4 Secrets to Fitness Success

Posted on June 14, 2021 by alwayshungrypt

Joining a gym or signing up with a trainer is a great start, but if you really want to take full advantage of your fitness journey, there are a few intangibles you need to address to ensure you’re getting the most out of this journey. Too often I hear stories of people “doing everything I can” to get in shape – regardless of their goal – only to hear one of these topics being left unattended, that I know could be the one thing holding them back from launching into success. It would be great to know that all you had to do was workout a few times a week for 30-60 minutes and reach your full potential, but like any project you’ve done before (school, work, home), you know there are always additional pieces that need to be addressed in order for it all to come together!

Only this time, the project is yourself!

So you’ve got your training program and you’re ready to go or already kicking butt, let’s talk about the 4 secrets to fitness success outside of the gym! I’m talking about Nutrition, Rest/Recovery, Hydration, and Consistency! These 4 pillars of fitness, wellness, and health are the driving factors that power any fitness journey from fat loss to muscle gain; athletic performance to just staying healthy for yourself and your family. Let’s dive a little deeper, shall we?

Nutrition – You Can’t Outwork a Bad Diet

As much as it pains me to admit, all those cheesy affirmations about “abs are made in the kitchen” and “the best fat loss workout is 3 sets of 10 reps of not eating so much junk.” are true. All the working out in the world is fine, but if you’re not fueling your body with the right things, you’re going to have a hard time reaching your fullest potential. That being said, the aim is NOT perfection. If we aim for perfection and have a minor slip up, chances are that we’ll backslide further down. None of us are perfect as it stands, so to completely change and aim for 100% is just unrealistic. Instead, we need to adapt a “Progress > Perfection” mindset. Taking a minute to look at what you’re eating in a day, a few days, a week can really help open your eyes to the choices you make and better understand not only WHAT you eat, but also WHY you’re eating it. From there, we can start to make better choices. Regardless of your goals, a few rules of thumb include:

-Focusing on lean protein sources; complex carbs; and healthy fats

-Limiting consumption of highly processed foods, sugar, and alcohol

-Increasing the amount of fruits and veggies we take in

-Remembering that a bad meal isn’t the end of the world, but don’t miss more than 2.

Taking time to address your nutrition and make grocery lists that focus on options even slightly healthier than they currently are can be a major step in the right direction. Clean up your nutrition and not only should you see the changes, but you’ll feel them as well!

Rest/Recovery – “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Though that’s true, it will be the “long sleep”, but that’s a horrible position to take in regards to your health. Everyone is different and functions on different levels of sleep, but the generally agreed level of sleep is 7-9 hours every night. If you’re a person who regularly gets the same amount of sleep each night, you can tell a major difference on the days when you get more or less than that median and it’s not typically for the better. Not only will less sleep make you feel prolongingly tired, but the additional time that you are awake and sleep deprived, the higher your chances of faulting on your nutrition, not having energy for your training sessions, and overall just not being your best self. Finding a good sleep routine including turning off electronics; lowering the room temperature; blocking out all light; etc. can help better your sleep behavior and increase your recovery time.

Beyond sleep, rest days from training are crucial for your body to be its best. If you’re training your body every day, you’re not giving yourself adequate time to repair and build into a stronger, healthier version. When we workout – in any capacity – you are creating tiny tears in the micro fibers of your muscle tissue (not a bad thing), but if you’re not allowing the body enough time to fully recover those tears and continually pushing yourself, not only could you be more susceptible to injury, but using fatigued muscles won’t provide for best efforts in the gym. Take your rest/recovery days seriously and you’ll see exponential leaps in your gym performance.

Taking it a step further, todays world is rife with stress. When our stress levels are up, we are in a heightened state mentally and physically. This can wreak havoc on our bodies in a variety of ways, but if we’re able to find outlets or work on how we handle stress to lessen the effect it has on us, the quicker our body can recover – from physical and mental stress.

Moral of this story – rest, recover, de-stress and see how much further you go after slowing yourself down.

Hydration – Now that’s some high quality H2O.

