to my repertoire and after a week of running it's super nice to be able to take a dance or boxing class on my cross-training day. Everyone who works there is super cool and it's really nice to finally meet some people in the industry. HOWEVER it is not a training job at all. All their trainer positions are pretty much booked up, though I may be able to sub-in every so often. Also the obvious downside, I am making no money there.
Then TODAY I had an interview at World Gym Uptown for a traditional large gym full-time personal trainer job. I was on my game during the interview. He put me on the spot, asking me all kinds of specific questions about exercise assessment, nutrition, program design...I felt like I was back in my NASM exam! Good thing it was all so fresh in my mind. The guy was pretty hard on me, but he must have liked what I had to say because he offered me the job! They're going to call me next week to finalize and I'm going to have to ask a few more questions after I get some opinions from some people in the industry...but it's pretty much really happening.
To be honest, thinking about going from my current life of unemployment to working 5 days a week is kinda freaking me out right now. I have NEVER been employed full time for an extended period and the few times that I've worked for 8 hours a day I HATED it. Of course those jobs were totally miserable and mindless and I sat behind a desk all day doing something that, in my opinion, was meaningless. At this job I will be spending a majority of my time doing something I LOVE. I will be on my feet the whole time. I will be exercising. I will be interacting with real people all day long and making a huge difference in people's lives. Training with me will be the hour that some of these people look forward to all week long. If you're doing something you love you should feel LUCKY to get to work 5 days a week and the whole reason I got this cert was so that I could do something I love and not have to wait another table again.
I've learned that this is pretty much the kind of job that every personal trainer has to have to get started in the industry. A lot of the job will be prowling the gym floor, meeting members and doing the sales-pitch thing. Eventually, yes, I'd love to have my own in-home clients or train clients that are handed to me at a hotel, corporate office, or boutique personal training studio. Eventually I want to have clients that I can schedule as much or as little as I want because eventually I want to be able to do theatre again. BUT to do that I have to get experience working something like this. A lot of it is very sales-y and a lot of people hate that part of it, BUT the awesome thing about this particular gym is that there are only about 10 full-time trainers (some gyms of the same size have up to 30) and there is only ONE other female trainer (who is apparently booked solid all the time), so the numbers work out a lot better than they might at some other place. Also, it is franchised, not corporate, so trainers get to train and do assessments the way they want to, the owners and managers know and care about their employees and it seems like a really nice place to work.
I do have to say, I went with the slightly harder, slightly more expensive NASM as my cert as opposed to the very popular ACE or some of the other certs. I did this because from everything I read/heard it carries the most weight in the industry by far. The fitness director said they received 150 resumes from their classified ad, he picked 5 candidates to interview and my interview ended with a job offer. Let me remind you that I have absolutely no training experience what-so-ever. How's that for weight in the industry? Thanks NASM!!!
Ok, once again I've written for over an hour and only scratched the surface. Hopefully in a couple days I'll write another entry about how SUCKY I've been running lately and about the race this weekend. Until then, nighty night!
For anyone who DIDN'T feel like checking my facebook after my exam last week (OMG that was just LAST WEEK?) I PASSED! Hooray. I am now officially a 100% certified NASM personal trainer. I got my fancy calligraphied certificate in the mail and everything. The exam was actually a LOT harder than I thought it would be (harder than the practice exams). I went over and over every question a million times before I finally clicked the "finished" button and took the long walk to the trinidadian lady at the front desk of the testing facility to get my print-out. I honestly was not sure I had passed until she came around from the back office scanner with a smile on her face. They are lame and won't tell you your exact score, but I know it was better that 70%!
So ok, that was last Monday, last Wednesday I started my work study at TeamiFit. I work 3 hours on Wednesday nights checking people in for classes in exchange for a membership. The membership is nice because they offer a ton of awesome classes which gives me a nice variety of workouts to add to my repertoire and after a week of running it's super nice to be able to take a dance or boxing class on my cross-training day. Everyone who works there is super cool and it's really nice to finally meet some people in the industry. HOWEVER it is not a training job at all. All their trainer positions are pretty much booked up, though I may be able to sub-in every so often. Also the obvious downside, I am making no money there.
