In This Issue:
– Robertson Training Systems Updates
– Training Tip
– Nutrition Tip
– Exclusive Interview: Pat Rigsby
– Upcoming Interviews
– New Articles
– Schedule
Robertson Training Systems Updates:
The Robertson Training Systems newsletter is now weekly!
After nearly two years of bi-weekly newsletters, it’s time to bite the bullet and give you more of what you want – insightful, FREE content delivered directly to your e-mail!
I think you’ll like the changes we’re making; whether it’s the blog, the newsletter, or the website itself, we’ve got a ton of great things headed your way in 2008!
Awesome interviews coming up!
One of the things I’m most excited about is the “Who’s Who” list of coaches, trainers, strength athletes, and entrepreneurs we’ll be interviewing in 2008! I sent out an e-mail last week to a laundry list of possible participants, and I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed with the response I’ve received.
Starting with this newsletter, we have a new subsection titled “Upcoming Interviews.” The goal of this section is simple – to allow YOU, the reader, to ask the questions you want answers to!
Maybe you have a question you’ve been dying to ask Mike Boyle, Bill Hartman, or Dave Tate – now you have that opportunity! I’ll be constantly updating the interview list, as I already have interviews lined up for the entire first quarter.
Needless to say, I’m very excited about the interviews we have coming up, and I hope you are too. Be sure to look over the upcoming interviews, and follow the directions within that section to submit your questions.
Training Tip:
Row Right
When doing mid-back work such as rows, be sure to go through full scapular ROM. In other words, at the start/finish of the lift, try to achieve full scapular protraction. At the midpoint, squeeze the shoulder blades together and attempt to get full scapular retraction.
It sounds simple, but people always find ways to cheat! For more information, check out my previous article on this topic located HERE.
Nutrition Tip:
Control Your Portions
by Mike Roussell
Above is a great picture (that you should probably print out) that shows you how to estimate portion sizes. If there is one thing that you need to remember it is that any time you order food in a restaurant in America they are going to give you more food than you should eat. Case in point the 15oz Steak (topped with shrimp) that I had on New Year’s Eve (yes, I ate the whole thing).
If you like this tip and want to learn more about Mike and his products, check out his Naked Nutrition website.
Exclusive Interview: Pat Rigsby
MR: Pat, my audience may not be familiar with you, so let’s go through the basics of who you are, where you’re from, etc.
PR: Well Mike, I’ll start with where I’m from since that’s easiest. I live in Elizabethtown, KY, just outside of Louisville.
As for who I am, I guess you could say I’m a fitness entrepreneur. I am the co-owner of several fitness businesses including a health club and personal training company. Probably the most relevant business to your audience is a consulting company that I and my co-owner, Nick Berry, have – The Fitness Consulting Group. We consult with fitness professionals and facility owners around the world as well as offer several products about the business of fitness.
MR: While many know of you as a business guru, you actually started off in the trenches as a strength and conditioning coach, right?
PR: I’m not sure about the ‘business guru’ title, but yes, I was a Head S&C coach at a small state University for 6 years overseeing 11 sports. During that time I also taught in the Sports Sciences department and was the Head Baseball Coach.
MR: After you were done with the strength and conditioning side of things, what made you want to get into business for yourself?
PR: I left the University setting in 2002 and knew that I wanted to own my own business. I wasn’t a big fan of the bureaucracy in the University environment and frankly, I just don’t like working for people. I guess that sounds bad, but in most companies and large organizations the decision making process is very flawed and seems like logic is something of an afterthought. If I was going to suffer the consequences of these decisions then I wanted to be the one making them. Oh, and there’s more money in being in business for yourself.
MR: Let’s be honest here, Pat – you’ve been very successful with your businesses. What are most typical gym owners or fitness professionals doing wrong that’s costing them time, money, or both?
PR: I think they usually get into business with the wrong mindset. If you enjoy drinking beer that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea to open a bar. Same goes for being in the gym.
