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It’s getting to be that time of the year, Spring and Summer, when everyone wants to be in better shape, or a little healthier.  The New Year’s resolution is over and some have fallen off the initial “push” to start the new year off right.  It’s tough to join a gym and have a goal in mind only to realize you’re not sure how to achieve it.  For example: losing body fat, gaining muscle, improving endurance, etc…  Well, there’s a lot to understand when it comes to the human anatomy.  You’ve got to know how it works in order to achieve maximum results.

For those of you who may be discouraged about your results so far, or haven’t taken that first step in joining a gym because you might be a little intimidated – there is hope!  It’s still a new year and there’s plenty of time…the hot weather might pretty much be here already in New Orleans but you can still look and feel better by summer! You can still join a gym and most gyms offer a free initial evaluation with a certified personal trainer (PT) when you sign up for  a membership.  If you weren’t told about that, you may want to ask.

An initial evaluation is a one-on-one session with a PT and usually takes about an hour to complete.  The evaluation will cover a basic overview of your lifestyle, health, diet and a couple of tests to gauge your current strength and endurance.  Generally, the personal trainer will take your blood pressure, your weight, ask you to perform a sit & reach test (for flexibility), and measure your body composition (lean mass & fat).  The strength test may include an exercise to determine muscular strength and sit-ups (or crunches) to measure muscular endurance.

Once that’s all complete, the PT will give you the results of all that information.  What kind of results?  You’ll find out where you are at on a health scale of “Poor, Fair, Average, Good or Excellent”.  You’ll be able to hear the recommendations for training the PT may have in mind for you based on those results.  At that time, the PT may be able to explain a couple of tips about a creating a balanced program that may help in achieving the results you want.  Then it’s time to decide.

At this point, some people feel comfortable enough to move on by themselves; they may have just needed to get some extra motivation by seeing where they stood from a health perspective.  If you’re thinking about going solo, always remember, if you have any questions about an exercise or how to use a machine, don’t hesitate to ask a PT – they should have no problem helping you.   Others may be ready to take the step in having a PT train them.  If you select to work with a personal trainer – he or she will use your evaluation to establish a structured program to guide you towards your goals.  We’ll get into program structure and design in the next post.

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Aaron Williamson
-Amateur Bodybuilder – 2009 All Forces Heavyweight, Runner-Up
-NESTA Certified Personal Trainer
-Team Cellucor Athlete
-Team GASP & Better Bodies
-Team Body Tech
-Former US Marine
www.AaronWilliamson.net

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Well, I finally made the move to get certified as a Personal Trainer.  After so many years of “should I, or shouldn’t I” the decision came about when I realized I needed to find something that would get me out of contracting and into health & fitness full-time.  When I made the decision, everything happened rather quickly.  I waited until I could afford the package, ordered it, received it, and then two weeks later took the test and passed – of course!  A lot of the material covered I had a pretty good understanding of  but I definitely learned some great technology to research a little more.  Health & fitness is what I enjoy so this made the learning process interesting and rather easy.

Since the beginning of 2010, I’ve been battling back-and-forth as to what the next step would be for me.  In 2009, I returned from Iraq and had a great year in bodybuilding.  I knew 2009 was just the beginning and 2010 would be a banner year for me.  However, I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to play out.

Becoming a personal trainer wasn’t an easy decision for me because of everything I’ve got going on in my life.  The job of a personal trainer requires a lot of hard work, long hours and dedication to your clients so I was constantly deterred from doing it because I kept thinking it would take away valuable time that I could be focusing on other projects I’m working on.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Having finally thought about it from both a business perspective and an avenue to be able to help others, I know this is the best move I can make right now; it will only enhance everything else I’m doing.

The gym I’ll be personal training out of is called NOLA Fit which is a 24 hour gym located in Uptown New Orleans on Magazine St.  The couple who owns the gym are great people to work with so the opportunities that exist in this gym are limitless.  They think outside the box compared to your typical gym; they’re creative in their ideas and you’ll see that when you tour the gym. 

My thoughts (and slight rant) on Personal Training:

Personal Training, for me, is something that needs to be done in the right place.  What I mean by that is, I don’t (and won’t) work in a gym that is a cookie-cutter type and a client is just another person in the door to make money off of.  When a client comes to me, they’re going to get the best training they can receive because behind it all, my passion is rooted in helping others and being involved in health & fitness.  As a personal trainer, your clients’ results are a direct reflection of you.  If you don’t produce results, why would anyone want to pay you to train them?

