Training programs are a bitch.

For me to write a powerlifting training program for somebody that's going to be specific to their strengths, their weak points with a full needs analysis is going to take me at least ...

I've done very little online training. I'm going to be upfront about that. I've done a lot of personal training. I've done a lot of coaching. I've done a lot of consulting. I'm familiar with what the red flags are. I have used nutrition coaches, and I have a feeling that I'm going to probably need one for the rest of my entire life. I don't have very good luck doing this shit by myself. I know my responsibilities going in. Let's go from the nutritional standpoint first.

When you hire somebody to help you with your nutrition, I'm going to assume that you've done your due diligence, and you've hired who you feel is the best person for you, that you're not just going off one blind referral, or you're not going off a before and after shot that you see on Facebook or some other shit, that you've actually done some due diligence to determine if this person is going to be the right fit for you. What you need to understand going in is this is a professional relationship. If they're going to tell you to do something, they're not only agreeing to be able to work with you. They're putting their own reputation on the line to work with you, which means that there's a responsibility on your part to protect their reputation as well.

If they're telling you to do something, and then you're going around, and you're doing everything completely the opposite of what they're telling you to do, that's extremely, extremely, extremely disrespectful to that person.

Don't hire them.

You're not ready for an online coach.

Bail.

Don't work with them because it's a disservice.

It's disrespectful

...and it's a waste of their time.

Don't make excuses, if you fuck up. They can make adjustments, if you screw up every now and again. They expect you to screw up every now and again. If you're going to go 10 weeks solid and never make a mistake, I'm going to tell you right now, they know you're lying. Now it's a matter of they got to figure out to dial you in to wherever you want to end up being, knowing that you're not giving them the full truth.

The more open you are and the more honest you are with them, the easier their job is going to be to be able to get you to whatever your end goal is.

* You have to be transparent.

* You have to be honest.
I mean, if you sneak a chip, tell them you snuck a chip. It's not that big of a deal, but don't bullshit them. I mean, it doesn't even make sense to me. Why would you pay somebody to help you and then bullshit them in a way that they can't help you. It's ludicrous. That's your responsibility from the nutritional standpoint, is to do what they tell you to do. If you can't do what they're telling you to do, you don't like the food, you can't eat that much food. The meal timing is not right. I mean, there's hundreds of things that can go wrong. Just tell them. I mean, if they're good at what they do, they've already heard it before. They know how to work around it. They're not going to come back and say, "Just suck it up and do what I say." If they do, then you know what? Maybe you need to find somebody else. It's not a good fit.

Now the responsibility on their standpoint, from my perspective, is to make sure they are treating you as an individual, and they're not giving you some boiler plate bullshit that they're giving everybody else because while you may be similar to a lot of people, and 90% of what they're giving everybody else they could probably give to you as well, there's that 10% that's going to be different. If they're taking your money, they need to be making sure that they're making it specific to you.

From a training standpoint, it becomes even more complicated. I do not feel this is because I am more educated in the training standpoint than I am in nutritional standpoint.

Training programs are a bitch. For me to write a powerlifting and training program for somebody that's going to be specific to their strengths, their weak points with a full needs analysis is going to take me at least 15 hours to put together right and correctly.
It will take a couple hours to review and/or research any items that you discover off on your needs analysis.  If you are an online coach you have a needs analysis right?  If you don't - you should for many reasons inducing protecting your own ass and creating the best program you can for the person. If you do not know what a needs analysis than I can safety say you shouldn't be training people... period. If you are a client and were not asked to fill one out - fire your coach NOW.

This SCREAMS they do not give a fuck about you at all.

Do know there are very good online trainers out there who do care about making you better but there are just as many who only care about making enough money so they can continue competing themselves. When I was coming up in the sport we didn't have online training - what we did was called "Doorman" or "Bouncer". For many today's version of this is called "online training".  The fastest way to tell the difference is by the needs analysis and process they use.

That's before I even send the program out and before I get videos back, before we do any adjustments. Then I still don't see them. I got to see them, and seeing 1 to 2 top reps at the end of a set isn't going to do shit. I need to see a whole training session, then not know how the accessories are going to work. There's a huge time investment when it comes to actually online training, in my opinion, somebody properly. Immediately, it's probably impossible to do it properly from my perspective.

Any online training, it's going to be condensed down. It's going to be shrink-wrapped into a manageable package that they're able to manage and get to you that you can be able to do what you need to do and to provide the feedback. Once again, the same thing happens there. Don't bullshit the person. If the person tells you your squats are fricking high, put them lower next time. Squat lower next time because if you keep squatting high for 6 weeks of the 12 weeks that they're trying to help you, they can't fucking help you come meet time. They need to make adjustments based upon you doing the lifts properly. That can be a good 40 pounds difference on your training. The other thing is you need to provide them with whatever they ask you for. If they want videos at a certain day at a certain time, you need to be able to do that. You need to respect that because the guys who are good at what they do, they have more than one client. A lot of them have between 40, 60 and maybe even more.

They're telling you that they need this information on a certain day at a certain time because they're blocking time off for you to be able to get that done because they have to manage their time, otherwise, they can't get their own training in or have a life. They can't just spend their whole life waiting for your fricking email all day long on Friday. The other thing is condense your questions into one email, so you're not sending them 15 emails every single day. Now what you should in turn expect from them is you should be getting your training on time. If your training weeks start on Sunday, you shouldn't be getting in Sunday morning. You should be getting it Saturday night, so at least you have time, or if something happens, and they have to get it to you Sunday morning, you're at least going to have it before you get to the gym. It has to be on time. Getting a training program a week late isn't going to do anybody any good. They need to be making adjustments based upon the feedback that they're getting. If you go through a whole training cycle, and no adjustment has been made, then they're not really paying attention.

I guess that's a very fast, condensed way of what to look for. The one thing to keep in mind with online training is you're always going to find good testimonials, great, positive testimonials, great feedback on everybody. You're always going to hear everybody talk about how great all their clients are. You're never going to see anybody post, "Here's my client who bombed out at a meet," or "Here's my client who went to a show and looked like a fat pig." You're never going to see that, but they all have clients like that. Keep in mind, everything that you're seeing is still a little bit of a mirage of what's actually happening. Don't trust everything that you see. You can ask for referrals, just like anything else. They're going to give you the referrals they know are going to give you the answers that you want to hear.

If you really are questionable on somebody, ask them for referrals on clients that left them. More than likely, they're not going to give you anybody. If they give you somebody, and then you contact them, you'll know what their strengths and weaknesses are. You know what? Maybe it's not that big of a deal for you. Maybe the person left the guy because they got hurt. Maybe they left the guy because that just wasn't ... They couldn't train 5 days a week, and they needed to train 5 days a week. That's the referral I would want to know. That's the referral I want to know when I go to do business with somebody is I don't want the referral of the person that's happy. I want the referral of the person that had a bad experience because then I'm going to know what their weaknesses are. I'm also going to know what they did to try to correct it when it was going bad before it went too far south.