It can’t be stressed enough how important water is to your overall health. If our bodies are made mostly of water, what makes you think that you should cut back on how much you take in? The average person drastically undercuts themselves on how much water they drink daily. And contrary to belief, you don’t need to slug a gallon per day. Even hitting 100oz of water each day can drastically change your body physically and mentally.

Water keeps your muscles hydrated and healthy.

Water keeps your circulatory system clear and healthy.

Water keeps your waste system flowing and healthy.

Water keeps your skin clear and hair strong and healthy.

Water keeps you mentally fresh and healthy.

Water keeps your appetite at bay and healthy.

Water is the best.

It cools you down; it keeps food cravings away; it’s wonderful.

Drink more of it!

This does not include sodas, juices, energy drinks, alcohol, etc. just because “it has water in it!” The amount of every other bit of crap in all of those completely destroys any possible health aspect that water tries to help. Limit or eliminate those from your routine and focus on water (or sparkling water) and you’ll feel healthier in so many different ways. It’s the best supplement that everyone overlooks, don’t be one of that crowd.

Consistency – Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally…

It comes from what you do consistently. It doesn’t matter what your fitness goal is, if you can’t make it a priority to consistently work on it or show up every day, then you’re leaving a LOT of success on the table. Overnight successes or quick turn around stories often lead to rebounding back to the origin or worse because once the goal is reached, the habit disappears. If you want to reach your fitness or health goals, you have to be willing to do the work. You didn’t get to where you are right now – wherever that may be – overnight. It took weeks/months/years of consistent habits and behaviors (whether positive or negative behaviors) to lead to where you are. If you’re trying to lose 30 lbs, but you’re 50 years old; haven’t lifted a weight or eaten a healthy meal in 25+ years, you have to understand that it will take longer than 15 days to reach that goal. That is years of habits and behaviors that need to be unlearned or re-focused toward the new goal you’re working toward. You have to show up consistently and put in work on yourself every day in some capacity. This doesn’t mean working out every day – as noted earlier, rest is an incredibly important aspect to any fitness journey – but you can focus on mindset goals, habit changes, those pesky stress inducing problems, etc. Our health journey is more than physical and by consistently working on a little something every day, it may take months, years, decades even to reach where you want to go, but if you show up every damn day, I guarantee you’ll get there faster than if you yo-yo back and forth between bouts of crazy high and low activity. “The journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step”. Take that step, then another, and another, and when you don’t feel like stepping, take another!

There is no end all; be all plan that will get you to your goals instantly – if there was, you’d bet your ass I would have tried it. But know that when you start your journey and you address more than just your workout routine – dialing in your nutrition; planning rest days and recovery protocols; keeping hydrated; and creating habits that consistently get you showing up every day – you’ll be on the right path to success on your fitness journey, no matter the goal.

Now stop reading and go kick some ass!

6 Tips for New Trainers

Posted on April 24, 2021 by alwayshungrypt

Not everyone is cut out to be a personal trainer, just like everyone is not cut out to be a doctor, or plumber, or desk worker, etc. But if you want to give it a go, it’s a booming industry with a lot of potential for growth and a job position that should be sticking around for a while. People are becoming more sedentary and unhealthy – but many are REALIZING this and seeking help from professionals to get their lives in control to be happy, healthy, and stress free.

Beyond getting certified and deciding if you’re going to work for yourself or for someone else as a trainer, there were a few tips that got passed along to me early on that when taken to heart, helped me grow leaps and bounds for myself and my clients and I’d like to pass them along to you! Here are my 6 tips for new personal trainers that will help any personal trainer new to the game.