Just because someone likes training themselves or being in the gym environment, that doesn’t qualify them to be in business. Most gym owners and fitness professionals don’t run their business like a business. They run it a lot like a teenager would run their summer lawn mowing business. They don’t have a system for generating new prospects; they don’t have a consistent sales process, they don’t know their numbers and, in general, don’t really enjoy the business side of being in business. Now I don’t necessarily expect them to enjoy that side of things as much as the training side of this, but that doesn’t diminish its importance. So the key is to create system to make all those ‘business’ tasks easier to manage and allow the trainer or gym owner to be more efficient and spend more of their time doing what they enjoy – getting people results.
The other thing that really holds trainers and gym owners back is that they are unwilling to let go. They won’t allow anyone else to train their clients and because of that, every time they take a vacation or get sick, they lose money. In the book The E-Myth, Michael Gerber refers to this as being the Technician. Ideally, most technicians will evolve into managers and create systems that allow them to replicate themselves so that they their income isn’t tied exclusively to their time.
MR: That’s good stuff Pat; and we all know that most business owners would be a lot better of if they read The E-Myth before they opened their business!
What projects are you currently working on? Any new products you’re developing? Gyms you’re rehabbing?
PR: There are several projects that I’m working on in conjunction with my business partner Nick. We recently launched a business coaching program for fitness professionals called the Trainer’s Inner Circle with Jim Labadie and have about 120 trainers from around the world involved, which has been an awesome experience. In just a couple of months we’ve already seen tremendous progress with most of the trainers involved.
We’re also working with Scott Colby to license his Women’s Fitness Bootcamp so that other fitness pros can replicate what he’s done and enjoy that same degree of success. Also, I recently signed on with Human Kinetics to write a book about the business of personal training which will be fun.
I’m also helping my wife with her business, FitYummyMummy.com, which has really taken off over the last couple of months. But the biggest project we have in the works is a youth fitness business opportunity we’re developing with IYCA founder Brian Grasso. I am convinced that this project has almost limitless potential and it is something that is sorely needed with the current state of youth fitness.
MR: Last question: I know two of the main demographics you’re catering to are busy men and women who want to lose weight. What are your Top 3 recommendations for someone in this demographic who wants to lose weight or get back into shape?
PR: Well, this might seem very basic since your readers are more educated than most when it comes to effective programming but here goes:
1. Full body workouts with compound movements consistently produce fat loss. At any given time we have about 500 clients between 2 locations and about 90% are primarily focused on fat loss so we’ve had a pretty good testing ground, and full body training sessions based around the basics have consistently produced results.
2. You can’t ‘out-exercise’ bad nutrition. No matter how great your workout is, if you drive through McDonald’s on the way home you’re not going to lose fat. There are plenty of nutrition experts like John Berardi, Chris Mohr and a host of others that each have their own approach to eating for fat loss – and I’d suspect that if you followed any of their plans you’d lose fat because they’re all better than what you’re eating now. But if someone just starts eating small frequent means, has some protein at each and reduces their intake of simple carbs they’ll definitely be on the path to fat loss.
3. Move more. I think in general, people just don’t move enough. Most people that come to train with us are taking fewer than 3000 steps a day, so their training is the bulk of their daily activity. I don’t really care about the 10,000 steps recommendations because I think they’re pretty arbitrary and 10,000 is just a nice round number. But I do think that we manage what we measure (and most people have no idea how inactive they are!), so we want to measure that and find ways to improve it.
Does that mean we recommend a bunch of steady state cardio? Not at all. We actually almost always recommend interval training for fat loss, but I think the idea of a client coming to the gym, training, doing intervals and then heading home to sit on their butt the rest of the day is not consistent with the healthy lifestyle we’re trying to impart on clients.
MR: Pat, I know how busy you are, so thank you very much for your time. Where can my audience find out more about you?
PR: My pleasure Mike!
We have a number of sites, but our main site where we provide business coaching, tools and resources for fitness pros is www.fitnessconsultinggroup.com. We have a number of free downloads and about 200 free articles trainers and club owners can access there.
I’m also doing a blog called The Busy Guy’s Fitness Challenge where I’m kind of making myself a case study for a bunch of fitness experts’ programs and advice. I’ve slacked with my own training and nutrition for the last few months so I thought it would be a great way to help some other guys whose jobs and responsibilities sometimes throw them off track. You can find that blog at www.busyguysfitness.blogspot.com.
Thanks again, Mike!