Ahhh so i tricked you, it's not Jean-Claude Van-Damme but it's the next best Jean-Claude that i can think of!
I first met Jean-Claude
Vacassin on the Body Development Mentorship program, run by owner Tom
Crudgingdon. We both were obviously there to learn from a guy who has been in
the industry for 20+ years who has amassed a huge amount of knowledge.
The
great thing about these sort of mentorships is you get to train with like
minded individuals looking to improve not only their own physique but pick up
new/ old knowledge to utilise in their own program design to get their clients
results faster and with more variety. On the mentorship you train multiple
times a day with these other trainers, you make a vibe in those sessions like
no other and I was immediately impressed with Jean-C’s work ethic, knowledge
and motivation. Jean-C is owner and head trainer at W10 in London, a fantastic
semi-private training facility with results flowing from every trainer and
client. His knowledge is fantastic and if you get a chance to get to W10 please
try out their different approach to the personal training industry!
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| JC owner and trainer at W10 Performance. |
Can you give us a bit of background about you and your
business?
I’ve been in the industry
twelve years or so, previously having a short stint doing a corporate job,
which wasn’t for me. The first ten
years or so I spent doing as many hours of learning and actually training as
many people as I could (I did lots of both), before opening W10 three years
ago.
W10 is what we refer to as a
personal training gym. My aim was
to bridge the gap between mainstream health clubs (which I have an aversion to)
and traditional spit and sawdust gyms (which I enjoy training in). People generally have a straight choice
between the two, both of which I feel are missing something, and I wanted to
provide a hybrid of both.
What’s your inspiration for doing what you do?
Honestly, now, it’s my two children. I do recognize how cheesy and clichéd that
answer is, but if nothing else comes of my time doing what I’m doing, at the
very least I’ll be able to pass down some solid education and beliefs about
health and fitness to my kids.
From a broader perspective, I also wholeheartedly believe that if we can
positively influence others around us to live better we will live in a
healthier and happier community.
What’s the most important factor in your own
development as a professional?
My own continued learning and
interaction with people whom I learn from and who challenge me. I also continue to apply and
re-experiment with everything I learn.
Who is your clientele?
Most of our clients are
regular folk who want to ‘get into shape’. The rest are
personal trainers and the odd (a description which applies to most of our lot!)
person in the public eye. The
majority of our members come to us with general health and/or body composition
goals. We don’t necessarily
promote ourselves as a rapid body transformation gym (although we do some of
that stuff) so most of our members are long term folk who I think it’s fair to
say are much fitter, stronger and healthier than your average gym goer.
What is your method?
Methods and systems drive me
mad if I’m honest, they are polluting the industry. I understand that we all need to make a living out of this
and that that requires a degree of self promotion and a need to try and
differentiate one’s self in a competitive market, but most people’s systems and
methods (there are exceptions) are of load of PR driven bollocks. You cannot apply the same ‘system’ to
everyone for every goal, it doesn’t work like that unfortunately, you have to
use the best training and nutritional approach for the person and their goals
at a given time.
For the most part we use a
conjugate training approach. Most of our members train two to four times per week
and are after fat loss and general fitness. A typical workout would include movement prep work, some strength
training, into some more volume based assistance/corrective/prehab work. We might then finish with some
metabolic conditioning. The time
we dedicate to each would depend on the person and their goals.
How do assess your clients’ needs?
We evaluate all of our
clients. What we do is simple, but
it’s effective. We use a fairly sophisticated
body composition testing system and we take postural photographs. We might also do circumference
measurements. We then do a basic
length/tension evaluation, an overhead squat assessment and a gym based
movement assessment looking at ability to squat, split squat, push, pull, bend
and basic core stability. If we
find anything that we’re not sure about, or if someone has acute pain, we
always refer out to our chiropractic partner who will screen and/or scan at a
deeper level.
My feeling on evaluations is
that most people do them because it’s ‘what trainers do’, but it doesn’t
actually have any bearing on how they programme for people, which strikes me as
a bit of a waste of everyone’s time.
There’s too much intellectual masturbation that goes on in this area
(I’ve been there), but in reality ‘more’ rarely improves the experience or
outcomes for a healthy client.
The longer you work at this,
the easier it is to evaluate people.
There is an argument for simply using training as the evaluation.
Do you deal with all aspects of your clients?
Nutrition, Training, Psychological?
I think any successful
personal trainer needs to offer a 360 service if they want to be successful,
which does involve training, nutrition and psychology. However, we also need to recognize what
our limitations are and how far our scope of practice extends.
We work with training and nutrition
and do our best to educate, influence and openly and honestly communicate with
the people we work with. Beyond
this, we have a functional medicine practitioner who can look at nutrition and
diagnostics to a deeper level and a chiropractor who helps us with physical
aspects. Psychology might be the
most important part of the whole thing.
My perception (and our member results suggest) that we do a pretty good
job in this area, although perhaps there is a place for behavioral change
specialists in the personal training industry.
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| W10 Gym |
What
do you say to clients/athletes who aren’t making progress as quickly as they
would expect?
The most important part of any trainer/gym and
client/member relationship is setting expectations. All too often people do not align their behaviors to their
goals. We’re very clear
about what people can/should expect given the time they have available and what
they’re actually prepared to do.
We do this visually with our ‘six pack spectrum’ and our ‘get slim
spectrum’ (essentially the same thing), which helps hugely. If you’re not prepared to change you
behaviors, you have to modify your goals or expectations.
How
do you deal with clients who are not motivated when they come to train?
We either turn them around and show them back out the
door or we give them an ‘extended’ warm up (think airdyne + burpee pyramids),
depending on the reason that they are lacking motivation.
Who
are the top 5 experts in fitness and strength in the world?
Difficult to say definitively as there are so many
different areas and people whom you can take bits from.
What
are your top 5 nutrition tips?
We all know the basics right, but working with
regular folk we never seem to need to stop re-emphasizing these. Stay hydrated, eat nutrient dense foods,
get adequate fibre, get adequate protein, limit or eliminate wheat. At a base level we keep things simple, as
that’s all that most people need, but we do enjoy delving into more involved
nutritional programmes when appropriate.
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| Rest period before the next set! |
Top
5 tips for results?
Make a firm commitment, have
a clear goal(s), immerse yourself in a solid support network, involve a good
coach, and stick to the programme.
Do you specialize in a particular area?
We specialize in helping
people get the results that they want from their programme. This means something different to
everyone but we definitely help people meet their expectations.
One of the elements of our industry that we believe to
be underdeveloped is proper youth training - do you train younger members of
the public?
We train a few young people. With younger athletes we focus on
developing quality movement and technique, whilst doing the best we can to
convince them the nutrition and recovery are as important as training! With young people in general I thing that
the key is in education, which I firmly believe starts with us as parents. Young people will adopt beliefs and
behaviors and whatever we are trying to instill in them
needs to be an extension of the example they are set.
What
would say is the most important factor in training the youth?
Education.
What
is wrong with the big conglomerate gyms of today?
Where do I start? Every aspect of these places is top
notch, except that is for the actual gym.
There are exceptions, but my experience for the most part is that the
training culture and training standards lag far behind those of small
independent set ups. The bottom
line is that as soon as your reason for doing this becomes about the bottom
line, you are very unlikely to deliver on the training and results front. A successful training business has to
be built on a passion for what you do.
What’s
next for you and your company?
We’re in the process of trying
to finalize a move to bigger premises, which we’re hoping will become a reality
later this year. We’re also
setting up a community based social enterprise project, which we’re hoping will
raise awareness of exercise and healthy living in our community, something
we’re very excited about. Beyond
that, let’s see!
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