Train Everyone

Most literature you will read will tell you to “find your niche” and maybe you’re entering the fitness world with one in mind and that’s great! But when you’re starting out, cast a wide net and try working with anyone and everyone you can. This will help you learn how to work with different types of people; work through problems you might not know you could solve; really confirm or discover your niche community; and just help you gain experience on the fitness floor helping people work toward their goals. When I first started, I thought I would help people work through transformations – turning their bodies from flab to fab, because that’s what I did. I lost the weight and put on muscle and thought I could help them do the same. But as I worked with different people, I found that my best clients are either men/women over the age of 50 who are just trying to stay healthy and active for themselves and their families; and 25-35 men who were seen as “scrawny” and looking to “bulk up”. Though I’m confident to help people outside of those goals, those are where I seem to thrive. I wouldn’t have known that if I tried to only stick with “fat loss” or “transformation” clients. Working with a little bit of everyone helps uncover who you work best with and can set you up for long term success.

Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know”

Being a personal trainer comes with a lot of bravado and ego. Typically you work out to keep yourself healthy and one of the best non-scale victories of working out is confidence. But it also comes with one of the biggest catches – you THINK you know everything, but if you’re honest… you don’t.

AND THAT’S OKAY.

As a new trainer, you’re going to do your best to help answer every question your client has and you’ll be compelled to maybe even lie when something comes up that you’re not sure about. DON’T. Not only can people smell BS, when it comes out that you’re wrong, it looks terrible on you and you’ve lost trust right then and there. They came to you and chose you because they trust you know what you’re doing and if that trust is lost, good luck finding it again. But when someone asks you a question that stumps you, and you say, “That’s a great question, I’m not really sure….” What that does is allow you to follow up with, “…but let me do some research and let’s discuss further when you come in for your next session.” Which does a couple of cool things…

It establishes that you’re human and you can set aside your ego. Being open and honest and showing some of our own flaws like that can help solidify trust and the bond between you and the client.
It gives you the privilege of doing some research to learn more – which is one of the best things about this profession. I’m still relatively new at only about 2+ years as a trainer, but I feel like I learn something new every day. And learning something new means not only being able to discuss with the client who asked but sharing with others who might have the same questions!

Saying, “I don’t know” can be a huge benefit to help you establish trust and learn something new to expand you, your client, and your communities’ horizons.

Other trainers are NOT your competition

You should not be afraid to watch what other trainers do or ask them for advice or help. We are all in the industry of helping people better themselves through training and nutrition. Helping people is our number one priority and helping each other is a very close second. If I can help you learn a new exercise variation or discuss ways we help clients work toward similar goals, and you can apply them to your clients, then that’s a big win for them, you, me, and everyone around. There are 7+ billion people on this planet… there are plenty of clients for all of us – let’s learn from each other and help them all become the best version of themselves possible!

Don’t chase dollars, chase change

Money is cool and allows you a lot of freedom to do cool things. But if you’re new and start charging top dollar… good luck. There are a number who can succeed at this, but the best are those who focus on helping clients reach their goals.

“If you build it, they will come.”

Put in the reps of helping those around you that will work with you at a fair price get results and as you grow, build on your systems and PROVE you know what you’re doing… and the cash will follow.

Helping people become their best should be your top priority. If you can do that, the cost to them won’t matter.

Don’t fret about name, branding, logo, etc.

Piggybacking number 4 above here, don’t fret about branding and logo and image. Get results! It doesn’t matter if you’re name is Eric Does Training – as long as your name is Eric and you train people, not only is it spot on, but it will avoid any sort of confusion about who you are and what you do. What’s more important is the helping people. Like I mentioned, without tangible evidence that what you know and apply to help people actually works, the flashiest logo, brand name, content, etc. will be found out and left behind.

As you grow and find who you are, what you believe and stand for, and what kind of person you want to work with, the rest of that will follow.

Be Yourself and have fun!

Like it or not, you’re not just selling a service to help people. You’re selling yourself. If people don’t think you’re being genuine or see that you’re putting up a front, they’ll avoid it like the plague. Be true to who you are and know who you want to work with, and you will attract the clienteles that are the right fit. As Jonathan Goodman of The PTDC once said, “People don’t buy training, they buy the trainer.” If they don’t trust or like who you are and what you bring to the table, it’ll never work. Who you are is just right for someone and if you put it out there, you will find each other.

