Celebrity Trainer Chris Fernandez Talks About Making Money in Personal Training

Hugo: Exactly and don’t focus on perfection, focus on consistency. Sometimes people blow their diets and, hey, if you blow your diet don’t wait till next Monday to pick it up, go ahead and pick it up on the next meal.

Chris: That’s what I tell them, they are like: “Hey I ate healthy yesterday, you’ll be proud of me.”

Okay, why don’t you talk to me when you’ve eaten healthy for a couple of months? And then I might say, good job. What, you want a medal for being healthy for one day?

Hugo: I love it. Maybe they want a cookie Chris.

Chris: Yeah, I wish we could get excited and I understand that when you first start something its like, “Well I’ve accomplished something” and I’m like okay – I don’t want to be negative or anything – I say: “That’s awesome and I’m glad that you ate good today but what’s tomorrow going to look like, what are we going to do with that?”

Hugo: I think that’s a take-home message. The biggest secret we can offer as trainers to the public out there is consistency. Just take a good plan like the ones we offer and follow it; that’s it.

Chris: Isn’t that true of everything in life?

Hugo: I think so to be honest with you. So let me ask you this, and I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to say, but what are your thoughts on supplementation?

Chris: I try to keep things very, very simple, so I do believe that some supplementation is important for certain people at different times in their training and in their life.

Personally, what I use – I’ve cut a lot of things – when I first started we’re all into this bodybuilding thing, and it was like: “I’m going to use this and I’m going to use that and oh my god there is this muscle boosting this and that.” and when we’re younger when I was in my early 20’s, Muscle and Fitness was like my bible and every new supplement in there that showed us a research study that was double-blind crossover – it’s going to build five pounds of muscle in four weeks – I figured out it was all bull crap by the way, but I tried them all.

Hugo: You and I both so you are not alone.

Chris: Exactly, because they come up with these supposed studies and the studies are double-blind, placebo crossover, and whatever else, and who could argue with that? That’s good science I would say to myself!

But what I didn’t know then (that I know now) is that those are all paid for by the supplement companies and you can make a research study pretty much do what you want if you really want to.

So what I’ve come up with over the years is you don’t really need any of that junk, all you need is the basics and for me whey protein is my supplement, I’ll do a few meal replacement bars and shakes if I’m in a hurry because sometimes you just don’t have time to make a meal, so you grab a bar – that’s just the way it goes no big deal – and I’ll do a little Vitamin C. I don’t go crazy with it.

What I might do when I’m doing really intense training in my summer program, I’ll add a little bit of glutamine to my shake – so I’ll do that maybe once or twice a day – but only in the summer, only when I’m doing two-a-days and doing really hard stuff where I think my body might be overtrained and I need a little extra. And that’s about it, I really don’t use anything else.

Hugo: In my opinion, there is really no need to take tons of stuff. At the end of the day, I have what I call the basic supplement stack which is composed of your multiple vitamins and your minerals which is something that is really underrated I think.

The Vitamin C I like to do between 2000 milligrams to 3000 only because I am always training very intensely with my weights and doing cardiovascular exercise later on. Thus, I want to make sure that my immunity is good.

It’s amazing, however that our supplement program is pretty much the same. I do like to add a little bit of creatine because it helps with the ATP but I think it’s important for people to understand that taking creatine is not going to be what’s going to build the muscles OK? Creatine is a performance enhancing supplement, as I like to call them, and these supplements allow you to train a little bit harder and recover better from really crazy training. But at the end of the day, it is the training and the nutrition that is going to go ahead and give you the result you’re looking for.

Oh, and I do like to take some natural testosterone boosters just because I am 34 and I want to make sure that my hormonal output is as good as it can be. But that's it.

Chris: And I want to reiterate real fast, I don’t use creatine only because it doesn’t do anything for me but I know there are some people out there that they really notice the difference right away in terms of strength, recovery and actually muscle size; they get a little more pump and stuff.

I’ve used creatine probably about 6-7 times in my life and not once has it done anything for me. I don’t gain any weight, I don’t feel any recovery, I don’t feel anything. So I just don’t need it. My body maybe makes enough and that’s that.

Hugo: Sorry to hear that you don't respond to creatine. This is a good point to bring Chris. Just because a supplement works for the majority of people, it doesn’t mean that it may work for you and I think that’s where people need to take note of the things that they take and see if it’s indeed working and don’t be afraid to say: “Well, this doesn’t really work for me. So, I’m not going to use it.”

Chris: Yeah, save some money.

Continued on: Chris Fernandez Talks About Making Money in Personal Training, Part II