Bite the Hand that Feeds Part II – Strength Club, Not Coming to a Gym Near You Soon

Strategic Fitness Industry Sales Meeting

In a past blog HERE I wrote about how the health and fitness industry is at civil war, despite numerous, comments and observations from my peers in the industry not a single fuck has been changed.

In the time passed, I have continued to study my sorry ass off, work my sorry ass off, dream about my sorry ass driving a real car (no really, I dream about cars) and grow my social media database. I’m up to 738 Facebook friends right now, how rad is that?!?

Right now; one of my key projects is ‘Strength Club’. To fill you in, I run a group fitness class once a week that is centered on basic Power and Weight lifting movements. Members of the gym pay $10 for my time, non-members pay $20 and I split that 50/50 with the gym. So, technically, I am still paying to lease the gym floor. However, in this case; the gym is remarkably supportive and getting involved in the project, that helps a lot!

Now, recently; another gym approached me about bringing the Strength Club format to their facility. The gym has around 600 members, two or three personal trainers paying lease and is reasonably well equipped with treadmills, pin-loaded gear and free weights.

To their request, I immediately replied with ‘I am happy to do this, however, you need to PAY me for my time’ after all egos aside I have a $30 000 HECS debt to pay.

I have to pay this HECS somehow!

It’s right here we expose further problems in the ‘pay-for-play’ floor lease agreements faced by Personal Trainers.

-          The existing PT staff all pay a fixed weekly rate, if I was put on the gym floor for substantially less this would be grossly unjust

-          Why should I be paid to run a group fitness class, when other PT’s have to pay the gym for the rights?

I offered a viable solution to this problem, hire me a ‘gym instructor’ pay me some pathetic award wage and put me in the gym for 3 hours a week. However, further issues have also arisen; it seems the gym owner (separate from the manager) does not want to hire staff what so ever.

         ‘Why should I hire staff, when PT’s pay ME?’

Well I can answer that question; In general PT’s paying to be on a gym floor are often young, uneducated, lack professional skills and are operating unsupervised, with no quality control. On the whole, they are unemployable and are treated that way for it!

So how do we get back to hired and adequately paid personal trainers?

-          Most personal trainers are ‘unemployable’ as I made mention to above, the first step is to lift the standard of education, as long as these people exist, gyms are going to take advantage of them.

-          Accept that the current employment models have run their time, under my concept of returning to a system of hiring staff, inevitably some people WILL lose jobs. However, the overall customer service levels will improve once the transition is complete.

-          Once the industry has returned to a more sustainable model, the notion of continuing education will become critical to employment, right now, it’s who has the most Facebook friends.


-          Finally; and perhaps the biggest overall cause; get rid of Labor. Liberals industrial relation reforms allowed for employers to hire and fire with economic fluctuations, Labor, want small business to hire, but have no rights to fire when the work dries up!


Here is a revolutionary concept lost on the health and fitness industry; your business is only as good as the staff running it. So why pay me? I offer a university education, experience in customer service and have considerable experience in the field. I really hope the gym in study here finds a way around this conundrum, and I really hope the industry in general start to see the shortfall in their short-sighted nature. The latest Fitness Australia reports show gym attendance at an all time high level, so why not start treating this customer base with dignity and respect before they take their money back to the pub?

Top 10 things you know, experience and learn from Power Lifting

10: You will develop a level of cynicism and hatred for other gym goers who seemingly waste their time on lateral raises and bicep curls, this is justified after all, because you are stronger than these fuckers anyway! 

9: No matter how strong you get, no matter how big, no matter how much you bleed and sweat, it will never be enough! 

8: You will learn trust in others others to catch the bar!

-          We live in a society where trust is seldom expected anymore, does anyone remember Kevin Rudd?  

7: You know the Russians, Bulgarians and Americans really just need to go to war and settle their differences

6: Perfection arrests progression

-          Every time someone tells you they have ‘perfect squat technique’ you cringe and walk away’

5: Some days you will laugh so loud the gym thinks you’re on crack, other days you will hang your head in shame but know this; if you just stay with it, stick it out through the tough times something massive might happen.

4: Fast food is not the enemy

3: It does not matter how strong you are, unless you’re trying to get stronger 

2: You will learn to take responsibility for your own actions in every part of life, Power Lifting will teach you that no one else is to blame, it’s all you bro!

1: There are more stairs in your neighborhood than you ever realized.

Notable mention from a lifters wife:

Eating like a lifter is expensive as fuck
You have to wear a gay leotard to comps
Don't hurt your back or you're screwed
There is chalk all over my wardrobe, all over your car, all over your clothes, fucking everywhere!
I have to listen to gym talk 24-7
If you're married to a lifter chances are you'll be roped into lifting
Massaging a lifter is hard work
True love conquers all!!!

Ben-Eiko-5-3-1- Part II

A few months ago I came up with a hybrid program of Sheiko, Wendler's 5-3-1 and some of my own concepts; the result was ‘Ben-Eiko-5-3-1’. Now; I will say right off the bat, if you’re not already following this program I suggest you read it HERE before you go on. But the general concept was 5X5 a triple and single of my core lifts. The basic concepts were to improve my size and mental and physical work capacity, while not ‘losing’ strength.  So from this point forth consider this a progress check in without the terrible selfie.  

To start with, after posting a picture on facebook and a few comments from friends the consensus is I have gained a considerable amount of size. How much I honestly don’t know, I refuse to weigh myself in the morning, that shit is for fat women on detox diets and I never bothered to get a DEXA or skin fold test. So despite flying in the face of everything I have said about being quantifiable, all I can go with is ‘Looks bigger’

Bulk City Bitch!

So let’s get in to the refinements; when I first created this program I was really motivated to add to my overhead press. However, put simply my shoulder mobility is shit! The idea of any kind of push press leaves me hyper-extending my spine and this did lead to lower back pain. As such; I have removed the triple and single from this lift, also; on a number of occasions I have simply replaced it with a hang-snatch. This is not to say if you are following my program you should avoid heavy overhead pressing, in fact quite the contrary; if you have the mobility, then smash it, if you don’t then role it back.

I am using this pic to get the point across, I have been riding my bike

The second change I made was in week 4 (de-load week); I have changed the two upper body days from free weights, to a suspension trainer. This modality of training has previously been very beneficial to my core stability and glute activation (something I struggle with). Furthermore; I work the suspension trainer in a timed circuit and this has had a positive impact on my conditioning.

On a side note of conditioning; I have also been riding my bike a lot ‘for fun not training'  

Finally; when I wrote this program, my outright strength was not a big deal. However, that has since changed as I have a Bench and Deadlift competition in a few weeks. Now interestingly, I have Benched a PR on this program as advertised. I put this down to improving my Lat stability by paying close attention to my rows and the overall volume of training improving my technique.  The Deadlift is going to be a little bit trickier; I have found that loading a Deadlift beyond 150-160kg for the 5X5 component of my training results in an unacceptable degradation of technique. As such; I punch these out at 140, making the triple around 185(+25kg) then the single at around 210(+25kg).  As you can see here the load gaps between sets are actually quite high and potentially quite risky. So I will now chuck in a middle-of-the-road ‘transition single’ at around 15-20kg less than my planed weekly ‘PR Single’

I am happy I have made these refinements, for starters what can be more important than research and development? Furthermore; I have noted a few people embarking on the Ben-Eiko-5-3-1 program and I hope these changes may help you. If you are following this program please keep me in the loop, I am genuinely interested to hear about your progress. Mine has been exceptionally positive and I plan to keep it that way!