It’s all boils down to common sense; however, not many people seem to have that these days.  They are blinded by the dollar sign and it shows in their training of clients.  To everyone who is looking to be a personal trainer, think about why you’re doing it and most importantly, think about the people who place their trust in your hands.  They see you as someone who can help them live healthier, be stronger, or whatever goal they have in  mind.  Don’t let them down and give personal trainers a bad name.  Don’t be arrogant and think people will flock to you.  No one owes you anything; you must earn it first.  It doesn’t matter how great you think you are – put in your time and let the results of your work speak for your professionalism & education.

Okay…I think that’s enough said.  I’ll end this post by saying, “Let’s start making our cities healthier by educating people on how to be healthier!” #befitnola

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It’s time for me to start writing things that happen to me in a “real-time” fashion so everyone can keep up with what I’m doing and where I’m at. Every time I talk to friends of mine, they ask me, “Where are you at now”, “What are you doing now”, “What’s your phone number now”. I’ve been pretty nomadic, so-to-speak, over the last decade being in the Marine Corps and then being in Iraq as a contractor. All that traveling the world is done (for now) so I can officially say I’ve settled down in New Orleans, LA with my fiancée.

I returned from Iraq last summer and have been going non-stop since. I didn’t know what to expect once I got to New Orleans because I had never been here before; it was a huge culture shock for me, even more so coming straight from Iraq. Having been here for a while now, NOLA is definitely growing on me. The opportunities here are endless.

Not really knowing where to start, job-wise, I started to explore different areas to see where I could fit in. I dabbled in the entertainment industry briefly but the hours severely interfered with my training and diet so that really wasn’t cut out for me. Plus, I wasn’t a “featured” actor so I didn’t get all the perks. It was a good experience though and I met some great people who I stay in contact with. Who knows, maybe I’ll try it out again when I get a little more settled.

What I ended up doing was getting a job working for Marine Forces North as a contractor (which I’m still doing now.) I act as the Emergency Manager and In-Transit Security Analyst in which I sit in an office behind a desk doing paperwork, reading documents and attending meetings & briefings. Well…this didn’t end up being my dream job but it has definitely been another good learning experience.

On the side, I’ve still been actively pursuing bodybuilding, health & fitness. On the bodybuilding front I’ve managed to network in to know the small group of hardcore guys here and I’ve just recently come on board with Cellucor; previously I was with LG Sciences as some of you may remember. Training is going good and I’m in prep for a competition in June; last October I competed in Tampa and took 2^nd place in the heavyweight division.

The hightlight for my health & fitness venture has been the business my fiancée and I have developed – Be Fit NOLA. Essentially, this was created to help bridge the gap in New Orleans with regard to health & fitness in hopes of making the city a more health conscious place to live. You can still live in NOLA and be healthy!

Lastly, I’m about to dive into the personal training arena at a new gym called NOLA Fit in Uptown, New Orleans; it’s a gym open 24 hours. In addition to the personal training, I’ll begin doing some nutrition coaching towards the latter part of the year.

That’s a quick down and dirty of my life over the past several months I’ve been back from Iraq. I’m a goal oriented person so when you’re in the right place, there are no limits that can be placed upon you. The only person who can hold you back is you!

New Orleans is definitely the right place for me right now!

It’s been a little while since my last post; a lot has been going on. It seems like I’m always saying that but the truth of the matter is, A LOT has been (and is) going on! I’ll start filling everyone in on separate posts.  The reason for this post is because of Cellucor.  Even though I’ve been quite busy, I recently joined the Cellucor Nation. I’ve been going back and forth on Bodyspace with a few guys who take their products.  Before I joined though, I did some homework and research on Cellucor; who they are, what they do and what they stand for as a supplement company. I was pleasantly surprised at the overwhelmingly positive feedback I saw. I also tried their products about 2 years ago with great results. Back then when I tried it, I was overseas and it was hard to get supplements where I was. As most people know, I’m back in the U.S. now and this was a great opportunity to use some top notch products that are backed by a 100% guarantee.  So, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Over the years, I’ve taken just about every supplement you can think of.  In today’s crazy supplement market there are more supplement companies than you can imagine. When you think you know them all, guess what? You don’t! Because of all that, it’s not very often you can find a supplement company who has a 100% guarantee backing their products. It’s not too often you can find a “live chat” feature on their website that allows you to get your questions answered. It’s not too often that a supplement company puts a tremendous amount of time and effort into making sure you understand how and why the product works. Cellucor definitely does all of that, which is the one thing that impressed me most and made me want to try their products.

