SmartPhysicalFitness is me, and my aim with SPF is to teach a person how to take care of their body (or Physical Wellness) without my prolonged assistance, life-long.

For those of you who wish to advance in different training styles and practices, becoming stronger with someone and having help throughout the process, there are a multitude of great trainers who have that understanding.

I am currently aiming to build a basis for your (and many others) skepticism and functional know-how so that you can take better care of yourself in leiu of possibly working with other professionals; Not all professionals are trained the same way... which can be great, but it is also the centerpoint of a lot of problems. (MY OPINION!)

I teach the basics and more intermediate practices of exercise while staying healthy.

Understanding how necessary it is to take care of your body in the most basic way is important for an injury free life.

In order to accomplish this with the best results possible, I wrote and established two exercise curriculums (The Beginners Guide to Exercise and The Intermediate Program) to teach a person:

1) About their basic human physiological needs and requirements while also understanding basic movement practices and a general understanding of specific disciplines to compliment these fundamentals

2) Adding onto the basic disciplines and movements learned in the Beginners guide, but including more intermediate understandings, such as your basic Bio-mechanics and Periodization, creating and adding to your skepticism and how to maintain healthy practices life-long with Proper Program Planning.

I hope to eventually build build stronger communities so that we can be more self-reliant, and not have to lean so heavily on things we probably can't even afford, even though we might need it; That is why I aim to keep my services cheaper and more affordable for everyone.

I am honoured and grateful to have had the experiences and opportunities of working with many clients while I trained in gym and home environments. Some I trained for a few months, others were 5+ great years.

Today my main goal is to reach a wider population and teach them the basics of something they should already (hopefully?) know about.

Some have that necessary understanding, but (most) others do not.

In my time of training clients in the big gym, in smaller gyms, in their homes and online (virtual training), I focused on basic weightlifting and bodyweight (Calisthenic) practice as I had many clients throughout my training years who fit into particular demographics that this type of training worked extremely well for, their ages ranging from 18 years to 70 years of age.

My main emphasis while working with people was on functional health education, muscle building / strengthening and overall injury prevention + recovery. Some of my weaknesses in the beginning of my exercise career was a lack of understanding in when progress really happened, and where it really came from.

Going back to day one, when I first started training, I was a complete disaster. In my interview at the gym I worked at for 5 years, I brought a massive bin full of work I worked on to that point - the notes that would eventually become my beginners guide.

They hired me mainly because I was overwhelming and "hard to fully grasp", and in a sense they believed that this would make the sale go quicker, while basically confusing the potential client about exercise.

Most of the customers in the time of the sale pitch did NOT fully understood me or the stuff I was talking about, but this is also only because they didn't have a (proper) referencing point to compare to. I barely understood me sometimes, but it worked. They had built a sales strategy around my confusing rhetoric, and to follow, I managed to maintain great retention with the clients I worked with.

I did have some clients who thought (and knew) I was a disaster (and I can't really blame them), but to others, I was their missing messiah. I was the bees knees of the exercise world to them, and I am proud to say that I helped quite a few of them greatly.

I had one of the better retention rates, but there were times where I had clients come up to me, not understanding why there was pain in their shoulder after a workout, or why they pulled their hip / back a week after a leg workout. I could only recommend rest, and thankfully, because of the trainers I worked with, my education and the resources at my disposal, I have never had any injuries / issues that couldn't be reversed, but it was only because I kept to my scope of practice.

Before I actually quit from the gym, I realized it wasn't completely my fault (I was certainly addicted to exercise, and in a way relaying that rhetoric as well), but it was my gym that was pushing me to maintain, and increase the frequency of my clients, oftentimes mentioning that certain clients "could use the extra sessions".

At first, I was totally on board with it, but it wasn't until the later portion of 2019 (so I had been training people for a bit more than 2 years at this point), after having recovered from an injury (Shoulder tendonitis / Rotator cuff issue) and realizing how important REST was in an exercise routine where I started becoming more rebelious against my manager and the whole gym situation.

I essentially took matters into my own hands, but it wasn't the reason why I left the gym. I had many clients follow me from the gym while I was still training at the big gym, but it wasn't until 2022 that I realized I needed more than just rest from an exercise routine.

I came up with my business name in a hypocritical state 8 years ago (May of 2018).

