Did You Know? - The Ultimate Personal Trainer in Dubai

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Facts About Your Own Personal Limitations

Since I first entered the fitness industry professionally in May of 2021 until now (November 2024), I noticed everyone I worked with had a range of limitation(s) in their bodies, some more than others, but to a certain degree everyone, even myself! These limitations would get in the way of our progress and goals for literally all my customers sooner or later; The main two were (1) Tight Joints, or/and (2) Old Injuries. On top of those two major issues, everyone suffered additionally from (3) Poor Movement Patterns (4) Poor Stability (5) Poor Strength (6) Poor Nutrition (7) Poor Recovery. On my quest to fix my own body and help those who I was coaching, I pursued the most advance specialist qualifications that I could find on the market and sacrificed all of my available time for almost 4-years (even my vacations!!!) in the pursuit of knowledge for these problems. Well, I can honestly tell you that it all paid off very well for my customers and especially for me personally, the level that my performance has reached, I never thought it would be possible in this lifetime.

One thing I’ve learned countless of times is that your body is like an aged car with its own unique set of issues and top speed. In order to reach the finish line (your goals) you will need to drive at a certain speed at least to reach it, but the faster you drive the more rewarding it can be. Now, the more complications your body has that I mentioned above, the more in trouble you will be as you attempt to drive your car to the finish line, especially at higher speeds! Going under the minimum speed that your goal requires will mean you’ll never see the finish line.

Muscle & Joint Imbalances

THE PROBLEM
The Human Body is an interesting piece of work… It’s called the “Kinetic Chain” becuase kinetic energy moves up and down your joints like an interconnected chain especially through physical activity which is applied by the forces (ex. dumbbell) that you place on your body. As this energy travels and transfers from joint to joint, the more unstable the joint is and the more tight the muscles around it are, the less prone are the muscles to absorbing and transferring the energy properly which then places additional unwanted stress on the joint and dramatically increases the joints capacity for injury. Certain joint areas like the hips, spine, shoulders, and ankles will cause a lot of problems for the entire body during physical activities and should be considered with the utmost importance.

THE SOLUTION
Building a strong stabilization system within your body and improving your mobility along with flexibility can have a huge impact on your joint health. The more specific the exercises are to your needs the more beneficial they’ll be. Imagine you need better mobility/flexibility for hip internal rotation because it is very, very limited, but you’re training your hips in a variety of ways all except for what your body needs, so make sure it’s customized to your needs.

Old & New Injuries

THE PROBLEM
Nothing sets you back from progress or your goals like an injury… If you try to “work throught it” then you will hit the “wall” sooner or later, and then require a specialist to help you which will require taking steps backwards and losing even more progress and time… I seen it happen too many times and I’ve been a victim of it myself once upon a time as well… Injuries typically occur to your joints and happen because of 2 primary reasons; (1) Negligence, or/and (2) Joint Instability. Keep that advice in your heart when you’re pushing yourself to your true potential, because that’s where all health and fitness benefits including injuries come from basically, not in the comfort zone.

THE SOLUTION
Be diligent when you’re training since negligence is a primary reason for injuries. If you have a old or new injury then I would recommend you in investing in a good professional to help you recover properly and not waste your time or to at least spend some time learning about your injury and following a program specific for that injury. If it starts getting better and you feel improvements within a 1-month period, that’s progress! But if you keep doing the same old thing expecting results that aren’t happening then you’re just wasting your time…

Poor Fundemental Movement Patterns

THE PROBLEM
Your body has 7 primary/fundamental movement patterns that it uses daily or often in our lives that every human being should be capable of;

(1) Squat (2) Hinge (3) Single-Leg (4) Push (5) Pull (6) Rotation (7) Locomotion.

Being able to perform these movements is essential.
Being able to perform these movements without any compensations is significant.

THE SOLUTION
Learning to move through proper technique is very important to reinforce good biomechanics (body movement). If your body has limited mobility, flexibility, stability and strength then you should really consider improving those areas of concern to enhance your movement patterns.

Poor Nutrition

THE PROBLEM
No amount of physical activity that you do can escape poor nutrition and give you the benfits of the hard work you put in (fact, not a maybe!). Whatever your goal, and I do mean whatever, without proper nutrition, you’ll be trying to drive your car from point A to B on an empty tank of gas.

Right before I became certified as a Personal Trainer, I became a certified Nutrition Coach. I did that because I knew from my 10 years of being in fitness (unprofessionally) that nutrition was non-negotiable to reaching almost any goal you can imagine.

THE SOLUTION
Your nutrition must be spot on to reach your goals and performance outcomes you desire for yourself. Some individuals may need to count calories to reach their goals, some may need to count macronutrients (carbs, fats, protein), and some even have to count micronutritents (vitamins & minerals) depending on their goals! Nutritionally, you must give your body what it requires to be able to achieve your ftiness and health goals, otherwise you will not progress any further from where you are currently.