On top of that – have fun! You are helping people change their lives for the better. They have taken the time to look in the mirror and say to themselves, ‘Fuck whatever is happening right now – I am ready to become my best damn self!” and they came to you and chose you to help them do that. There is nothing cooler (to me) than having someone come to you who has no idea what their doing, and being able to help them not only learn what to do physically, but watch that internal lightbulb click on in THEM when they reach a goal they thought might never happen.

Being a personal trainer is hard and it’s not for everyone. It’s grueling hours and can be frustrating with clients who push back or don’t give their all like you wish they would… but it should rank in the list of most rewarding jobs you can do. We get the opportunity to help people become their best selves and share knowledge that we continue to learn.

If you’re just starting out, know that you have what it takes and you can be wildly successful, and it starts with following these few simple tips.

If you’re a new trainer, what are some tips you’ve been given outside of these that have helped you grow into the best you around? Drop them in the comments and let’s spread the good word across the industry to help others.

6 Steps to Writing a Training Program

Posted on April 5, 2021April 5, 2021 by alwayshungrypt

Life is complicated enough. Your training program shouldn’t be another stressor on the list. It should take no longer than 15-20 minutes to outline your training program and another 5-10 minutes to write the specific workouts that will fill it. In under 30 minutes you can write a plan to get you from where you are to a totally new you. And if you can’t find 30 minutes in your day, then that’s a whole other topic for a whole other post that we need to talk about.

If you need help in coming up with ideas for exercises and blueprints for your training plan, drop a comment with what your goal is, and let’s connect to create a plan that leads you to the top of your mountain.

Keeping it simple, here are the 6 steps to writing a training plan.

Choose your goal

What should be the easiest step in the process, but can often leave people feeling anxious and more frustrated than any other step… identify what goal you’re going to work on. The reason this stresses people out is overthinking. Too often do I hear things like, “well I want to work on my [belly, arms, legs, etc]”; “I just want to get toned”; “I want to get healthy”. Which are all great, but extremely vague goals. Like I said, I’m not asking you to make it extremely detailed or granular, but you should be more specific than that. Here’s a quick list of the most common goals I’ve seen pop up in consultations and conversations:

“I want to lose weight – 15-20 lbs.”

“I want to build muscle.”

“I want to compete in [event name].”

“I want to fix an injury.”

“I want to build my stamina.”

“I want to get toned all over.”*

*If you choose this goal, what ‘getting toned’ means is that you want to build strength in your muscles to the point that you can see them visibly from the surface. This would basically be a sub-category of “I want to build muscle.” Your focus is creating strength and size in your muscles so that they are visible. To make a muscle visible, you must build it.*

Choose your rep range

Now that you’ve identified the goal, here comes the easy parts. A quick google search of your goal and the term “rep range” can help you identify what range of repetitions you should be applying to the exercises you will perform in your training sessions. For reference, here’s my list for the top goals seen in the gym:

-Fat Loss: 12-18 reps per set

-Muscle Building/Toning: 8-12 reps per set

-Strength and Power: 2-8 reps per set

I personally like to start at the lower end of the rep range for my goal for my first 2-4 exercises of a session as it’s when I’m most energized and “fresh” to move heavier weight. Then as my session progresses, I increase the reps because I know I won’t have as much strength, so I’ll be able to still perform more work, at a lesser weight. This also comes into play for the next 2 steps.

Pick 1-2 Main compound movements

A compound movement is an exercise in which more than 1 joint action is being performed. Compare these 2 exercises: A) The Bent Over Dumbbell Row – in which you are bending the arm at the shoulder and elbow to lift a weight from the ground, toward your body. That’s at least 2 joints being used (shoulder and elbow) vs. B) Dumbbell Biceps Curls – where you hold a dumbbell and lift it to your shoulder by bending your elbow. Here you are lifting TO your shoulder, but the only joint MOVING is the elbow.

Compound movements use the most energy and can generally move the heaviest load/weight. These should be the primary focus of your training sessions regardless of goal and be the starting point of each session.

