At the airport in Sydney right now on the way back from a 10 day seminar tour through Australia with three seminars in Sydney and Melbourne. The Fitness scene and personal training industry in Australia have evolved to one of the most progressive in world in the last decade. After postponing an invitation to teach down under for two years I finally made the trip this year. And its been a fantastic time with great weather, lots of sun, great food, some great gyms and really good groups of attendants. Observing a local industry there are always pointers to pick up and three of many that I picked up on this trip are:
1. Redefining the Fit Female
Australia’s is known for its ambitious and progressive gym culture with especially the females leading the worldwide standards in body composition and strength. There are Physique and Bikini Competitions almost every weekend with an average 40 to 50 girls competing which shows in the gym those girls do lift real weights. One morning at breakfast I chatted with Lauren, the wife of my host Daine McDonald, on training and she told me that she did 10 sets of 5 reps on Snatch Grip Podium Deadlifts with a 50×0 with 120kg on every set before giving birth to her last child. And she was 54kg with 11% body fat at the time, with a personal best in the deadlift of 170kg with a shoulder width grip of the floor. To back it up she showed me a video of her doing 3 reps with 160kg also with a shoulder width grip of the floor. For lean and strong females this is clearly a new standard. What do girls deadlift around the world at that bodyweight and body fat?
2. The Basics still get the job done, even for World leading Bikini Girls
Not new, still a point that needs to reenforced constantly. Before each of my two-day „YPSI Body Comp Weekend“ seminars there was a one-day „The Art of General Population Transformation“ seminar held by Mark Carroll, who is the Global Head of Education of my host the Clean Health Fitness Institute, did the YPSI Certification 2 years ago, and coaches of some of the most successful Bikini Competitors in the world including the current WBFF Bikini World Champion Lauren Simpson. In his course he gave insights into how he trains his Bikini girls. And they squat, deadlift and chinup. And he fixes their nutrition, sleep and lifestyle. They master the basics for months and years. And get amazing results. Results that most females in the world that train in gym would love to get. Yet, what most of those girls all over the world miss is constantly and consistently mastering the basics.
3. Master the Business aspect to stay a truly successful Personal Trainer
Thats a point that I emphasize regularly as being a weak link in strengths of most personal trainers around the world – except Australia. During the trip I have talked to many personal trainers about their development and their career and I was surprised how many of them have business coaches and invest in business development. Passion for training is important. Passion for training and the ability to transfer that consistently into your client is a key pillar in becoming a successful personal trainer. And then the business aspect is a key pillar in staying a successful personal trainer. As being able to pay bills and provide for yourself is the base of any profession. To become and be a successful personal trainer the development of each pillar with a focus o the weakest is key to longterm success, growth and happiness.
Australia has been an amazing trip. And I am excited to see where the personal training industry is growing towards overall in the next years. Looking back at where the industry was 10 years ago and realizing how much it has grown globally, gives an idea on where the personal training industry will be in 10 years from now. Consider there was basically no Netflix 10 years ago and Netflix completely changed how we watch tv shows and movies today. Personal trainers got a great future ahead.
A thank you to Daine and Mark from Clean Health and Tim from Bodyseek for the support on this tour and all the trainers and coaches that came out to the events to get better.
Picture: Teaching the „The perfect Squat“ Workshop in Sydney.