Within this personal trainer spotlight, you will learn why well-known personal trainer in Dubai Cristian Marius chose his fitness career, what does “a great workout” means and what should you ask fitness instructor before taking him as a personal trainer. Cristian offers a range of personal training packages including muscle building and toning, fat loss programmes, standalone sessions. We caught up with James to find out more about his career, the importance of working with a personal trainer and his plans for the future.
What motivated you in life to become a personal trainer?
I was always into fitness, started around 15 years old. Didn’t know so much back then, just a kid wanted to workout. From then never stopped, always learning year after year, testing a lot regarding nutrition & training on myself & slowly started helping people around me. Was fascinated also about psychology, which is a must when working with people, especially worldwide clients and live training ones in Dubai. So, I guess looking back wasn’t nothing really planned, it just came naturally, by loving the whole fitness world & wanting to help people.
What do you love about your career as a PT?
Again, the fact that I get to help people, helping reaching their goals, making them understand that fitness is much more than just ”a nice body”, it’s more about mentality, how you change your body & mind, because surely when you get to look better, you are heathier, even how you see yourself in mirror and how your clothes will fit better than they did before, you feel better and you have a better energy with all things around you. Yeah, I guess the fact that It motivates me to see people change, It’s all about energy.
What does a typical week of exercise look like?
A typical week of exercise looks like….6 days training, from all the muscle groups being mixed in with some cardio and boxing. Always doing it no matter how tired I am, vacation or normal day routine, have to work. The most effective exercise is SLEEP/REST, if we don’t have that we cannot change our body, we cannot grow, we cannot recover. So, I would say it plays the most role.
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They say that sweets are the biggest enemy of fitness. How did you resist sweets? What is your best advice for avoiding temptations?
Believe it or not, it’s hard for me sometimes to resist (they have the pretty package). I would say to have a well-balanced daily nutrition, keep your meals from morning till night and you are not going to be so tempted to buy or try sweets. Because that’s the thing… if you don’t buy them to have them at house, car, work… you are not going to eat it, simple. It’s all a mind thing, just got to overcome and understand will just slow you down from that road you want to achieve something you planned. You don’t want to stay in a circle, you want to climb that mountain!
How would you describe your philosophy on health and fitness?
My philosophy on health and fitness… I believe you get what you put in, simple! So, if you are going to eat everything that you want and stay on the couch all day long, not doing any type of physical movement… then don’t expect to feel great, feel energized, be confident. Now if I’m going to start working out or even start just running outside 5 times per week, start replacing a lot of junk food with cooked food, of course you will start feeling better about yourself. It’s same with the people you hang around or the things you read, movies you watch… you get that what you put in, SAME things go on regarding health & fitness.
How do you keep your fitness knowledge up to date?
I always loved to learn more, year after year. You can never know too much. Well, there are a lot of books and even online courses that you can grow your knowledge, but I always used experience months after months and year after year with clients to understand how to focus individual on every person and how to not go in circles when it comes to their progress. I guess self-experience is the best teacher when it comes to education, knowledge.
How do you keep clients motivated and engaged?
As I mentioned I was always intrigued by psychology. I have my own ”motivational talks” with each person to power them up. Dealing with so many nationalities it’s interesting because you have to understand a lot of persons and how they view things on getting in shape, so I have to work ”mind” with everyone so that we can communicate properly. And of course, I’m kind of strict when it comes to work and not giving up, either it’s live training or online. Everybody has to do the work!
What questions should I ask a potential personal trainer to see if he/she is a good fit?
That’s an interesting question! Well… start off with basic questions like… “How do you know when to change my nutrition plan?”, “What are the details that would follow up to this?” (Progress will not come if you stagnate at some point) “Would you recommend me to do fasting while training 4 to 5 times per week while wanting to grow on muscle mass?”, “Would you recommend me eating what I want but working out constantly?”, “I don’t want to have big muscles as a woman, are we going to use weights in the workouts?” (One of the best questions from my point because it’s always a huge talk on this. You cannot get ”big muscles” that easy… you can use a lot of weights in balance to how you do execution, which is important, but that control on getting ”big muscles” or smaller or just ”fit body” is about your nutrition. That’s it!