A tree can’t grow without water and sunlight, you’re really not that different in a sense…

Poor Stability

THE PROBLEM
What the heck is stability you might be asking? Well, let me explain it like this, a bridge connects two pieces of land together held by cables right? Well a joint is like a bridge for different bones that come and meet together (not for coffee…) that is surrounded by soft tissues (ex. ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc..) that bond these bones together to stay in place and allow movement(s) to happen at the joint (ex. elbow). These soft tissues provide stability for the joints and are extremely important in the integrity of your well-being.

Trying to build a house on top of a poor foundation is like trying to build strength and muscles with poor stability, it is only a matter of time and place before it collapses (get injured).

THE SOLUTION
Improving your body’s stabilization system requires getting off machine equipment and moving into free weights. Beyond the free weights, injury prevention exercises are typically a great way to improve your stability if they’re challenging enough to the individual.

Poor Strength

THE PROBLEM
Most people that I meet and coach, especially with previous gym experience know their numbers quite well (ex. Exercise, Repetitions, Weights, etc…). When I put them to do those exercises (ex. 60kg Squat) with an added twist(s) on them like going at a slower pace instead of as fast as they normally do it, they’re barely able to do 2-3 reps instead of the 10-12 reps they say they can. I can make this individual sweat and cry just by having them do a normal squat without any weights added (dumbells or barbells) at this point because they havent trained their muscles through the full spectrum of muscle speeds and ranges of motion in this case. What is the point of squatting big numbers if you can’t even handle your own bodyweight properly…? Ego or ignorance mostly.

THE SOLUTION
Stop doing what the majority of people in the gym are doing… Break away from them… Invest a bit of your time to start learning to do strength training in a variety of different ways! If you do it the right way then you will most likely experience good pain and uncomfortable feelings (typically where results happen at!) which means you’re on the right path most likely. Most people can’t handle the pain and uncomfortable feelings which is why they need a trainer to push them!

Poor Recovery

THE PROBLEM
Another intresting fact that people somehow think it doesn’t apply to them is, that no amount of physical activity that you do can escape poor recovery and give you the benfits of the hard work you put in. The work that an individual puts in their workout program is the “stress” to their body, and the adequate amount of nutrition and proper sleep (REM & Deep Sleep) is the “recovery” to this stress. As the body tries to repair itself from the damage (stress) you’ve caused it, it requires nutrition (macronutrients and micronutrients) to make the proper repairs during your sleep. How do you expect to build a house with no workers and no supplies? It’s simple, you can’t! Even if you have 1 of the 2 (the supplies or the workers), you still can’t do anything!

THE SOLUTION
The more serious your goals are, the more serious you must be with your nutrition and sleep.

Facts To Take Into Very Special Consideration

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” -Albert Einstein

Goal Assessments

THE PROBLEM
If you had a ship and needed to sail to Australia, would you just get on the ship and sail away hoping for the best? Or would you get a map and sextant (device for navigating) to see where you’re going so you don’t land in South America (or the Bermuda Triangle maybe…) but hopefully in Australia?

Assessments are the gold standard in checking if your strength, cardio, balance, flexibility, or any other fitness goal you may have are being achieved or not. I’ve heard countless of times my customers and regular gym-goers saying “I feel stronger” or “I feel better” which I 100% dont disagree with their feelings but those are very subjective answers and prove nothing, and assessments are objective and unbiased that open everyones eyes to reality, even my own.

I’ve pushed myself maximally in the gym for a month following a specific program trying to improve my bench press and I could have put all my savings on the line to say that I was stronger at the end of the 30 days based on my feelings but when I tested my self afterwards, I was the same!

This is not information from a science-fiction book, this is basic knowledge I’ve been learned from my personal training education and perfected it through my own experience testing my own customers, friends, and myself. This is the reason I do fitness assessments with all my customers to make sure we’re actually getting results and hitting our goals every month instead of “subjective feelings”;

Coach “You’ve really improved a lot this month!”
Customer “Yeah I can feel it!” “and my chest is getting huge!”
Coach “Ohhhh Yeahhh I Cannnn Seee Itttt Big Man!”

Even if the coach doesn’t see any improvement, he isn’t going to say that to their customer! And, if they’re not testing their customer then I can bet on it the customer is not getting the results they think they are or even any results at all but maintaining their current fitness level.

