Questions to Ask When Considering a Personal Trainer [Interview][Transcript]
Guest: Shawn Wing
Presenter: Neal Howard
Guest Bio: Shawn Wing is Owner and CEO of Defined Fitness and also A Rehabilitative Manager at Georgetown Family Chiropractic in Georgetown, Kentucky USA.
Segment overview: Shawn Wing discusses questions to ask when considering a personal trainer.
Transcription
Health Professional Radio – Shawn Wing Hiring a Personal Trainer
Neal Howard: Hello and welcome to Health Professional Radio. I’m your host Neal Howard, thank you so much for joining us today. Our guest in studio today is Mr. Shawn Wing, Owner and CEO of Defined Fitness, Personal Training Company located in Georgetown, Kentucky. He is here with us today also as a Rehabilitative Manager associated with Georgetown Family Chiropractic also in Georgetown, Kentucky, earned his degree in Exercise Science from Morehead State University. How are you doing today, Shawn?
Shawn Wing I’m doing wonderful, Neal. Thank you so much for having me on this show.
N: Hey, not a problem. Glad that you could give us some of your time. Morehead State University in Kentucky, talk a little bit about the Degree that you earned there and some of the things that they got you interested in healthcare.
S: Well, it kind of started a little bit, like I said, a little earlier through high school. I had a Gym teacher who really kind of focus a lot … on the health fitness and being active and doing extreme sports as a young kid I was always just this very active, very interested with sports, stuff like that. That kind of progressed onto my later years, college, kind of looked into, I didn’t really know exactly what I want to do, I really enjoy fitness, I really enjoy active to the point, why not let’s major in Exercise Science, Health Wellness and performance and kind of see where it takes me and I really enjoyed the first couple of years even though those are basic Gen Eds you got a couple 2 or 3 classes that actually introduce you to be Major of Sports Science aspect of it. So I really enjoyed that and I really want to be my hands on more, so from there after that, I reached out to American College Sports Medicine, got my certified Personal Training Certification from there and further developed into my exercise … certification, so that’s technically what I really enjoyed doing, is that it is more of the science based stuff because after all science is where it’s at, the facts that the hard evidence of how to get results. So that’s kind of where it took me and how I got where I am today.
N: Interesting that you should mention the science of it all when it comes down to the science of it, there in the past has been kind of a scientific rift as it were, for lack a better term between the Chiropractic and the Traditional Medicine camps. You have found a way to combine Chiropractic and Personal Training, being Owner and CEO of Defined Fitness Personal Training and also Rehabilitative Manager with Georgetown Chiropractic. Talk a little bit about, because when we think of Chiropractic, we think about getting adjusted, we think maybe a little bit about of strength training, maybe some electro stem, but talk about combining Chiropractic and the Science of Personal Training.
S: One of the biggest sayings that it’s really been kind of a blocker for most people is and even in the health field, is Chiropractic and Physical Therapy had been kind of somewhat disassociated with each other. Physical therapists believe in one way of healing the body, Chiropractic believes another way and I’m not a licensed physical therapist so I can’t say too much on that aspect but what I can say on my behalf is that it is that it’s greatly beneficial for the patient… when both of these fields bridge together for overall better help the patient. It’s a holistic medicinal approach, so you don’t have to worry about any crazy side effects that you got going on with any of these other medication that a lot of healthcare professionals try to put out there. So, that’s one of things that I really enjoy plus with the adjustments and naturally will allow you to able to decrease the pressure in between your joints by releasing the gas or the air that’s basically built up in between the joints. That little pop that you hear, that is a release of the gas when they do your adjustment. So that kind of what’s happening, a lot of people are kind of afraid “Oh no what’s going on back there”, but that’s what that is. So when you release the pressure, release the gas, it allows your musculoskeletal system to breathe a little better, the afferent-efferent information to transfer from to the nervous system to your brain down your body, down your vertebrae, your spinal cord and out to the organs that it innervates. From there, once you have that release of the information, it is kind of like a sensory…to your body because you kind of got to think about, think about car, a bend around the corner, you got to slow down a little bit while you’re driving and make sure you get thru that corner safely and then you can go ahead and speed up…That’s what kind of what happens with the information of process to the body, when it hits a joint that has been fixated for so long and it slows the information down. So when you make joints a lot more feasible to breathe, the information to be transferred, quite a bit better neurologically and process better. So that as far as Chiropractic goes and then with the Rehabilitative Medicine that I do with the stretching and the strengthening once the patients are out of pain, basically we make sure that they can gain full range of motion through their specific areas of interest or injury I should say. Once that happens, once that has close to full if not full range of motion, 0we begin the strengthening phase. And there’s three phases in the clinic that we usually use for each, an area that you have: Cervical, Thoracic, Lumbar, wherever your primary injury or diagnosis may occur. And then from that point you may work on this either rehabilitative portion … strengthening of the core, strengthening up the legs because overall the legs are the building blocks to the body and stuff like that. So that’s kind of a gist of what we focus on in the clinic.