I like 1-2 compound movements minimum for a workout that can include:

-Squat

-Chest Press

-Deadlift

-Pull Up

And any variation of these.

Or you can go a little crazy and combine exercises into a big ol’ multi-joint full body movement such as:

-Turkish Get-ups

-Squat to Overhead Press

-Dumbbell Curl and Press

-Jumping Lunges

Etc.

Pick 3-5 Accessory movements

After you’ve finished your compound movements, choose from the nearly endless list of additional exercises (which may still be compound) that are known as “accessory” movements. These will be in the higher rep ranges and should be chosen to compliment the compound movements from earlier. For example: If I were to start with Squats, I would add a single leg squat variation such as Bulgarian Split Squats and maybe the always fun Hip Thrusts. These both build muscles of the lower body and will help in different ways to benefit my squats the next time I come back to them.

Create a Dynamic warm-up

By now you’ve created your workout session that should have probably between 3-8 exercises on it. Knowing what you’re going to do can help you create a dynamic warm-up to start the session that will help you get the body ready for the work ahead. If your program is split into specific body parts, you can warm-up those areas with specific dynamic movements that wake up the joints and muscles with light/no weight so they can prepare for the work they will do during the training session. This should be about 5-15 minutes and increase the heart rate, but only enough to “wake up” the body. This should not be strenuous or energy sapping. A dynamic warm-up will help prevent injury, prepare the body, and help get the mind set on the session ahead.

Schedule It and Show the heck up!

Finally, probably the second hardest part of the whole sequence – planning and showing up! Though it’s not difficult to do, the mental aspect seems to overwhelm. There’s a saying that you wouldn’t skip a meeting with your boss, so don’t skip a meeting with yourself. There are so many ways to set an alarm/reminder/appointment/etc. in this world that there is literally no excuse for planning the time for you to work on you. Put it on your calendar and show the heck up! Not only will you thank yourself in the moment, but even more so after the workout and program are finished, and you see the results of all your hard work!

Creating a training program doesn’t have to be difficult if you don’t allow it to be. Follow these 6 simple steps to writing a training program and stop making excuses and start kicking butts.

I’m Eric, This is My Story

Posted on March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 by alwayshungrypt

If I’m going to spend valuable time creating blog posts and promoting them about the internets, I should probably do a proper introduction and tell you my story. #Credibility am I right?

Skipping over the early stages of life, we’ll get to the good stuff you (might) care about – how I got into fitness, health, training, and changing career paths from a secure, consistent, steady office job to the wild west of entrepreneurial small business ownership as a personal trainer.

Like most people, for the better part of my life, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was a middle-class kid who attended public school; went to college and got a Bachelors in nothing; got a ‘secure’ job out of college and was “good” at it (enough) and was running the rat race. My life wasn’t on a great track, but it was an okay track. I had friends, a social life, work, etc and should have been happy.

But I wasn’t.

The job was stressful, terribly political, and threw its employees into a sea of false promises so deep I’m surprised no one literally drowned.

My life

was good on the outside, but inside was a raging sea of negativity, boredom, stress, and depression that showcased itself in a life of sedentary self-loathing fueled by victim mentality and poor lifestyle choices.

2 years into adulthood, I came across a picture of myself with my family at Christmas and literally didn’t recognize who it was staring back at me. Low and behold, it was me.

I knew I had put on weight since high school ended 6-7 years earlier when I entered at 210 lbs. but when I saw the person in the pictures, I was left speechless. Immediately running to a scale, it was horrifying to see that I had jumped up to 283 lbs.! I had gained 70 lbs. thanks to endless nights of bingeing booze; late night drive-thru’s; life on the couch; and a stressful job that left me anxious and frustrated on a daily basis. Though I never went to a proper doctor, it’s hard to imagine internally things were on the right track. And that started to throw me deeper into the victim hole.

Something had to be done.

As I tried to figure out what I NEEDED to do, a friend propositioned a group of us with a New Year’s weight loss challenge which I adamantly said, “I’M IN!” thinking this boost might help me get going.