THE SOLUTION
Goal assessments (tests) are the pinnacle for measuring the results of your hard work and your training programs. There are tests to measure every espect of your performance that you can imagine! These tests need to be done ACCURATELY and PRECISELY month to month or otherwise you’ll be cheating yourself by getting more repetitions through poor technique, going faster/slower speeds, using less range of motion, etc…

Lets say I have a customer who wants a bigger chest and to bench press more (haha it has to be a guy right?!). I would test this individual by measuring their chest area with a measuring tape accurately a few times to see the size of their chest. Then I would make them do a bench press test with a specific weight they can do around about 10 reps with very specific variables (full range of motion, certain speed, etc…). These tests need to be replicated perfectly from one month to the other, otherwise you will have inaccurate data to compare.

SMART Goals

THE PROBLEM
We all have short-term and long-term fitness goals. These goals need to be measured and have a timeline to being accomplished or otherwise for example you’ll spend all your life trying to do one (1) proper pull-up which should not take a person their entire life to accomplish… Your goals need to be measured (ex. goal assessments) to see if they’re being achieved or not, otherwise 2-years will pass and you’re still the same as you were 2-years ago but based on your “feelings”, you think you’re better (reality versus thinking).

THE SOLUTION
Work on creating some SMART goals along with monthly goal assessments to make sure you’re heading in the proper direction. If your goal is to “feel better” or “be healthier” then those are not really goals and you should create some SMART goals and goals like “feeling better and healthier” will come automatically as you make fitness & health part of your lifestyle! In my experience, I genuinely looked deep down inside of myself and asked alot of “why’s” to find my real reasons to know my real goals.

S – Specific – What specifically are you trying to achieve?
M – Measureable – How will you (and others) know when you’ve reached this goal? Can you quanitfy your goal?
A – Action – What is your action plan to achieve your goal? List processes, such as daily “to-do” actions to help reach your goal.
R – Realistic – Is this goal achievable for you to accomplish? Is it challengening, yet not too difficult?
T – Time Line – When will you achieve your goal? Is this a short-term goal or a long-term goal?

Specific – I would like to lose 2kg body fat and maintain my muscle mass!
Measureable – I will measure through my weight scale to see my fat loss daily and do strength assessments to see if I’m maintaining my muscle mass
Action – I will do this by exercising 3x days per week with my coach and 3 days alone with my coach’s advice while eating 1500 calories a day!
Realistic – I cannot lose all 2kgs at once so losing 0.5kg per week will help me stay focused!
Time – I will lose 2kg’s in the next 30 days!

Beginner Strength Gains in the Gym & Classes

THE PROBLEM
Here is a huge mistake I see happening from almost everyone in the gym and taking classes! When you start working out in the beginning of your fitness journey, you start activating and recruiting your muscle fibers more effectively and efficiently. This is turn helps you to lift more heavier weights as you start progressing while maintaining the same muscle size or slight beginner growth. Now here is the intresting part, sooner or later (short-lived progress) you won’t be able to recruit your muscles to be any more effective or efficient because they’ll have reached their maximum point of recruitment. Thus, results (especially muscle & strength growth) will stop happening for the majority of people at this point, and if your nutrition, recovery, workout program, and other variables, are not dialed in properly, you will not see any results unless your taking illegal performance enhancing drugs or you’re from another planet with a body that defies the laws of physics on planet Earth…

Imagine you spend 1-year of consistent training in a gym by yourself or/and taking fitness classes, and after the 1-year, I (the coach) do fitness assessments (tests) to check your muscle mass, strength, and cardio (basic gym-goer goals). Then 1, 2, or even 5 years pass by and you come back to me (the coach) to do the assessments again to compare how much you’ve improved in your muscle mass, strength, and cardio. After the tests and comparison, you’re exactly the same…

How you ask?! I can tell you a dozen reasons why but I’ll tell you just one fact that has the power to completely make this statement an undeniable fact, and it is that you didn’t eat enough protein or/and calories to develop your muscles to grow bigger, thus your strength didn’t increase because your muscles didn’t grow larger. You need bigger mucles (muscle mass) to lift more reps or heavier weight (strength) which doesn’t happen anymore after you recruit your mucle fibers maximally like I mentioned earlier unless you give your body what it needs to grow. And for the cardio aspect of it, just because you get on a treadmill or any other cardio equipment doesn’t mean you’re improving your cardio. Your heart is a muscle and it needs proper training that challanges it in a variety of ways (aerobic and anaerobic) to improve and if this is not met, then no improvement in your cardiovascular health will be achieved, it will just stay at the same level it is or get worse if you fail to maintain your current level.

THE SOLUTION
The point of health and fitness is that it’s a journey, a journey that progresses as you progress in improving your performance. As you physically develop, you will need to improve your nutrition, sleep, workouts, and other variables even better for further adaptations to happen. Because of what gets you from point A to point B doesn’t mean will get you to point C or especially further. Failure to improve your lifestyle and habits as your journey continues results in failure to develop, therefore, you will plateau (see no results).

