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It’s been awhile since I’ve been really active on SerranoStrength.

This was my dream come true, I was and still am really proud of my site. I worked hard to get it up and running, but you know what they say, sometimes life just gets in the way, and life did just that.

For the past three years I was working at my first gym as a personal trainer. I got this job out of pure luck. You really don’t understand, you see after leaving college and finally getting home and settling down, I had to go back to my old job at Target to start saving some money to unfreeze my gym membership. I worked for about 4 weeks and started having enough money to spend.

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A couple of days later I decided that it was time to go reopen my gym membership at Powerhouse. I walked in and started talking to the front desk employee. I was chatting with him and explaining that I just left college a month earlier and had to work at my boring job that I hated to save up enough money to reopen my membership.

For some strange and fortunate reason the owner of the gym was working out at one of the machines near by and over heard my conversation with his employee. He walked up to me and asked if I wanted a job at the gym. I don’t know why, but I’m just grateful I was in the right place at the right time. He told me to write down my name and number and he’ll contact me for an interview.

I gave in my two weeks at Target and played the waiting game. I probably waited around 3 weeks before they called. I’m not going to lie I did grow doubtful about getting the job but all I knew was that I had a gut feeling that they were going to contact me and I needed to be patient.

A week after my last day at Target I got the call I was waiting for. Two days later I went in for an interview and got the job. I started at the front desk and within 3 weeks I spoke with the owner, who we’re going to call Dave and told him that I was going to Mercer (community college) for Exercise Science and needed field experience. Working as a personal trainer at that gym would give me the experience and credits I needed for that class. Dave happily agreed and within the week I was getting ready to train.

My first “complimentary session” was probably the most nerve racking thing I’ve done thus far. I was confident in my knowledge as far as working out was concerned but I’ve never taken anyone through a workout professionally. I was basically thrown into the fire and had to either be the water that puts it out or be the oxygen that feeds it life.

I don’t know what it was but I picked it up fairly quickly. Within a week I was making dramatic improvements in the way I trained people. I felt more comfortable and my confidence skyrocketed.

This was my gig for three years. The type of clientel at Powerhouse were one of the most deconditioned/unfit people I’ve ever met. I would say 90% of the members were IT professionals that sat for most of the day to just go home and sit some more. I’d go as far as to say that 100% of my clients had bad eating habits before working with me. These people needed guidance and I was there to help. 

To me this was heaven, a perfect stepping stone into the industry that I fell in love with years earlier. The clientele was far from the vision I had for my dream clients but working with such deconditioned people helped me understand limitations and exercise substitutions for said limitations.

I had to start from square one with my clients. Their mechanics were horrible and coordination was non existent. If you’re to know anything about me and my philosophy it’s that I’m all about simplicity. Going back to the basics.

If their mechanics were bad I would find out why and fix it. We would start with the simplest form of body weight movements like the Push, pull, squat, and lunge  (These are called primal movement patterns).

No matter how deconditioned my clients were, we always started with basic body weight exercises. From there we would progress to harder exercises depending on their progression. A lot of my clients found great success and started building strength and ridding their bodies of pain.

Well that was my life for the past three years and about 4 months ago I found out that the gym that gave me my first stepping stone was closing. I’m going to be upfront and say that prior to finding this out I was feeling stagnant. I was feeling like I wasn’t really going anywhere. Clients were low for awhile and I wasn’t feeling any fulfillment any more.

I knew I needed to do something cause I wasn’t happy with where my life was. Unfortunately I had a dilemma. I’m not a “certified” personal trainer.

Health and fitness is my calling, I’ve been studying and living it since I was 12 years old. And luckily I was sucked into the fitness industry before I had to get my certification. Going to school for exercise science and doing my field experience was enough for me to start training at Powerhouse. I guess I just never got around to getting my certification.*

*Too me most certifications are a joke. The fitness industry was ruined since weekend (PT) certs came into the market. Anyone can become a personal trainer now a days. All you have to do is read a book, study, and take a test. The type of shit you do in school and we all know how much information is actually retained after a test during school. All the information is borrowed there’s no substance in the philosophy of weekend cert trainers. For this reason I take most certifications as a joke. A 2 day class and a test doesn’t give you the right to train someone.

This was my problem. I didn’t have a certification so it wasn’t like I could go into any gym and just get a job. Most gyms want a “certified” personal trainer. Something that I’m not.

Well when it came time to it and I needed to find something to keep me above water I was lucky enough to be referred to an athletic club one town over from Powerhouse.

Obviously I jumped right on the opportunity and emailed the director of the PT department. I sent him my resume and a cover letter explaining who I was and why I don’t hold a certification.

