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A whole new look, a whole new feel.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Join us... On our newly updated blog site!
For all of our fans and blog subscribers... Please follow us over to our newly updated blog site at
www.ptaglobalblog.com
A whole new look, a whole new feel.
See you there!
www.ptaglobalblog.com
A whole new look, a whole new feel.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Intelligent Motion
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| Ian O'Dwyer |
What you may not realize however, is that these so called "antics" are part of a much more complex and detailed aspect of PTA Global's philosophy. In fact, one that Ian himself coined... 'Intelligent Motion'.
Anyone who has studied the human body, it complexities and subtleties - how the tissues respond to stress - knows the absolute importance of motion to the health of the system as a whole. Most call this the S.A.I.D. Principle and believe that they know all about it as if it is a person they have been dating for years now... If you are one of this 'most' crowd, you won't need to read any further.
In PTA Global fashion, let's define our terms - Intelligent Motion - to get to the heart of the issue at hand and see what we find:
Intelligent:
Able to vary your state or action in response
to varying situations, varying requirements, and past experience.
Not what you were expecting...? Feel free to read that definition again because it is very compelling and provides deep insight as to why Intelligent Motion is so necessary and powerful for the body. It comes from the Latin word intelligere, which means to "perceive". I know you already know this, but for those that may not, perception is the interpretation of a stimulus or stimuli.
Knowing this and looking at this definition, so many things come to mind. For example, the first part, "Able to vary your state or action" how it refers to both the psychological AND physical, intimately linking the two together. When you add the rest "in response to varying situationss, varying requirements, and past experience" it sounds a lot like sensorimotor integration doesn't it? ...how sensory feedback comes into the central nervous system, is interpreted and then results in a motor response...
Yet it also sounds a lot like how our brain functions to process any stressor / situation - taking what its presented and comparing it to past experiences. In essence, the crux behind behavioral change.
Think about what we have learned lately regarding fascia... how it has on average about 9-10 times more proprioceptive capabilities than muscle and how it can gather and store information (emotional and 'motional') as well as promote a response and all independently of the central nervous system. How manipulation of one area can dramatically influence another.
Motion:
The transition from one position to another.
'Transition' by definition is a change from one state or position to another. Moving from what was - the past - to what is.
Now partner the definition of 'intelligent' with 'motion'... go ahead I'll wait...
What did you come up with?
Here is what we see at PTA Global...
Intelligent Motion:
The ability to change your state from what was to what can be in response to varying situations based upon who you currently are.
It is motion that meets the client where they need to be met... motion that makes the complex simple because it asks the body, it doesn't tell the body. It is motion that a leader would use to evoke rather than provoke a response. Intelligent Motion is simply motion with a client-centered purpose.
So here's the cool part... Intelligent Motion ... it's dictated by the client. If you are not asking your client the right questions - daily - chances are you are not providing them with Intelligent Motion.
If your motion isn't intelligent...
meaning able to change you and/or your clients' state of wellbeing from what it was to what they want it to be in response to the multitude of varying situations that they face daily all based specifically on who they are and what fears, like and dislikes they currently have...
Then what is it?
Thank you Ian for your passion, your foresight and your antics. You are truly "Intelligent!"
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Meet the Client Where They Need to be Met
Having spoke with numerous club chains around the world, it is no secret that one of the primary reasons people leave a gym or stop training with a Fitness Professional is they feel that 'their needs weren't met." In other words, they didn't get the service that best matched who they were, what they wanted and how they wanted it.Over the years, PTA Global has had the distinct pleasure of learning from and sharing with industry expert, phenomenal trainer and good friend, Annette Lang. Annette's experience and understanding of our industry has laid a solid foundation for how PTA Global views and addresses the industry as whole. She has, on more than one occasion, stated that we as an industry need to "meet the client where they need to be met."
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| Annette Lang |
As we discussed in our initial post, a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" means that we are here to 'serve others by providing guidance and a means to derive performance driven solutions for the challenges they face.' Performance driven solutions don't happen by chance. If they are to be reproducible and consistent, they will require some form of structured guidance or what we call "structured freedom."
Meeting someone where they are right now in their life and matching their experience with us to that place, requires knowledge, skill and application. Furthermore, it necessitates that we 'know' them at a sub-superficial level. How does this happen, you ask? You just did it! You ask! We must ask questions that allow them to volunteer the necessary information.
Be careful now... it's not just about asking questions. It's about asking the right question AND THEN responding correctly.
Enter PTA Global's Program Design Questionnaire (PDQ) found in the PTA Global Personal Training Certification Course and the PTA Global Bridging Course. Masterminded by PTA Global Co-founder Bobby Cappuccio and built with the support of decades of research, the PDQ was specifically developed to provide a simple, reproducible process for structuring and delivering a high degree of intimate communication between us and potential clients.
