About me

As I foray into the world of blogging, I thought the best way to start would be to write a blog about myself, James Williams. I will talk about why I wanted to be a Personal trainer, how I train, my training goals and future ambitions (both personal and business).

Why I became a Personal Trainer:

I have always had a fascination with sport both participating and watching, with my two true passions being football and tennis! Unfortunately, I knew early on the chance of me making it as professional footballer or tennis player were very slim, at best, so becoming a personal trainer seemed like the next most logical step.

I have been in the fitness industry for over 6 years; working as a personal trainer for the last 3 years. In this time I have helped hundreds of clients reach their goals whether it was strength related, fat loss related, fitness related or health related. I have also been fortunate enough to have trained a broad spectrum of clients all with different ages, goals, injuries, training history and of course personalities. To me there is no better feeling, as a trainer, than seeing someone lift a weight they never thought possible or see results they never thought they could achieve!

My training:

One of the biggest changes I have seen in myself since I have started training is my self-confidence (and of course my physical appearance has changed), throughout school I was the shy kid that wouldn’t say boo to a goose. If you were to tell my 13 year old self that at 24 I would be teaching my own bootcamp sessions and spin classes he would have probably ran away crying in the corner! I have also used my own training as experiments for my own clients experimenting with different programme styles, different programme splits, different exercises, different variations of exercises etc. from this I have been able to identify what works, what doesn’t work, what’s effective for certain goals and ineffective for others!

I am currently training between 4 and 6 times a week, excluding a spin class I teach on a Monday evening. In my own training I tend to solely use free weights, with a mixture of dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, cable exercises and a few bodyweight exercises thrown in. With training most days of the week I have learnt to split my routine to help aid recovery and to help maximise results. Over the last 6 -7 months I have moved away from the standard ‘bro’ split of training each muscle group on different days (chest on a Monday, back on Tuesday, shoulders Wednesday etc.) to a push (focus mainly on chest and shoulders), pull (mainly back) and legs (kind of speaks for itself) routine. This means I can train each muscle group twice a week without the fear of overtraining or injury but, in the light of current scientific evidence, help improve muscle mass and strength. For me personally the change of splitting the routine has helped me make huge improvements in both increasing the strength and size of all my whole body!

My goals, past and present & future:

Since I first started training I had 2 main goals that I have been working on achieving. These where to deadlift twice my bodyweight (I currently weigh 75kg) and to be able to bench press the top dumbbell weight in the gym (at the gym I train at this is currently 40kg). In July this year (2016) I finally managed to deadlift twice my bodyweight (actually deadlifted 153kg) for 2 reps! This took me a few years of experimenting and building enough of a base level of strength to feel comfortable trying it, in that time I have always been try to perfect my technique (through research and watching other crazily strong guys perform insane deadlifts feats)! In regards to the 40kg bench press, I have not only managed to do it I can now bench press them for 10 reps! Again, this is something I have built up to over time, trying to make steady progress each week.

On to my current fitness goals. My next main aims are to be able to overhead press my own bodyweight for 5 reps and to be able chin up/ pull up with 37.5kg added to me (half my bodyweight) for 5 reps!

My own personal goals, I have recently started playing golf, with this in mind my current aim is to get a single figure handicap. To give you an idea of how far away I am from this I currently don’t even on my own driver…

Finally, this is a massive life goal for me! Since I was about 14 (when I knew I wasn’t going to make it as a professional footballer) I have had a dream of one day owning my own gym! This dream is now looking more like something I can realistically achieve, with a lot of hard work and definitely some favours to call in! So keep an eye for future updates on how my progress of opening my own gym goes!

James

PS. Any recommendation for future posts or improvements please comment below.

Above is my own progression over the years. Picture 1 (on left) was taken in 2008, when I was just 16 years old. Picture 2 (middle) was taken in 2013 (21 years old) and when I had just dabbled into training more seriously. Picture 3 (on right) was taken in August this year (24 years old) after training smarter and more consistently.