N: Now in your experience as a Personal Trainer and dealing on the Chiropractic side as well, do you find that it’s an easier process with someone who is coming there to maintain what is already and apparently healthy lifestyle as opposed to someone who’s maybe had an injury and is trying to rehabilitate or return to the healthy lifestyle that they once had. The mindset is different, how does the science of it help you in that aspect?
S: It is, there are two different law that…types of patients who were able to help that you’re able to group them together and you kind of tell just by talking to the ones who really want to help themselves and the ones who are just there just to get out of the pain and nothing, I don’t mean anything negative by any of that. But there’s just different types of people as there are in the world and that’s fine, that’s okay, some people are there temporarily just to get a quick fix and feel better and don’t want to worry about anything and others actually wants to do the lifestyle change kind of like what I was saying a little earlier about clients come to me, I tell them that this is not going to be something’s that’s goanna be overnight, results. It doesn’t happen overnight, it don’t happen that way. I got to be a little arrogant about it and I’ll tell them “Hey, if you want results to happen overnight, go see a magician.” Because that’s not what I am and a lot of them are pretty understanding for the most part of that and you didn’t get this way overnight, therefore we can’t reverse it…overnight. This is a lifestyle change. So the patients who come to the clinic, a lot of them wants to change. I think with our staff that we have such a knowledgeable staff, very, very friendly, they’re really kind of bring that to the patient and it’s really cool because you’ll see patients come in there and they have no interest in physical fitness or whatsoever. But it doesn’t matter, they were working out five years ago and they stopped and they really haven’t thought about it since they came to us. Well when they come to us we get them feeling better, we get their energy levels increased, they feel like getting up, moving around, doing stuff and that promotes an active lifestyle and I can’t tell you, Neal how many times that people have left our clinic, join the gym, came to me, got a program and helped them live healthier lifestyles from this day forward. It’s really rewarding, it’s absolutely amazing that people can actually want to such a different change for the lifestyle after living sedentary for…years whatever.
N: As we wrap up this segment Shawn, let’s talk briefly about the implementation of supplements in the either your practice Defined Fitness or as a Rehabilitative Manager with the Chiropractic firm.
S: Supplements are great, they really are. Supplements are one of those things that you really got to be kind of somewhat careful about because those people who firmly believe in supplements and those people who don’t believe in supplements, they believe that you didn’t get all your nutrition from…If you’re having an adequate enough diet, you can, you can but you always want to make sure that your goal is in mind in the back of your head. You have to make sure that whatever your goal is that you’re eating towards your goal and you’re making sure that you’re getting all your macro nutrients and your micro nutrients, vitamins to whole food, making sure you haven’t gone away of proteins, vegetables, carbohydrates, fats so on and so forth and it’s one of those things that let’s just give an example for a bodybuilder, okay. A bodybuilder who has, let’s say, maybe 10-20% body fat on his off season and then he strips down to maybe 3 or 4% fat on his stage ready season. Their nutrients development and intake is gonna be much greater than let’s say your marathon runner or your sprinter. Those types of guys have to eat the way they train. So that’s what I mean by keeping in mind what’s your goals are and then your supplements depending how much that you…on your body…have to have that much of an affect as well on what you take in.
N: I’m hoping that you’ll come back in future segments and talk with us a bit more, Shawn.
S: That’ll be great.
N: Alright, thanks. You’ve been listening to Health Professional Radio, I’m your host Neal Howard. We’ve been in studio this afternoon talking with Mr. Shawn Wing, Personal Trainer and Rehabilitative Manager combining the science of both Chiropractic and Personal Training to come up with absolutely wonderful results from his clients and patients as well. We’ve been talking about how to combine the two for the best results for the patient and the client and also how to break down some of the barriers that sometimes pop-up when it comes to achieving a healthy lifestyle and/or maintaining the same. It’s been great having you here with us today Shawn.
S: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
N: Thank you. Transcripts and audio of this program are available at healthprofessionalradio.com.au and also at hpr.fm and you can subscribe through our podcast on iTunes.