On January 1, 2013, I woke up and began walking a long path that would lead me to finding my passion and building a business to try and help change the world!

The weight loss challenge came and went with me being the only one of the group who took it seriously and I was well on my way toward my goal of my pre-college weight.

Over the next 5-6 years, I had bouts of big weight loss in the 20-30

lbs. range, then would plateau; find a new program and hit another loss. Pushing myself into hardcore transformation or training programs; 2-a-day workouts with longer cardio sessions; limited nutrition to chicken, rice, broc; etc. but it worked (for me and my life). During that time, I began competing in 5K races with friends because I had never been able to run a mile, let alone 3. That led to a Spring Triathlon, Half Marathons, and even participating in a 100mi Ultra Marathon as part of a relay with 5 of my friends.

Over the course of this journey, I hit multiple goals and accomplishments for and by myself, but it took a long time and a lot of guesswork and trial/error only to end up celebrating mostly alone. Sure, friends and family congratulated me or gave kudos when they’d notice things but those things didn’t matter directly to them, so it was hard for them to truly understand what it had taken. That’s when I realized I wanted to help other people reach their goals and have someone there to celebrate climbing their mountains, and just as importantly, help them through the valleys – thus leading me toward the idea of becoming a personal trainer.

Posting about this idea on Facebook, a friend from college that I hadn’t spoken to much reached out asking about how serious I was about doing this and we began to chat about the degree he got when he made a similar decision to change his life as well. Bobby Gartrell was someone I knew knew his way around a gym from the moment I met him in college through mutual friends and hearing his endorsement that I should go for it and check out the school he attended as it fit similarly to his scenario transitioning from office to trainer held weight to me.

10 minutes into my meeting with Miriam at the National Personal Training Institute (NPTI-OH) I knew I was in the right place. Through autumn, winter, and early spring 2017-18, I spent 8 months in night school learning the body, the muscles, the business of personal training to earn my certification as a Personal Trainer.

After a brief stint of moonlighting at a local YMCA as a trainer, I decided in fall of 2018 that it was time to start training on my own – working with friends for free to get results, I started to accumulate some clients by training them at their gyms (apartment + PF). The apartment proved fruitful as multiple people came up to me asking, “excuse me, are you a personal trainer?” to which I was delighted to respond, “Why yes I am!”

Now building clientele and having success through 2019, I got thrown one of the biggest curveballs possible – I got fired from my “secure” office job. After 8+ years, I had made an error that was considered egregious and created a “horrible optic” and was let go on the spot.

Terrified of what to do next as I was so used to the routine of a normal job, MAJORLY through the help of my wonderful partner (Jess Brohard) she helped me make the decision that it was the time to take to the skies and fly on my own as a FULL TIME Personal Trainer.

Though the last year and a half hasn’t been easy – Launching in the middle of the holidays when no one is thinking of hiring a personal trainer; to a global pandemic shutting down the world; to re-building and opening my own training studio; offering online/remote and Hybrid training to expand my reach; become certified as a Nutrition coach; etc – I know I’m on the right path and working in a field that I am passionate about; helping people work toward happier and healthier lives for themselves and their families, I’m excited to see what challenges and opportunities the next year and a half+ bring.

Fitness is for everyone, though my style may not be. Getting myself healthy physically not only led me to better health physically, but has helped me learn more about myself and what I can push through mentally and emotionally and helped me find a positive outlet for stresses of life that nothing else could/has.

If you made it this far, let me thank you for reading my story. If any part of it resonated with you, please leave a comment or share to your friends/family what about it you appreciated.

If you’ve been on the fence about starting working out for yourself or not sure what to do or where to even start, head over to the “Online Training Application” and fill out the application for us to talk TODAY. Consultations are complimentary so there’s legit zero risk. Let’s Talk.

Thank you (from the bottom of my heart),

Eric Hinrichsen

Always Hungry Personal Training | Columbus, OH

TLDR: My story goes from: I hated my job and my life; got myself healthy and dropped a bunch of weight and decided I want to help other people do the same. Became a personal trainer, now trying to change the world!