I recommend doing goal assessments to see your actual progress you’re making and if the assessment results are poor then my suggestion is to work with a really good coach who can teach you.

Free Weights vs Machine Equipment

THE PROBLEM
The biggest difference between free weights and machine equipment is that machines remove stability from the workout massively because you sit mostly and the direction of the movement on the machine is directed by the machine but it does provide additional safety at the cost of stability. On the other hand, with freeweights, the reward is so much higher for your health but you have to use your own body’s stabilization system to keep everything in balance as you do your training program and if your body has any mobility (joint), stability, assymetrical strength imbalances, or any other issues, they will show up eventually and start breaking you down (injuries, bad pain, etc…) when the intensity increases high enough for your body but the same can happen with machines as well but to a lesser degree normally…

An issue I have with machine equipment is that they dictate your movement, meaning that you move in the fixed direction that the machine wants you to move, very 2-dimensional. When I play sports, participate in physical activities, and go on adventures or exploring during my vacations, I don’t have a machine with me dictating my movements to keep me safe, my body has to provide that stability and safety! Do you see where I’m going with this? Life is full of expected and unexpected situations that require us to move 3-dimensional and if you’ve handicapped your body from moving in its optimal 3-dimensional ways, it will greatly affect your way of life and quality of life now and especially as you grow older.

THE SOLUTION
Getting out of your comfort zone of using machine equipment to unassisted exercises and movements is fundemental to your health. I personally have gone down the path of injuries & pain because both, machines and mainly from free weights but thankfully I invested in my knowledge to be a great trainer and now don’t use machine equipment for my own training (or for my customers) but free weights instead to improve my stability and see if my body has any issues that show up and try to work on my issues which in turn has increased my personal performance to levels I never though I’d ever achieve due to my multiple lower back and knee injuries.

Online Training Programs

THE PROBLEM
In this day and age you can find so much helpful information if you look in the right places but there is even a higher amount of nonsense information out there as well. I’ve used CHATGPT a few times to test it out for fitness related inquries and I must say that it did a really good job but it did make mistakes and if you weren’t knowledged in specific areas of fitness and didn’t know these mistakes, well I would have been worried for your safety in some instances, especially for anyone with special considerations (injuries, joint restrictions, etc…).

I believe chatgpt does a better job in desgining a workout program than the majority of free or paid workout programs you find online that are a copy and paste of one organization/coach to another with a different logo on them… All the programs I see people doing 24/7 are strength based machine exercises which has me wondering how much lack of knowledge and information is out there?!

Most people follow workout programs (paid or free) that aren’t for them. They’re mostly bodybuilding programs that are too advanced for normal people and even myself to be honest, I been there and done that. What gets your body from point A to point B doesn’t mean it will get it to point C or further. Your body is like a stick-shift (manual) car and if you try to go from 1st to 4th gear, skipping 2nd and 3rd gear, those of you who know cars will know that this is an unpleasant moment and those of you who don’t know cars, well this means you’ll be saying good-bye to your results.

THE SOLUTION
Let’s say you’re following the program of some famous bodybuilder or coach out there (paid or free) for your specific goal(s), and if you’re not doing goal assessments on yourself every month to see if you’re getting the results that you should be getting then you are doing a great disservice to yourself and wasting your hard earned money but more importantly your time…

Body Composition Analyzer Machines

THE PROBLEM
You step on a machine and it sends electrical signals through your body and estimates your fat mass versus non-fat mass and gives you the results. It sounds like a very magical device and very ahead of its time… It’s a great device for a normal basic person who really doesn’t require accurate numbers and just wants some informations on what’s going on with their body during their body transformation (fat loss), it’s motivational for them even if the numbers are wrong more or less. Now for people who actually care enough to know how much muscles they’re putting on and how much fat they’re losing, it’s an inaccurate machine to use because you can be losing muscle mass and not know it based on the machines calculations.

If you have the knowledge then you can understand how inaccurate the machine can be, and even in the case without the knowledge, I’ve tested my theory with my customers and my own body to find out that it doesn’t calculate well for people who actually track their progress. The fitness assessments that I did with myself and my customers showed everything I needed to know about the analyzer machines and how inaccurate their data was.

THE SOLUTION
Example, let’s say you’re trying to build muscles and you use the body composition analyzer machine every month to check your progress. Now you need to make sure that you do fitness assessments every month as well on the same day or almost the same day as you use the analyzer machine. If the machine say’s you’ve gained 1kg muscle mass but when you do your strength tests and the results are lower or the same as last month, well, where is this muscle mass you’ve gained at? You should be stronger but you’re not, maybe you’ve gained more fat than it told you…

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Facts About Your Own Personal Limitations

Facts To Take Into Very Special Consideration

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