Currently, I’m taking the M5, P6, R3 and their Ultralean Protein. As time progresses, I’ll document how they’re working for me, how they effect my state of well being and anything else they might do. So far, I haven’t heard anything negative about the company or the product. If anyone has any feedback they’d like to share, I encourage you to interact with me and let me know what you think. If you’re already taking Cellucor products, let me know what you think and how you’re progressing!

If you’re already wanting to try Cellucor, use my coupon code to get a discount – LA10

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Hours upon hours of eating, dieting, supplementing and training,…all year long. You’re a few weeks out and you look and feel incredible. You don’t see how you can lose your upcoming competition. Then, the final week rolls around and the science of the human body comes into play more than ever. You’re carb depleting/loading, water depleting, sodium depleting/loading. Finding the right mix for your body is crucial here. Having done my first competition not too long ago, I understood why everyone told me the first show was a learning experience. If you’ve never competed before there’s no way to know what to expect on how your body is going to react to this last week, especially if you’ve chosen the wrong approach.

Some people who are genetically gifted can simply reduce their calories (regular diet) the final week and then the last couple of days bring the calories back up; essentially, this whole time eating the same foods. On the other hand, some of us have to truly figure out what works and what doesn’t. This could potentially take a couple of years. Everyone’s body responds differently so you can’t just take what someone else did and think that’s going to work for you. Newsflash – IT WON’T WORK!

You’ve got to do your homework, talk to other people who have a similar frame and metabolism and read…read…read! Even when you’re working with a coach, it’s important to read because it will help you better understand why you’re body is going to make the changes it’s supposed to make. Your body is so clean and pure during this last week that anything you put into your mouth will make your body respond in some way and that way will be very visible – to everyone! A recent example of this was Tony Freeman at the 2009 Mr Olympia. Prior to the show he bumped his knee on a coffee table. He had to do something so he took a motrin. What happened? It slowed his metabolism down and he ended up competing with a full stomach and a slight film under his skin. He didn’t place well as a result.  All that hard work to be set back by one little pill.

There are great resources available that explain the final week in great detail. One book I found that I truly enjoyed reading was Justin Harris’s Comprehensive Performance Nutrition. It’s a quick reference Q&A guide that’s easy to read and follow. For my show last year I worked under Tim Gardner with Team Body Tech; Tim’s a wealth of knowledge and has brought many amatuer athletes to professional status. I learned a tremendous amount from him last year and I look forward to continue working with Tim and being part of Team Body Tech.  I recommend to anyone who is a novice and is serious about competing to enlist the professional services of a coach; it’s priceless, even if it’s just to get started. I’m not sure what competitions I’m going to do this year but I can tell you I’m most definitely still learning. If you feel you already know everything, you’re set-up for failure. There is always room for improvement and in this day and age with bodybuilding, you’ve got to stay on top of your game!

4 weeks out from the competition!

I’m into my final weeks of preparation for my upcoming bodybuilding competition so I’m beginning to spend a lot of time posing.  When you practice your posing, it’s like doing another training session; it’s physically exhausting.  After each training session I’m trying to spend about 20 minutes going through the mandatory/compulsory poses.  I’ve been doing this by myself which has been difficult.

What I’ve learned over time is many people say they’re a bodybuilder but when it comes down to the fine details of what makes a bodybuilder a bodybuilder, they’re clueless.  A prime example of this is posing.  I’ve found very few people who can pose properly.  Every person has their own spin on it and each one conflicts with what someone else says.  When you try to point something out about they’re posing they get defensive and say, “This is the way it’s supposed to be done.”

People tend to overlook the posing aspect of bodybuilding, which is very shocking to me because posing is the culmination of all the hard work in the gym and in the kitchen.   All the months of lifting heavy, eating an abundance of calories, then the dieting, repeated cardio sessions, tanning, shaving, etc…  Some folks go on stage and have a great looking physique and mess everything up because they don’t know how to pose.  What ends up happening is someone walks away with a bad taste in their mouth and talks about how the judges are messed up.  Granted, sometimes there is controversy in competition and politics can come into play, but at the amateur levels many people miss the boat on how important posing is.  The bottomline is, you have to be able to effectively display what you have and capitalize on your strengths.

