FAQ
How do I pay for personal training sessions?
All session packages expire 4 months from purchase date.
All sessions are nonrefundable.
Check for availability prior to buying sessions.
All financial transactions must be made on my website.
Full payment for session is due prior to session.
What If I am in terrible shape and I hate to exercise?
I am the right trainer for you. I specialize in getting poorly conditioned people into an exercise program safely, comfortably, and with minimal pain. Very few of my clients have been highly skilled athletes. Most of my clients start on the low end of the fitness scale—people who may not have exercised on a regular basis in their entire life. You can’t get in shape in a day or a week, so I don’t attempt to achieve that. Many people try to do too much too soon. They end up injured or so sore that they never go back to working out. We will start out at the level that is appropriate to your physical condition. I will gradually increase the workload to match your rapidly improving condition. Safely. Smoothly. Comfortably. You will be amazed how smooth the transition is from couch potato to workout warrior.
Can you come to my office or home gym?
All training is done via Zoom or FaceTime.
What areas do you travel to?
All training is done via Zoom, or FaceTime. All you need is a reliable internet connection.
Do I need equipment?
My specialty is bodyweight training. I bring bands for those who are not strong enough to handle a bodyweight program. All you need is a mat for your comfort when doing floor exercises.
How many days do you recommend for strength training?
For strength training and toning I recommend two to three days a week for the best results. For aerobic training I recommend three to five days a week.
How long does it take to see results?
It all depends on the individual and how committed they are. I will give you all the tools that you need to be successful, but ultimately your results will be a reflection of the lifestyle changes that you have or have not made.
Is some type of aerobic activity part of the workout?
That depends on you. Ideally, the client does aerobic training outside of our training sessions—either before or after our workout, or on the off days. That way the workout can be focused on strengthening and toning exercises. These exercises require more supervision than riding a stationary bike or walking. However, if the client is unable to do the necessary aerobic work on their own, it can be incorporated into the training session. The program will be customized to fit your situation. The important factor is that you are getting aerobic exercise, whether it’s on your own or during our training sessions.
What is a typical workout?
The 45 Minute Workout:
2 to 3 minute warm up with some light cardio and dynamic stretching.
30 to 40 minute full body workout with special focus on problem areas.
2 to 3 minute cool down with stretching and flexibility exercises.
The 30 Minute Workout: Full body workout with no warmup or cool down.
How long are workouts?
Generally the workouts are 45 minutes in length. The 30 minute workout is also an option if you you are short on time or new to exercise.
What diet do you recommend?
To me diet is a lifestyle issue. Your daily routine will determine a great many of the factors of what you eat.
What is available to you, where you are, how much time you have, what foods you were raised on, your chemical and biological makeup, are only a few of the considerations. For all of us there is an emotional aspect of eating. How much effort are you willing to put into changing your eating habits. All of these factors and more constitute your particular and unique lifestyle. Married, single, children, all matter.
A diet that is going to require you to pack a lunch in order to meet its numbers is just not going to cut it for a great number of people. I have found what is most effective in the long run are for my clients to keep a detailed log of everything they eat over a three-week period. I will then have them replace one item with something healthy. Only when they have assimilated that change into their eating habits do I make another similar change. I call this the Quality phase in which I clean up their eating habits. In the vast majority of my clients who actually get to a clean diet the results exceed their wildest dreams. Almost all reach their goals along the way.
For the few who can over eat a clean healthy diet I then start reducing the amount of food they consume by very small amounts allowing them to adjust to the decreases so as not to impact their lifestyle emotionally. This is my Quantity phase. This way my clients do not have to make radical or abrupt changes in their lifestyle to accommodate the changes in their eating habits.
I offer a one year nutrition course for those looking to achieve better eating habits.
How are payments handled?
All Payments are made on my website.
What is your cancellation policy?
I require a minimum of a 24-hour notification for any cancellation. If you are not feeling well, it is best not to workout. Take a day off and let your body heal. In the event of late cancellations, you will be charged for the session.
Can you explain your nutrition coaching program a little more?
I believe that people can only reliably get to their goals when they do two things:
Break down the thing they want to do (goal) into specific aptitudes (skills).
Build those aptitudes (skills) through strategic daily habits (practices).
The formula pretty much looks like this:
Practice daily to build skills.
Build skills to achieve goals.
Growth and development comes through daily practices and supporting experiences.
Here’s an example of how this works:
Goal: Eat better consistently
Let’s say you want to lose weight. You know that to lose weight you’ll need to eat better consistently. That’s your real goal: Eat better consistently.
But you don’t have all the skills to do it just yet. So you have to break it down into…
Skill: Hunger and appetite awareness
Which skills are required to eat better consistently? We’ve identified hunger/appetite awareness as the most important initial skill for making progress.
But that’s not quite a concrete thing you can do. So you have to break it down into…
Practices: Eat slowly and stop eating when satisfied
I use two daily practices to build the skill of hunger and appetite awareness.
Practice 1: Eat slowly.
Practice 2: Eat until satisfied, not stuffed.
This takes a month - two weeks for clients to learn, practice, and repeat each habit. At the end of a month, clients have two very important habits that they can now use for the rest of their lives. They’ve learned it by doing it.
Not surprisingly, clients usually lose weight during this time. Because, of course, they’re learning to eat a bit less and adjust their intake according to body signals.
Even better, they’ve built two new habits that they can use for the rest of their lives, no matter what else happens.
The ProCoach software delivers weekly habits (like the two above), supported by daily lessons and assignments, to help you not only eat better now — but also build the skills necessary to eat better for life.
So what’s wrong with meal plans?
In our early days, we learned something the hard way:
Meal plans and diets aren’t useful or sustainable for the vast majority of clients.
Clients often feel like they’re either “on” them or “off” them. The black and white nature of a meal plan suggests that people have to eat perfectly at each meal (to match what’s listed in the plan) — or they’ve failed. It’s psychologically unpalatable and unsustainable.
Even more, meal plans are too inflexible.
They don’t work with the reality of people’s busy lives. Work meetings, children’s programs, meals out, dogs that need walking, cars that break down, family members that get ill, etc. Meal plans take none of these into account.
Finally, meal plans assume people already have the skills to follow them.
But that’s simply not true. Most people who aren’t eating healthy today don’t have the basics down.
Without skills like:
planning grocery shopping;
choosing the right items from the store;
storing and preparing food correctly;
eating slowly and mindfully;
tuning into hunger and appetite cues;
avoiding problem foods; and
choosing better options at restaurants...
...following a meal plan becomes hopeless.
You might as well ask someone who’s only strong enough to bench press 135 pounds to do 405 pounds. No matter how badly they want to, they don’t have the skills or capacity.
But these aren’t just intellectual objections. In my experience, only 1 in 10 people can actually follow a meal plan for more than a few weeks.
In the end, meal plans have such limited utility that I left them behind a long time ago.