Then TODAY I had an interview at World Gym Uptown for a traditional large gym full-time personal trainer job. I was on my game during the interview. He put me on the spot, asking me all kinds of specific questions about exercise assessment, nutrition, program design...I felt like I was back in my NASM exam! Good thing it was all so fresh in my mind. The guy was pretty hard on me, but he must have liked what I had to say because he offered me the job! They're going to call me next week to finalize and I'm going to have to ask a few more questions after I get some opinions from some people in the industry...but it's pretty much really happening.
To be honest, thinking about going from my current life of unemployment to working 5 days a week is kinda freaking me out right now. I have NEVER been employed full time for an extended period and the few times that I've worked for 8 hours a day I HATED it. Of course those jobs were totally miserable and mindless and I sat behind a desk all day doing something that, in my opinion, was meaningless. At this job I will be spending a majority of my time doing something I LOVE. I will be on my feet the whole time. I will be exercising. I will be interacting with real people all day long and making a huge difference in people's lives. Training with me will be the hour that some of these people look forward to all week long. If you're doing something you love you should feel LUCKY to get to work 5 days a week and the whole reason I got this cert was so that I could do something I love and not have to wait another table again.
I've learned that this is pretty much the kind of job that every personal trainer has to have to get started in the industry. A lot of the job will be prowling the gym floor, meeting members and doing the sales-pitch thing. Eventually, yes, I'd love to have my own in-home clients or train clients that are handed to me at a hotel, corporate office, or boutique personal training studio. Eventually I want to have clients that I can schedule as much or as little as I want because eventually I want to be able to do theatre again. BUT to do that I have to get experience working something like this. A lot of it is very sales-y and a lot of people hate that part of it, BUT the awesome thing about this particular gym is that there are only about 10 full-time trainers (some gyms of the same size have up to 30) and there is only ONE other female trainer (who is apparently booked solid all the time), so the numbers work out a lot better than they might at some other place. Also, it is franchised, not corporate, so trainers get to train and do assessments the way they want to, the owners and managers know and care about their employees and it seems like a really nice place to work.
I do have to say, I went with the slightly harder, slightly more expensive NASM as my cert as opposed to the very popular ACE or some of the other certs. I did this because from everything I read/heard it carries the most weight in the industry by far. The fitness director said they received 150 resumes from their classified ad, he picked 5 candidates to interview and my interview ended with a job offer. Let me remind you that I have absolutely no training experience what-so-ever. How's that for weight in the industry? Thanks NASM!!!
Ok, once again I've written for over an hour and only scratched the surface. Hopefully in a couple days I'll write another entry about how SUCKY I've been running lately and about the race this weekend. Until then, nighty night!
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Eve of the exam!! Cue Rocky music...
It's the eve of my NASM CPT exam friends!!! Why am I writing to you and not studying you ask? Because I've GOT THIS!!!
Seriously, I've gone over my 2 inch tall stack of flash cards a hundred times, taken every practice quiz and exam online, gone over my notes, re-read difficult sections of the text book... nothing left to do but let my brain relax with some celebrity apprentice and wheat thins and get a good night's sleep.
So barring some major natural disaster or sudden amnesia, in just 17 hours I will be a CERTIFIED personal trainer!
In other RIDICULOUSLY exciting news, I no longer work at Lion Head Pub! On this public blog I tried to be as nice as possible about the place during the extremely brief period of time that I worked there, but now that I'm no longer employed I can say that it was truly AWFUL. I have no idea what possessed me to look for a job at a bar. When I was a wide-eyed 22-year-old, just out of Michigan and living in big, exciting New York City for the first time I was excited to serve sticky cocktails in an over-crowded, hot, loud room until 2 in the morning and come home with my lower back aching and smelling like beer and jagermeister. Now I don't even like staying up past midnight, crowded bars give me a headache and it's really hard to pursue a career in improving the HEALTH of Chicago-ans while serving them alcohol in 3 foot tall towers and deep fried animal fat. It also didn't hurt that in NYC I was easily making no less than $100 on weekdays, $200 Fridays and $300 Saturdays. At Lion Head the last two shifts I worked 6pm-2am Friday and 4pm-3am Saturday. Wanna know how much I made? $165. TOTAL. FOR BOTH NIGHTS. So anyway, now that I'm starting at TeamiFit this week plus promo modeling jobs will start picking up now that the weather's nicer (I'm up for one with Hermes next week! Yes, the Hermes of Hermes Birkin Bags...certainly beats smelling like jager) I decided I'd had enough of this nonsense. I'm very excited to get back to my normal sleep schedule.