My current dilemma: I’m at a disadvantage right now because I’m currently living in New Orleans , LA and my team (Team Body Tech) and Coach (Tim Gardner) is in Tampa, FL.  What we’ve come to rely on over the past few months are photos, emails, phone conversations and text messages.  In a perfect world, I’d be there where they are, training together, attending the team meetings, posing together, allowing my coach to have eyes on me all the time so fine tune adjustsments can be made.  Well, this isn’t the perfect world and I’m not able to do that right now so I have to be clear in my mind what I’m supposed to be doing because there are so many outside influences.

What I’ve been doing over time is listening to what people say, carefully observing their posing, making critiques in my head of what I shouldn’t be doing.  In a sense, I’m watching others to observe their flaws to make sure I’m aware of how bad it looks so I don’t make those same mistakes.  That seems kind of bad but it’s what helps me put everything into perspective.  When my coach tells me not to do something and I see others do it, it becomes very clear to me.  I’m a very observant person and when it comes to bodybuilding, I’m locked on like a laser beam because this is my passion and I want to be the best at it.

Since my show is nearing I’m in the process of putting my music together.   I’ve never done this before so I’m watching videos and listening to various soundtracks to determine what will best suit me.  This is my first show and I plan to keep it simple.  I’ll be going into this show with confidence and an extremely shredded physique so I want to use that to my advantage.  I don’t want to make everything more difficult than it has to be with trying to put a dancing routine together with my music – too much at this stage.  That will come with time, and I’m definitely looking forward to it.

To all the amateurs out there, don’t let the outside influences overwhelm you.  Get a clear picture of what you’re trying to do and stick with it.  If you don’t have a coach, do your research and homework.  Communicate with other people and watch them for weaknesses and flaws.  This will help give you a mental picture of what not to do because you’ll remember firsthand how bad it looks.

If you don’t have a hired cook, than you should feel like one with part time duties as a dish washer! My fiancee (Ann) gets a kick out of calling me “the kitchen bitch”. I’d love to defend myself, but unfortunately, she’s right (she’s a pro at being right). Call it a cliché but the saying is true – a body isn’t made in the gym; it’s made in the kitchen.

Diet is everything to bodybuilding, yet, funny enough, I hardly get asked about my diet. The more popular questions are: “What supplements do you take?” and “What type of workouts do you do?” Look, going to the gym and knocking out a good, intense workout is relatively easy. Taking the latest and best supplements money can buy…again, pretty easy. Spending countless hours everyday prepping and preparing meals, going grocery shopping a few times a week and eating every two hours…now, we’re getting to the hard work, dedication and focus that separates the weak, the skinny, the fat and the hardcore bodybuilders.

Food Is Fuel for the Body

Besides the grueling work and time involved in preparing your meals there’s also another small factor that pretty much sucks; there is little variety or room for actually enjoying the food you must eat/consume. I’m not kidding you, by the time I’m done eating and cleaning up – I might get an hour before it’s time to do it again. Food is fuel.

How about some plain brown rice and chicken…4 times a day? How about broccoli, everyday? Well, if you’re going to be a bodybuilder than you better get use to it. Okay, so maybe you can sometimes change the chicken to beef, or maybe fish, but it’s all still the same because there’s no butter and not much flavor. You’ll find that in bodybuilding “burned” is good seasoning!

Prior Planning and Preparation

Piss poor planning and prior preparation will lead to missed meals, incomplete nutritional balance and prolonged catabolism. Diet should be developed based on desired goals and results. Ultimately, people should eat every 3 hours, or so, to keep their metabolism up. By eating on a schedule like this, the body is able to maintain a positive nitrogen balance which is key to building muscle.

For those who bodybuild, there is no shortcut around diet. The bottomline is, diet is the staple of any regimen. It doesn’t matter what supplements you’re taking or how great your workout is. If diet isn’t a primary focus than the results yielded will be limited and you will more than likely end up overtraining.

Now that you realize how important diet is to becoming and being a bodybuilder; we’ll discuss food, nutrition, preparation tips, and perhaps even share recipes…hey, you too will become a good “kitchen bitch”.

The Exception: There are some people out there who are true genetic freaks. You’ll see them eat whatever they want and remain shredded while displaying a world class physique. Not everyone is that blessed. Those of you who are not have to ensure you work extra hard because these genetic freaks will be the competition when you finally get up on stage.