I thought at that time that it would be a smart idea to be smart about your physical health as well as your fitness ability.

At that time, I was not as well trained as I am today, and even though I had something to show for in terms of my progress (I had personally been exercising myself for 4 years when I first started my job at the gym I trained at, but my results were lacking in comparison to some others that I worked with), I did not yet know that I still had lots to learn.

This is my admittance that I - at one point - was really bad at exercise. I was definitely worse before my schooling, however I was not fully taught everything I needed to know to FULLY take care of a person, let alone taking care of myself. That's where we lead into my business name and where it came from.

At this point, the main reason to why I created my business name in the first place was because I wanted to distance myself from the big box gym that I was working at, and never look back. The clients I worked with were amazing and loved the progress they gained while working with me, and so some of them actually left the gym and followed me. It was actually some of their suggestions for me to leave, although I didn't end up leaving until later in 2022.

Most of the trainers I worked with wanted to leave the gym environment as well, but only a few were able to, and were actually successful (some were not!). These trainers had dollarsigns in their eyes and knew how to do it on their own, even if they were unsure or hesitant at first.

I wasn't personally as money hungry, and I was never (and still not really) into or good at the social media platforms. I never wanted my business name to be on them in the first place, but I did, however, find a form of common ground with YouTube, and I (still try to) work on YouTube whenever I can.

I started with YouTube during the 2020 Pandemic lockdowns - Trying to do what everyone else was doing, posting exercise videos... except mine sucked. My mom and my client Annie were definitely my biggest supporters.

They were bad in comparison to other YouTubers content, and that's when I realized I was comparing. That was the moment I knew I needed to figure something else out, because I knew I could not keep up with the runner-uppers, some of which I had even worked with. I started by removing my poopy videos, and posted my - still currently up - stretching videos. I put those up to start, and I still needed to figure out what I was going to do.

I continued training my clients through the time of the pandemic, pretty much leaving YouTube in the dust, but I didn't really do much in that time to better my business, I was mostly focused on me and my clients. I was still working on my Beginners Guide, and did manage to make it much better, but I (only really realizing it a few years later) became stuck in a cycle of addiction, and in more ways than just one.

I worked on work that wasn't as important as I had hoped (also losing some of it to the greedy hands of Google), while also secumbing to addictive habits that kept me in vicious cycles of repetitive behaviours that were essentially self-destructive.

My demons were in mainly videogames, TV / Movies, exercise and work - those were all I needed to get me through the day. I prioritized my addictions while losing connections with people I used to have great connections with. I would blame COVID-19 for this, but this is where the next part becomes more relevant.

It wasn't until the end of June in 2022 when I had to quit my job at the big box gym due to an injury. This was a strange injury, because it wasn't like any of the injuries I had before, and I had a few up to this point.

To list some of the previous injuries I've had:

-Tendonitis (I've had this a few times in different areas, but fixed all!)

-Muscle strains / pulls

-Fall injuries (never super serious)

This new injury had a pretty sudden onset of symptoms while I was exercising, and it took me a while to figure out the right word to describe it - it was uncertain and weak pain. It was sudden as I hadn't felt any type of symptom like this before this point, but it was the beginning of a long slide down.

It started while I was rotating a 15lbs dumbbell in my hand during one of my exercises, and I lost my grip in one of my hands, having to put the dumbbell down in a sudden rush... and from that point, I couldn't use my left hand for simple tasks for about a month. It that time, it was (in a way) recovering, so I, of course, needed to go back to work. My clients at this time were extrordinarily supportive, but I was still feeling pretty useless and uncertain about movement in my hands.

I actually tried getting back into an exercise routine around this time, almost immediately after getting back to training clients - I was keeping it light and not pushing myself - but this was the time that both of my hands hit the figurative fan, and I had to quit my job at the gym 3 weeks later.

At some point in this timeframe I could barely move my whole body. I actually had to call a friend to drive me to the hospital as I had random bruising on my arm (Tricep area) and on my back. It was painful, but in the weirdest way. I couldn't reach in certain directions, otherwise there would be shocking type pain, or that same uncertainty, and because of how sudden it was, it was scary. I would later learn that this bruising was called Nerve Bruising; It happens due to instability of the muscles, so the muscles cannot support the bones and joint regions properly, collapsing in on the muscles and basically pinching the nerve.