One last thing, after taking 2 rest days in my running schedule this weekend due to traveling home from MI, work, recovering from some wacky bacterial thing in my throat and some knee pain, I totally CRUSHED my personal record today for a 5 mile run!! Outside!! On the Road!! I had been thinking that my GOAL for the first 8k race (now 2 weeks away) would be 42:15, just under 8:30 mile pace. Today I ran 5 miles in 40:21!!!! That's 8:04 pace!!! I was all about running at that anaerobic/lactic acid threshold and then gunning it hard into that 1.1 respiratory exchange ratio at the end!! Knowlegde is power :-) I also took a mile jog to warm-up and THEN stopped and stretched before I started the real run (as opposed to stretching cold in my apartment) My new goal for the race is 39:45. So pumped!!!
Alright guys, wish my luck tomorrow (though I totally don't need it!!) Watch my facebook/twitter at around 2pm central time for the results!!!
Seriously, I've gone over my 2 inch tall stack of flash cards a hundred times, taken every practice quiz and exam online, gone over my notes, re-read difficult sections of the text book... nothing left to do but let my brain relax with some celebrity apprentice and wheat thins and get a good night's sleep.
So barring some major natural disaster or sudden amnesia, in just 17 hours I will be a CERTIFIED personal trainer!
In other RIDICULOUSLY exciting news, I no longer work at Lion Head Pub! On this public blog I tried to be as nice as possible about the place during the extremely brief period of time that I worked there, but now that I'm no longer employed I can say that it was truly AWFUL. I have no idea what possessed me to look for a job at a bar. When I was a wide-eyed 22-year-old, just out of Michigan and living in big, exciting New York City for the first time I was excited to serve sticky cocktails in an over-crowded, hot, loud room until 2 in the morning and come home with my lower back aching and smelling like beer and jagermeister. Now I don't even like staying up past midnight, crowded bars give me a headache and it's really hard to pursue a career in improving the HEALTH of Chicago-ans while serving them alcohol in 3 foot tall towers and deep fried animal fat. It also didn't hurt that in NYC I was easily making no less than $100 on weekdays, $200 Fridays and $300 Saturdays. At Lion Head the last two shifts I worked 6pm-2am Friday and 4pm-3am Saturday. Wanna know how much I made? $165. TOTAL. FOR BOTH NIGHTS. So anyway, now that I'm starting at TeamiFit this week plus promo modeling jobs will start picking up now that the weather's nicer (I'm up for one with Hermes next week! Yes, the Hermes of Hermes Birkin Bags...certainly beats smelling like jager) I decided I'd had enough of this nonsense. I'm very excited to get back to my normal sleep schedule.
One last thing, after taking 2 rest days in my running schedule this weekend due to traveling home from MI, work, recovering from some wacky bacterial thing in my throat and some knee pain, I totally CRUSHED my personal record today for a 5 mile run!! Outside!! On the Road!! I had been thinking that my GOAL for the first 8k race (now 2 weeks away) would be 42:15, just under 8:30 mile pace. Today I ran 5 miles in 40:21!!!! That's 8:04 pace!!! I was all about running at that anaerobic/lactic acid threshold and then gunning it hard into that 1.1 respiratory exchange ratio at the end!! Knowlegde is power :-) I also took a mile jog to warm-up and THEN stopped and stretched before I started the real run (as opposed to stretching cold in my apartment) My new goal for the race is 39:45. So pumped!!!
Alright guys, wish my luck tomorrow (though I totally don't need it!!) Watch my facebook/twitter at around 2pm central time for the results!!!
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