He explained that they’re looking for personal trainers with certifications but to come in anyways and speak with him. The next day I go in and approach the head of PT. We sat and spoke about myself and where I was going, my vision; about my own training and my experience with training people.

By the end of the interview he asked me to come back in a few days to have a practical, I would take him through a workout myself. Believe me, it’s pretty stressful taking your potential boss through a workout and knowing you’re being judged. But I was confident in my ability to train people and I had no doubt in my mind I would do well.

I go back a few days later and give one of the best training sessions of my life. He gave me a scenario and I had to create a workout on the spot that worked around the “fake clients” limitations. This was pretty easy for me and I did really well. He asked me to come back for a 3rd interview the following Monday.

This was awesome news. I had no doubt in my mind that I was going to get the job and I was going to keep doing what I love, training people.

Well for some reason the weekend before my 3rd interview I got an over whelming feeling that I shouldn’t take the job. It was a gut feeling that I was going to be on the same boat as I was when I was working at the other gym. The athletic club wasn’t too far from the location of Powerhouse so the clientele was the same.

I guess in a way I was done training the type of people that were available to me. I was ready for a change. I was ready for more experienced trainees. My knowledge has the ability to transform someones body into what ever they want it to be. I needed more dedicated clients. People that feel the same way about the iron. People that would put in the work they need to transform their lives.

That’s why I declined the third interview and decided to hold it out a bit longer.

The gym was closing in a week and I had no idea what I was going to do but I didn’t stress about it. I knew that another door would open and I would be okay. You know the saying. 😉

Sometimes you just have to know. Know that life is full of ups and downs. If you’re in a downward slope KNOW that at any moment you’re bound to come up. I knew that I was going to be okay and I knew that the universe was going to take care of me. As silly as it may sound to some people this is honestly what I was feeling at the time.

A couple of days after the gym officially closed its doors I got a phone call from one of my friends. This was a phone call I’ve been waiting for. My friends dad does a lot of construction plumbing (it’s the cool kind of plumbing). Occasionally he has work here and there and he was looking for someone to help with a big project. Now I’ve worked with him before so I know my ropes around the pipe.

That’s when it clicked. Working plumbing was the best job I could do right now. It was the best opportunity for me to have the time to grow SerranoStrength. Some weeks I’d work all week and some weeks I’d have off 3 or 4 days, which was plenty of time to write for my blog.

I love to train and help people, I love to write, I love to run this blog. Having a job that allows time for me to concentrate on my blog without adding stress to my life was a blessing in disguise. Some weeks I work 1 day and some weeks I work 5. It all evens out and I get plenty of time to write.

Where is SerranoStrength Heading

SerranoStrength is my baby and I plan on growing her to be one of the most viewed and respected sites in the fitness industry. I want to help people around the world simplify their lives when it comes to health and fitness.

In a world where complexity is everywhere, having a simplistic view on the most important part in your life; your health, is very important.

I want to expand peoples knowledge about working out and nutrition.

I want to help people make better exercise choices as well as food choices. I want people to understand the difference between shitty form and good form, shitty ingredients and good ingredients.

This is all going to be possible through blog posts.

I’m going to be releasing more blog posts about training and nutrition. I also want to have guest posts from different people in the fitness industry. I want to be able to help both men and women learn and understand that eating healthy, working out , and transforming their bodies and lives is not as complicated but definitely not as easy as the major fitness industry makes it seem.

There’s a lot of information out there regarding fat loss, muscle building, strength development, body transformation, core development, sports performance, the list can go on. With so much information it’s easy to get confused and misguided.

That’s where I come in. Being a fitness professional I have the knowledge and understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Most people waste year after year going to the gym, never changing a thing about their bodies.

It’s not enough to go in, run, and do some machines.

If you want change, if you want to transform your body, you need to make sure your training and nutrition compliment each other. You need to make sure that the exercises you’re doing aren’t causing excessive wear and tear on your joints. You need to make sure that you’re building a solid foundation that your body can and will build on top of.

That’s why in 2015 SerranoStrength will be launching;

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 Click Here To Learn More

I want to personally help people with fitness and life goals accomplish them.

If you want a lean body with a killer 6 pack then look no further.

If you want to get freakishly strong then make sure you stay with me.

If you want to become a faster and more explosive athlete then keep reading.

If you want to completely change the way your mind, body, and life work then you’ve come to the right place. [Click here to learn more about online coaching]

Not only will you get an awesome chance to be my friend but you’ll also learn a shit ton of information regarding fitness, nutrition, life, beards, and just man shit in general. If you’re a lady then you will not be learning about beards. Unless you like them, in which case I like you.

Hope you’re as excited about where SerranoStrength is heading 🙂

I know together we’ll be able to help millions of people around the world reach their goals and transform their lives.

 

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