The brilliance of the PDQ lies in its ability to practically and concisely allow you to use proven Motivational Interviewing techniques with intelligently laid out open-ended questions and timely positioned confidence scales.
One of the main purposes of the PDQ is to provide us with the ability to immediately establish trust and rapport
with a client or potential client. It does this by showing us how to systematically walk someone through a series of
questions that reveal their goal, preferred style of training,
level of ability and the motivation behind their goal.
Two immensely important aspects of the PDQ that are highlighted above - the person's 'style of training' and their 'motivation' - are specifically mapped to the industry's needs and the philosophy of "meet the client where they need to be met." By asking the client "how" they would prefer to train and "why" they are here to train will provide an overwhelming abundance of personalized client-centered treasures.
When used, you will successfully provide the client with the experience they were looking for and in a way that specifically matched how they wanted it done. Or, simply put you were able to "meet the client where they needed to be met."
In less than 10 minutes this proven performance driven solution can remove one of the top reasons why someone would leave your club or stop training with you. Not convinced...
Here is a quote from Marco Ferdinandi, Regional Director of Fitness Operations for Pure Fitness in Hong Kong & Singapore:
"Going beyond just our education needs, PTA Global has been a major influence in our operating procedures, training philosophy, sales process and member interaction. We rolled out our first PTA Global courses in 2009 and since then have consistently seen our key metrics improve. Our penetration rates at point of sale are up 20 percentage points in that time, our active client penetration is above 30%, and our revenues directly from Personal Training are up 20% each year and continue to grow.
Our Personal Trainers have seen their productivity improve as well. The average Personal Trainer is training over 30 sessions per week and working with 35 – 40 clients in any given month. Regardless of their experience and level, our team is able to deliver a consistently excellent member experience with PTA Global’s systems in place. For example, by implementing a simple visual presentation built on PTA Global science, our new club opening team in Singapore was able to convert 50% of the new members we met with into personal training clients during our presale."
Thank you Annette Lang for your authenticity. Thank you Bobby Cappuccio for your brilliance... and thank you Pure Fitness for your belief.
Got 10 minutes... Make it happen!
Monday, April 30, 2012
We Make the Complex Simple... and Effective
As a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" it would make sense that you would be able to make the complex not only simple but effective... Yea?
And while co-founder Scott Hopson didn't coin the phrase, "Make the Complex Simple", he sure made this tagline a vital part of everything we did and strive to do at PTA Global. How so, you ask? Great question. If you have a couple of minutes, how about we explore 3 examples of how PTA Global took the complex and made it simple... and effective for trainers, clubs and the industry as a whole.
Example #1: Motivation & Programming... Behavior-based Training
Most trainers will not take the time to review, learn and apply 30+ years of Neuropsychology. In fact most educational organizations who provide a service to trainers do not review, teach and show trainers how to apply 30+ years of Neuropsychology. Yet, when PTA Global informally polled hundreds of owners, operators and managers in the fitness industry, asking them what their #1 pain was with their training department, we discovered the same response... "Our trainers don't know how to communicate to our members." No matter how educated they were, they lacked the skills to effectively communicate. In turn, every owner, operator and manage knows that the training department will have an influence on member attrition and member attrition is not a good thing for your bottom line.
Enough said. PTA Global's mission was to provide performance driven solutions to address the needs of the owners, operators and managers AND enhance the skill set of trainers while at the same time decreasing anxiety for the trainers (because we found out that this was one of the biggest reasons trainers were leaving clubs in the first 90 days). Trainer anxiety equals trainer attrition. Again, not a good thing for the bottom line.
Enter the PTA Global Program Design Questionnaire (PDQ). As part of the PTA Global's Personal Training Certification and Bridging Course, it was developed from the brilliance of co-founder Bobby Cappuccio, it is a compilation of the best in Neuropsychology revealing the power of motivational interviewing techniques. In a seamlessly organized manner, it enables any trainer to immediately connect with a member, build rapport and find out the member's goal, their true motivation for being in the club, their level of ability and their preferred style of training - how they would like to be trained (vitally important for compliance). And as an added bonus, we just so happened to have constructed over 840 workouts that specifically link to and match each client's goal, level and preferred style of training - in case you don't have time or don't want to write one yourself.
Example #2: Movement... 3-dimensional Motion
It is no secret that most trainers are always looking for 'new' exercises. Well, we can either give them new exercises (which we do) and/or we can teach a trainer how to take any exercise (movement pattern) and create an infinite number of variations to specifically match any environment (club setting) and any member's level of ability and preferred style of training.