If people really want to gain positive, realistic results they’ll stop spending crazy amounts of money on the newest supplements that make unrealistic promises and get back to the basics; proper diet and nutrition combined with a strict workout program and a solid supplement profile.

In the making...defying all odds!

In bodybuilding everyone has a beginning. The difference between most people is how that beginning begins. For many, they go about it somewhat blindly and learn through trial and error, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, others recognize the importance of having a bodybuilding coach from the get-go.

There are a number of reasons why having a bodybuilding coach is extremely beneficial:

Diet – is the key ingredient to a successful bodybuilder. Without a proper diet all the training in the world, and even the greatest supplements on the market, won’t give you a first class physique.A coach can design a meal plan specifically for your body type, body weight and goal. This is done quickly and without much thought because, as the coach, he or she has that knowledge readily available to share with you. The key is to get the right amount of quality ingredients to fuel the body and help it recover. After all, you are what you eat.

Training – can be easily overdone equating to overtraining. Overtraining can lead to injury, joint pain, illness, fatigue and even a loss of muscle mass. For beginners overtraining is a commonly made mistake because he or she always thinks more is better; I was that beginner. Everyone has strong and weak points in their physique so a coach will develop a program that will bring up those weak points giving you a symmetrical physique. Again, depending on a person’s goal, a coach will formulate a training routine to build mass or decrease body fat. Expect the workout to change frequently. This will keep the body from adapting to a specific workout; therefore, allowing for more muscle growth and less plateaus.

Supplementation – is just that – supplementation. Althought supplements are a staple in any bodybuilding regimen, they cannot replace food. Picking the right supplements can be tricky because there are so many new products on the market each claiming to be better than the next. The advertisment of products can mislead someone to purchase products that don’t coincide with his or her goals. A coach can prescribe the right supplements to take, how much and when to take them. In many cases you’ll find yourself taking a lot of the basic stuff that’s been proven to work time and time again. This is where diet comes back into play. When your diet is on par you don’t need all kinds of fancy stuff – you simply need the basics to supplement with your normal meals or pre and post workout.

Motivation – helps with keeping your intensity levels up. People tend to lose motivation when they don’t see the results they are looking for. They’re not seeing the results they want because their diet is off, the training may not be designed right or they’re taking the wrong supplements. Having a coach can get you on the right track and help you dial all of that in; therefore, giving you the results you want. Then, when you go into the gym to train you begin to see the transformation taking place which pushes you harder and harder each day.

In the beginning, or even at the advance levels, there are many benefits to having a professional coach you through the learning process or introduce you to new concepts in lifting, nutrition or supplementation. It’s a learning experience and allows you to grow from there. After the initial coaching cycle you may find that you’ve learned so much you don’t need to hire a coach again. Or, it’s quite possible it’s inspired you enough to begin to read and do your own research on reaching the goal you have set in mind.

My brother and I are still tweaking and adjusting the website to make it look better. One of the recent features improved was the layout of the video gallery. We also added a few more videos to the site today so I hope everyone enjoys watching. I’ll keep posting them as I’m able to take them.

This morning was a great workout; hamstrings, biceps and lower back. My partner (Tom) and I finished off with some heavy deadlifts so that made for an intense ending. Fortunately, I was able to hit 500lbs for my final set of 5 reps. I can’t say that I’ve ever lifted that much weight for that many reps so today was a milestone for me meaning, I’m slowly making improvements. I was attempting to get 6 reps but I wasn’t able to muster up any more strength to pick it up after number 5. My last set for this exercise should be 6 reps so I’ll have to get that one in next time.

Tomorrow we’re hitting shoulders, triceps and abs. Progress is going well overall and considering the circumstances of being in Baghdad, I can’t complain.

Best,
“Double A”

After several years of wanting to develop a website, I finally have one complete; largely thanks to my brother Patrick. Now that the site is complete I can begin communicating with family, friends, fans and anyone else who is interested. As my friends and family can attest, it’s been difficult to keep in touch with me over the years so this will be an easy way for everyone to remain in contact no matter where I am or what I’m doing. I’ll continue to update the site with photos, videos, comments and news to keep everyone current with my progress. So far, I’m still on par to leave Baghdad this summer to pursue these goals in the United States.

Thanks again to everyone for the continued support! It means a great deal to me and I look forward to taking this quest to the next level!

Stay tuned…

–
Aaron