Early inspirations
I grew up in country Victoria on a diet of sports and physical activity. Typically, footy and cricket were staples, while  golf, some racquet sports and others came and went spasmodically, and since my late teenage years boxing, martial arts and combat sports in general became a passion.

I had never really aimed to reach any great heights in any of my sporting endeavours, which was fortunate as I was average at best, and as I would later discover, my ability to instruct and coach far exceeded any athletic prowess I may have possessed.

With regular participation in boxing and various martial arts a training ethos was etched that would later heavily influence my own philosophies as a trainer. What these combat sports also brought to me, was the apparentness of the role fitness and nutrition play in relation to human health, performance and general wellness.

Education
Post high school, I studied a Diploma of Sport (development) along with my Certificate III in fitness, which was in fact the steak knives thrown in with the Diploma, but would later prove to be extremely valuable.

Meanwhile my own training flourished, and some fundamental training philosophies began to form. In recognition of this, friends and family would consult me with increasing regularity, seeking advice on their own fitness and health needs, and I was more than happy to share my still limited knowledge. A seed was sown.

In the meantime, I got a little sidetracked and forged a brief career in retail which followed the standard progression through managerial positions. Retail then led me into some short lived sales orientated roles, the last of which was as a membership consultant for a local gym. While I thought it would be the perfect pairing of the fitness environment I still loved and the selling role I’d proven handy at, the surrounding gym scene and the fitness enthusiasts who occupied it, proved too great of a distraction to my front desk role as I realised that that was what I really wanted to be doing.

The head start in completing my Cert III in Fitness years earlier would now pay dividends as I quickly completed my relevant qualifications and was given the opportunity to begin my career as a personal trainer at the same gym I’d been employed with – Genesis Fitness Caulfield – where I still train clients full time today.

Training philosophies
Since beginning as a PT, I have always strived to continually develop as a trainer, through developing areas of personal expertise and broadening the spectrum of services I am capable of offering my clients.

I am, for the most part, quite sceptical; even angry at times; with the global direction of the fitness industry, nutritional services and health practices, and as such I have developed methods to carefully assess any information or research on such matters that are served up to the public. Misinformation in these fields (almost always cultivated in pursuit of the almighty dollar) is now so prevalent, that the unassuming public barely stand a chance and, equally unfortunately, neither do many relevant fitness and health professionals.

I have carefully filtered the influences of my development as a trainer and, while that may be interpreted as stubbornness or close-mindedness on my part, I am more than willing to take on board new ideas that have proven their worth through empirical evidence, results that I can measure and/or see with my own eyes, and that abide with the common laws of nature.

The EMT (Effective Movement Training) system – aka the Advanced Personal Training Certificate – has been one such idea that, after implementing into both my clients training and my own and achieving remarkable results, has proven its worth to me and, soon enough I’m sure, to the fitness industry as a whole.

Other training influences on my approach to training include techniques used by boxers and other combat athletes (mixed martial artists in particular) as I mentioned earlier. The functionality of the movements those athletes incorporate into their training, and the intensity with which they apply them, inspired a training protocol for which I would largely base my own training on, and implement for my clients too.

It’s now been about two years since I discovered CrossFit, a training system which expressed a lot of philosophies that I knew I had, but had yet to fully form. CrossFit put a name to much of my already developing techniques, and shed light on a host of new ones too. Again, with CrossFit, functionality and high intensity is the ethos, though I’m increasingly reluctant to pin the terms “function, functional, or functionality” to any training technique as the definition has become cloudy in light of every latest fitness tool being announced as “functional” (A Bosu ball or a Gym-stick, anyone?!).

Crossfit, essentially a conglomeration of historically proven training techniques and philosophies, opened a door for me leading into a greater understanding of many of its individual components: Power lifting, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, kettlebell training, Strongman training, track work and, to a lesser extent, even specific endurance training, were elements I could see as greatly beneficial whether incorporated in their own right, or in conjunction with one another in pursuit of either athletic performance or aesthetic desires.

In pursuit of a greater level of expertise in these individual areas, I soon realised a key component that was lacking: A functional component, most likely pigeon-holed in the prehab/rehab category, was sorely missing. Maintaining proper function of the body through mobilisation, flexibility training and myofascial release was certainly never queried for its importance or relevance within the aforementioned training areas, but was usually brushed over as a side matter, or introduced with far less enthusiasm than the “meat” of the given training strategy.

I sought relevant information on the matter, and many techniques I learned along the way are still kept in my training inventory, however the full potential of EMT became apparent particularly in this area, and I’ve found it has slotted in very smoothly with my existing training repertoire, almost as a missing piece of the puzzle.

With my continued education in this area, I now embrace the chance to help the “prehab/rehab” client through implementation of newly learned assessment and training techniques, as I now realise I can help even more people by incorporating these methods as the fact remains, everybody would benefit from being able to move better.

The obvious exclusion in my training background is that of the bodybuilding/figure realm. This is quite deliberate as, to be honest, I have some reservations about the image it has portrayed of the fitness industry. This isn’t to say I’m not competent in training the client who is exclusively in pursuit of aesthetic based goals; far from it. In fact bodybuilding and the like is one of the more simplistic training strategies to grasp and, perhaps erroneously, provides the fundamental thesis for which most standard fitness educators today tend to base their courses on. Regardless, if that goal is what gets people into training of any type is a massive coup, obviously.

However I believe that this prominent branch of the fitness world has been a catalyst in promoting a marketing Mecca that preys on the misplaced health and image paranoia that it indeed helped to create.

A quick word on nutrition
Another great passion I get to indulge in as a trainer is nutrition, and educating my clients on correct nutrition. Again, this has become an increasingly confusing, and at times controversial, subject over the last few decades and as such, humans have totally lost their way with regards to food choices and the current health of the western population reflects exactly this. My view on food is quite simple: EAT REAL FOOD!

Think how our ancestors – of 10,000 or so years ago – would have eaten. If a food comes in a box or packaging, it is almost certain not to be real food but rather a ‘food-like’ substance – an imitation of food. Nutrition labels on this packaging should be seen as virtual warning beacons to the actual health benefits of the product contained inside. If a product is determined to advertised its supposed health benefits in the form of common claims such as “low-fat” or “no-cholesterol”, then you can be pretty sure that this a heavily processed product that is doing very little to benefit your health or, in all probability, harming you.

That’s a topic I could rant all day about though! In saying that, I still love the odd beer and may even be spotted downing the occasional meat pie at the footy, a habit I’ll even approve of to my clients. In moderation, of course!

Today
My current role at Genesis Caulfield is as the Fitness Division Coordinator where my primary role is to oversee and continually improve personal training services within the club, primarily through the ongoing development of our fantastic team of like-minded personal trainers. While all of our trainers have their unique strengths and ideas, we all share in our objective to educate as many people as we can on matters of fitness and health so that we can help them live healthier and happier lives.

Moving forward
As I continue to gain knowledge on nutrition and its link to many ailments that are particularly prominent in the western world, I would like to reach a wider audience to educate on how to treat metabolic conditions including insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome/syndrome X, and Type II Diabetes through implementation of natural remedies and dietary intervention.

Another particular area of interest to me that I would love to move into in some capacity, is the training of higher level athletes in all aspects of physical conditioning, as well as implementing natural nutritional strategies to improve athletic performance.