Also part of the PTA Global's Personal Training Certification and Bridging Course, this ingenious tool was adapted from the 30+ years of the Gray Institute's (Gary Gray) brilliance around Applied Functional ScienceTM and their Functional Nomenclature. This tool, which is intimately influenced by the PDQ, allows trainers to immediately progress & regress any movement pattern in 3 dimensional space without memorizing 100's of exercises. Your 3D Checkpoints (3DC).
So if you are not sure how exactly biomechanics and functional anatomy, exercise physiology and neuropsychology all influence movement and tissue health... and/or if you are not positive about how you would systematically manipulate any movement pattern to be more 'functional' or more 'traditional' depending on your client's preferred style of training... and/or how you would take a seemingly very difficult exercise and make it manageable for a 65 year old female with osteoporosis... Then this tool is for you!
Example #3: Client Screening... Daily Readiness Observation
Scenario: It's 5 pm on a Monday evening. Your client hasn't slept well in 2 nights. They haven't eaten well and they are slightly dehydrated. They have some 'back pain' and they just had an argument with their boss. What does your program look like for them today? What do you do with them and how do you know if it's working?
Perhaps PTA Global's most prolific contribution to a trainer's tool box is the Daily Readiness Observation (DR.O). As part of the PTA Global Advanced Personal Training Course, this tool is a highly specialized and simplistic method for determining the level of stress your client is under today and in what areas. Once you know that, it will walk you through how to design / manipulate their session to specifically meet the client where they need to be met.
You can either go study how circadian rhythms, nutritional biochemistry, bio-social behavior and pain all influence the immune system, inflammation and tissue health of your body or use the DR.O... This is what we call "Personalized Training" and is what we believe separates the good from the great.
At PTA Global, we do not take being a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" lightly - nor should you. We feel it is our responsibility to ensure that education is practical, providing proven performance driven solutions that meet your challenges. We make the complex simple and effective so you can do what you do best.
And while co-founder Scott Hopson didn't coin the phrase, "Make the Complex Simple", he sure made this tagline a vital part of everything we did and strive to do at PTA Global. How so, you ask? Great question. If you have a couple of minutes, how about we explore 3 examples of how PTA Global took the complex and made it simple... and effective for trainers, clubs and the industry as a whole.
Example #1: Motivation & Programming... Behavior-based Training
Most trainers will not take the time to review, learn and apply 30+ years of Neuropsychology. In fact most educational organizations who provide a service to trainers do not review, teach and show trainers how to apply 30+ years of Neuropsychology. Yet, when PTA Global informally polled hundreds of owners, operators and managers in the fitness industry, asking them what their #1 pain was with their training department, we discovered the same response... "Our trainers don't know how to communicate to our members." No matter how educated they were, they lacked the skills to effectively communicate. In turn, every owner, operator and manage knows that the training department will have an influence on member attrition and member attrition is not a good thing for your bottom line.
Enough said. PTA Global's mission was to provide performance driven solutions to address the needs of the owners, operators and managers AND enhance the skill set of trainers while at the same time decreasing anxiety for the trainers (because we found out that this was one of the biggest reasons trainers were leaving clubs in the first 90 days). Trainer anxiety equals trainer attrition. Again, not a good thing for the bottom line.
Enter the PTA Global Program Design Questionnaire (PDQ). As part of the PTA Global's Personal Training Certification and Bridging Course, it was developed from the brilliance of co-founder Bobby Cappuccio, it is a compilation of the best in Neuropsychology revealing the power of motivational interviewing techniques. In a seamlessly organized manner, it enables any trainer to immediately connect with a member, build rapport and find out the member's goal, their true motivation for being in the club, their level of ability and their preferred style of training - how they would like to be trained (vitally important for compliance). And as an added bonus, we just so happened to have constructed over 840 workouts that specifically link to and match each client's goal, level and preferred style of training - in case you don't have time or don't want to write one yourself.
Example #2: Movement... 3-dimensional Motion
It is no secret that most trainers are always looking for 'new' exercises. Well, we can either give them new exercises (which we do) and/or we can teach a trainer how to take any exercise (movement pattern) and create an infinite number of variations to specifically match any environment (club setting) and any member's level of ability and preferred style of training.
Also part of the PTA Global's Personal Training Certification and Bridging Course, this ingenious tool was adapted from the 30+ years of the Gray Institute's (Gary Gray) brilliance around Applied Functional ScienceTM and their Functional Nomenclature. This tool, which is intimately influenced by the PDQ, allows trainers to immediately progress & regress any movement pattern in 3 dimensional space without memorizing 100's of exercises. Your 3D Checkpoints (3DC).
