Newsletter #5 (Released May 8, 2007)

Message from the Founder...

I have spent at least 3 days a week of my life in a gym since 1993. That's 728 weeks or 12,015 days of my life--give or take a few due to sickness, vacation, or just plain laziness. Add some to the last 6 years because of employment. In all that time, I have always wondered what how some people learn how to "lift". Some may have learned from their coaches, fathers, ex-boyfriends, the aerobics instructor, a friend, exercise video, magazine articles, or from a trainer.

I know how I did: Joe Weider.

Yep...until about last summer, I had almost every issue of Muscle & Fitness dating back to 1989-1993 in MINT condition. But I tossed them all out one day last summer. It was an "all-day" event I sat back with a glass of lemonade and looked through some old issues.

It's funny how research and exercise has evolved since those days. Its funny how "I" have evolved since those days. I can honestly say I lifted incorrectly the first 3-4 years of my life. Never knew it at the time...but I was lifting all wrong. I'm not blaming Joe Weider....he had nothing to do with it...hell, all Joe did was supply me with glossy magazine photo's of drugged up bodybuilders with razor-like striations, swollen biceps, and pulsating vascularity. Joe did a great job of pulling that carrot further away fom me everytime I got closer and closer to matching strength and size with these guys. But Joe and his editorial crew were smart and they knew how to make me "want" those results.

As the years went by and I began to expand my knowledge and gain experience training others, I began to "see" the discrepencies in my own training and that of others. As I learned and researched  the effect of muscular imbalances on human movement and uncovering them through assessments, I noticed a difference: I was getting stronger, more agile, and leaner in less time. As a trainer, I assessed my clients using protocols that I had learned and I discovered what the most commonly imbalanced parts of the body were.

Muscle & Fitness never taught me that! Sure I learned how to perform a biceps curl, but I never thought the shoulder had a major role in resisted elbow flexion?

Suddenly training clients became easier. They walked around the gym more confident and they began correcting the form of their spouses and friends. And I would hear, "My trainer taught me that". It was the best feeling to hear a corporate worker or soccer mom spit out my name when addressing scapular retraction during a row.

I wasn't teaching anyone anything new. But I was teaching my clients how to assess themselves. My experience has proven to me that I am less afraid when I have an idea of what is behind the door. Well, that is what I do. I teach clients what is behind the door. So many people workout every day, every night walking through a door unaware of exericise form or effeciency.

So the idea of "EYE of the TRAINER" became a reality.  There are tons of products out there that boast bulking gains or fat loss without teaching you what's behind the door. So many products simply present another "door" for you to walk through.

EYE of the TRAINER teaches you how to spot muscular imbalances in 7 key exercises and use 42 techniques to make those exercises more effecient. I have used these 42 techniques in my own training and the training of my clients, and without a doubt, they have helped improve posture, performance, and mobility every time.

So...as I emptied my collection of Muscle & Fitness last summer, I pondered on the idea of how much I have learned through "under the bar" experience, reading, and application and realized a couple of things:   I have a lot more to learn... and those were some great pictures in those magazines.

For more info, go to: www.EyeOfTheTrainer.com and be sure to check out the promo video!

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