It took me being assessed by professionals such a Physiotherapist, a Chiropractor and my Family Doctor, until I had to really put my own marbles back together and figure this thing out for myself. These were professionals that I would have hoped would recognize my issue, but no one was able to identify this issue.

I later then realized a few common issues with all of these professions:

A) Doctors have WAY too much on their plate. We expect them to know literally everything about the human body. They're not 100% human body professionals. We wish they were, because that would be easy. They're usually Doctors of Medicine... We could have the medicine of physiotherapy, however

B) Some Physiotherapists do NOT even know how to take care of their own bodies, like some personal trainers, and yet some of them give advice they barely understand.. Unless they actually know how to apply it to themselves (and henceforth others)

C) Chiropractors and the majority of this practice is dangerous, or mainly the ones who practice "adjustments". Adjustments are dangerous, and chiropractors are very well known for these.

After visiting these professionals, they didn't give me anything of complete worth to figuring out what was going on with my body, and so I had to scower the web for what my issue might be, and I finally came across a YouTube Short that described all of my issues perfectly, to a relative tee.

My issue was called Overstretch (plus Hypermobility in some of my joints). I was (to my memory) never taught this in my schooling, or in my gym, that you could over-do it on stretching like I did, and that there was even a term for it (and there are even genetic co-morbidities). So it was in that moment, as well as with all of my experience prior, that I realized that you can over-do (and under-do) ->> EVERYTHING! <<-.

Today I am stronger and better than I was because I learned how to do (and enjoy) nothing.

I was never really good at doing nothing, except for when I was busy in my own world, occupying myself with distraction upon distraction. And like any good addiction, I had to disconnect from constant nothing, mainly to not be a complete lazy bum.

Exercise helps a person with their mental health, but if you lean too heavily on that crutch (and even for one specific thing(s)) for too long, it becomes more of a burden. My overstretch injury taught me lessons I wish I had learned prior, and it left mental health scars that took a good while to recover. Anxiety of movement is hard to recover from, because you lose trust in your own judgement and basically have to rely on others for support.

After that overstretch injury, it took me about a month and a half to "re-stabilize" my body. It actually took me a while to really let it sink in as to what the problem really was, because I was still in a cycle of wanting to get back to making gains and lifting. These vicious cycles are what keep us stuck, and getting out is harder than it might seem. It took about 6 months where I could say I was fully recovered, however it took a lot longer to get back into exercise confidently.

Today I exercise and stretch less frequently than I used to, but I keep active and am always moving on a daily basis.

When I first started exercising, I experimented with going less often, and that's probably when I saw my best results, but it was also earlier in when I started trying 5 times a week to even 7 times a week, and at some point even tried going twice a day... and always going hardcore, no low intensity.

I could actually feel the amount of fatigue build up mid-day, and I powered through because I thought that would produce result. It definitely did not. Pain was something I "kind of" worked through in my earlier years, but I am extremely grateful that I had the teachers that I had at the time of when I had them and their teachings so that I could, to this day, avoid any really serious problems.

I like to think I have a healthier connection with exercise, and I try my best to vocalize why.

I would like to stop the cycle of learning the hard way, and I think, for some, learning that understanding from someone who learned the hard way, but who also has an educational background and professional training history might be a good place to start.

I believe that we should be taught the basics about our body, including how our muscles work, in early education. We are living in a time where we have better access and more reliable sources of safe and accurate information, yet we keep most of this good information behind pay-walls.

Most of the information that is available for free is in a state of chaos; some people can find it, while others can't, mainly because of how much there is. We also need to keep in mind that when the product is free, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT.

We need to make sure that the good information is what is taught in school. Initially giving people the tools they can use so they can better take care of themselves so they can focus on other things without worrying about falling apart is what I strive for.

As a small business, I must work with the system created by the majority, HOWEVER I aim to keep my services as reasonably priced and rational as I can, to make sure you learn what you must to take care of yourself LIFE-LONG.

I am working towards the idea that one day, you WILL be taught how to take care of not only your PHYSICAL SELF, BUT ALSO EVERYTHING ELSE TO GO WITH IT AS WELL! This is actually where my role as a WELLNESS coach comes in...!

Reference: UCDavis, Student Health and Counseling Services. https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/health-and-wellness/eight-dimensions-wellness.