So if you are not sure how exactly biomechanics and functional anatomy, exercise physiology and neuropsychology all influence movement and tissue health... and/or if you are not positive about how you would systematically manipulate any movement pattern to be more 'functional' or more 'traditional' depending on your client's preferred style of training... and/or how you would take a seemingly very difficult exercise and make it manageable for a 65 year old female with osteoporosis... Then this tool is for you!
Example #3: Client Screening... Daily Readiness Observation
Scenario: It's 5 pm on a Monday evening. Your client hasn't slept well in 2 nights. They haven't eaten well and they are slightly dehydrated. They have some 'back pain' and they just had an argument with their boss. What does your program look like for them today? What do you do with them and how do you know if it's working?
Perhaps PTA Global's most prolific contribution to a trainer's tool box is the Daily Readiness Observation (DR.O). As part of the PTA Global Advanced Personal Training Course, this tool is a highly specialized and simplistic method for determining the level of stress your client is under today and in what areas. Once you know that, it will walk you through how to design / manipulate their session to specifically meet the client where they need to be met.
You can either go study how circadian rhythms, nutritional biochemistry, bio-social behavior and pain all influence the immune system, inflammation and tissue health of your body or use the DR.O... This is what we call "Personalized Training" and is what we believe separates the good from the great.
At PTA Global, we do not take being a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" lightly - nor should you. We feel it is our responsibility to ensure that education is practical, providing proven performance driven solutions that meet your challenges. We make the complex simple and effective so you can do what you do best.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Leader in Professional Fitness Development
The best place to launch anything is from a solid foundation. So, we would like to launch this blog site congruent with our philosophy and share with you exactly who PTA Global really is. The answer lies in the overlooked details, which we will reveal for you here. It is our sincere hope that you will 1) see that there is far more to PTA Global than meets the eye or ear and 2) that you will join us in our journey.
PTA Global stands for Personal Training Academy Global and it is within this name that our 'personage' surfaces. By defining our terms - a theme, habit and philosophy of ours - we believe information can be transferred more effectively and result in true communication. Let's start by defining each term in our name and see what unfolds...
Personal - Concerning a particular person and his or her private business, interests, or activities; intimate
Training - the process of bringing a person to an agreed standard of proficiency by practice and instruction
Academy - a society of learned persons organized to advance art, science, or literature
Global - Worldwide; Comprehensive
PTA Global, true to our name, is establishing and promoting an intimate process focused on bringing you, via a society of learned persons, to a new level that is organized to advance our industry on a comprehensive worldwide scale. Call it "unity" if you will.
We claim to be a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" by way of our tagline, but this should mean absolutely nothing to you until you first understand the above paragraph - who we are and why we exist. Now that you know this, what does being a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development" mean for?
Leader
When looking at definitions of 'leader' you will quickly see that the theme is that of someone in 'control' or 'command' or who is the 'head' of a movement or group. You may also see the definitions that use the terms 'guide' or 'director'. All in all, the underlying message is often one of a person who is 'the boss'. This may all be well and true to an extent, however, at PTA Global we view a leader as someone who is capable of drawing out in others through encouragement and servitude what others cannot or will not draw out of themselves.
We believe a true leader is one who serves others by providing guidance and a means to derive performance driven solutions for the challenges they face. In order to genuinely accomplish this task, a leader must have served and fought in the same battles. PTA Global is a society of learned persons who have extensive experience as owners, operators, managers, trainers, educators, inventors and enthusiasts just like you. We know the challenges you have and will face. We know the pitfalls that can and will come. We have seen and survived the real world issues and come out on the other side with solutions we are seeing revolutionize the industry globally.
Professional
The term 'professional' is defined as relating to, or characteristic of a profession or career; having or showing great skill; expert. We firmly believe that this industry needs to affirm to its constituents that there is a viable career waiting for them. PTA Global will 'lead' - encourage and serve you - by providing viable performance driven solutions and guidance to overcome your challenges so you can begin, maintain and grow as a skilled expert in a true occupation.
Fitness
A play on words here.. "fitness" relates to the self-imposed name of the industry in which we operate, but it also means 'suitability' and/or 'appropriateness'. PTA global is leading you with appropriate skilled and expert leadership to meet you where you need to be met in order to do what you need to do.
Development
The process of growing or progressing. Isn't that what this is all about? Avoiding stagnation and growing your career, business and the industry...?
As a "Leader in Professional Fitness Development", PTA Global is unique because we boldly proclaim to encourage and serve you, providing real-world performance driven solutions to enhance your skill sets and expertise that are appropriate for this industry to ensure your continual growth and progression.
We simply want to unite this industry to advance it beyond where it thinks it can go and provide you with a means to stay in it as long as you want. Any takers?
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