My journey to becoming a Certified Fitness Trainer

Growing up I never wanted to become a doctor. I didn't think I had the heart to see a lot of blood and so much suffering. Along with that went the fact that the education system never made being a doctor easy. 

I started to play basketball in high school. It was quite a thing because growing up I was always falling sick and battling asthma. I stayed away from anything that had sport attached to it. Progress went on to college, won a few medals and then I ended up playing for a club and took on streetball matches. i remember my coach then telling me for my position that I play I need a lot more size and strength.

I turned to the only best coach I knew - My dad! Dad came from a line of Old school bodybuilders. I mean really old school. No fancy equipment. Just stones, bars, iron dumbbells and barbells, running barefoot on a beach, etc. He had won a bodybuilding title in India back in 1960. Along with that he was good at boxing and hockey.

I started training seriously with Dad for health, strength and conditioning for two reasons.

1. I believe our body is the temple in which God stays (yes that inspired the name for the blog).
2.  As my coach put it - you have to get bigger and stronger to play the position on the basketball team.

Things went well the first few months on court and then I realised I was developing a passion for my dad's sport which was bodybuilding. The beauty of his days of bodybuilding was they focused on strength and health first and then aesthetics. Not bloating up like bovine cattle. From that Journey dad and me learnt a lot. We would sit doing countless hours of latest training methods and how to use old school to fuse them. We really experimented on ourselves. Being young I thought that was fun but now I realise that there was a great danger in that. Thank God nothing happened. We would train 4-6 hours a day. Research and try supplements. However at any given point, health was always top priority. It wasn't long before people came up asking me for advice. I think I spent about10 years before going to be a certified trainer just helping people. It was early 2008 that I realised I actually enjoyed helping people develop a healthy strong lifestyle. Knowing where I came from as a sick weak kid and now I was a 92kg powerhouse (I was 75kgs when I started) I started giving it some serious thought. Then later in 2008 I decided to look for a professional course. I came across ISSA and contacted the representative here in India - Dilip Heble. I applied for the course. It would be another 2 years before I actually cleared the exam.

The reason it took so long to clear the exam was I was working in a corporate and fighting to balance time to finish the exams. All through that time I was was still researching and studying what ever I could. Late in 2009 Dilip visited my state of Bangalore. I remember driving in the rain to go meet him and he told me what needed to be done. 'Finish it man! Its nearing 2 years and you have the potential do not be lazy!' I got right on the case!! 3 months later my answer scripts had gone.
In the meantime I also had to do a compulsory first aid course. Dilip conducts AHA(American Heartsaver) courses with CPR around the country so I got that done. In the next two months just a few months before my wedding I got my results. I had cleared with 89%! I was a certified fitness trainer!

ISSA is the best fitness education provider I have found. I remember Dilip and Frank Miele patiently answering my queries and encouraging me. Even after that they have always been supportive and given me any help I need and that too quickly!!

If you are looking at doing a certification course to become a fitness trainer I would definitely recommend ISSA. Their support when you are studying and even after you get a professional license in second to none. I am now away from my regular corporate job, work my own times, and help change peoples lives.

If you are in India and would like to get ISSA certified please contact me.

Enjoyed the post? Need a Fitness trainer for consultation or training? Let me know what you think. Leave a comment

Krav Maga Seminar at Bangalore

Well as mentioned before I am an avid Krav Maga follower. The self defense system that developed in Israel has really intrigued me and I found it to be the most sensible and effective of the lot. So it was quite a pleasant surprise for me to know that KMG aka KRAV MAGA GLOBAL was doing a seminar in Bangalore. In addition to that it was to add 4 CEU's to my ISSA certification! Thanks Dilip for letting me know!

The Krav Maga seminar was help at the Catholic Club and the highlight was Grand Master Eyal Yanilov himself was there to do the session. Talk about jumping at a chance to learn! KMG is Eyal Yanilov's program. Its been introduced in India by Elroy Vaz.  I also met fellow ISSA trainer Sandeep Jayakumar there and got introduced to one of Sandeep's students, Priya Mukherjee.

Before I get into what the session was like I have to say the KMG  India team was quite efficient and friendly. They worked with the people there patiently through most of the drills and have sound knowledge on not only Krav Maga but also how to instruct in it. To the KMG team - Thanks a  ton guys. I was definitely comfortable with the level of expertise and the way you guys train and instruct.

The session got underway with Eyal giving us a bit of a background about Krav Maga and why its so effective. As usual the info and knowledge part is quite important and it made the practical understanding easier.

The practical session got underway with warmups and mobility drills. I was pleasantly surprised because most other trainings and martial arts placed this huge demand on me for the warmups itself. The warmups were challenging but not to a point where I was already drained for the session! I learnt a lot of warm up routines at this seminar

We then went to the real thing. The actual self defense scenarios. Eyal was breaking it down bit by bit on why and how to carry out a strike and what to look for in situations. One thing I can say about Eyal is he is one of the best instructors out there. It was so easy to understand. He would demonstrate and then we would run the drills with our partners. Sandeep and me had pretty much teamed up by this time. We did change sparring partners every now and then.

The session ended with the participants receiving a Seminar certification and then after that photos!

By the time we were done I had a great training session, was much more knowledgeable and definitely thrilled at the opportunity to the seminar

For those of you interested in Eyal's program it is online and you can get it by going to my resources page.