The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Join Chris Hitchko, author of 'How to Become A Successful Personal Trainer' VOL 2 and CEO of Show Up Fitness as he guides personal trainers towards success.
90% of personal trainers quit within 12-months in the USA, 18-months in the UK, Show Up Fitness is helping change those statistics. The Show Up Fitness CPT is one of the fastest growing PT certifications in the world with partnerships with over 500-gyms including Life Time Fitness, Equinox, Genesis, EoS, and numerous other elite partnerships.
This podcast focuses on refining trade, business, and people skills to help trainers excel in the fitness industry. Discover effective client programming, revenue generation, medical professional networking, and elite assessment strategies.
Learn how to become a successful Show Up Fitness CPT at www.showupfitness.com. Send your questions to Chris on Instagram @showupfitness or via email at info@showupfitness.com."
The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Glucose Tablets: The MOST important thing personal trainers should carry at ALL TIMES
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Glucose tablets—the one essential item every personal trainer should carry at all times. This seemingly simple tool can mean the difference between a successful training session and a medical emergency.
In this eye-opening conversation, we dive deep into real-life scenarios where client safety was compromised when blood glucose levels plummeted during workouts. From Will, who nearly passed out after a night of drinking and insufficient sleep, to a 250-pound student who lost consciousness completely, these stories highlight the critical importance of being prepared for emergencies.
Trainers often face a unique challenge: clients who underreport their limitations. Men especially tend to push through discomfort, claiming they're "fine" while their body is screaming for help. The signs are there if you know what to look for—loss of color in the face, incoherent speech, or dizziness. When these symptoms appear, glucose tablets provide the fastest route to recovery, as they're rapidly absorbed through the sublingual gland directly into the bloodstream.
Beyond emergency preparedness, we discuss how asking the right questions before each session can prevent these situations entirely. "How did you sleep? Did you eat today? Any alcohol last night?" These simple inquiries can inform your training approach and potentially save lives. The difference between certified trainers and qualified professionals lies in this comprehensive understanding of human physiology and client management.
As we work to elevate the perception of personal training from just "posting TNA pics online" to a respected profession, these practical skills matter more than ever. Show Up Fitness is changing the industry one qualified trainer at a time, equipping professionals to earn substantially more than the industry average while providing truly transformative client experiences.
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People think trainers are idiots. We just post TNA pics online all day and it's not a respectable career. But when you focus on where trainers lack and the industry lacks, you are a unicorn, and I am proud to say that we are changing the industry. One qualified, certified trainer at a time. Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the Show Fitness Podcast.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking about the one thing every personal trainer should carry on them at all times, and I'm not talking about just in the gym, could be outside, or if you traveled to your client's house. The one thing you may be thinking has to be blood pressure. Cuff, right, we need to monitor hypertension. It could be a greater than 140 over 90, top number being systolic that's how hard the heart contracts, diastolic being the bottom number, how hard the heart relaxes. The silent killer is it blood pressure cuff? It is not Super important to take part of the assessment and monitor for clients that do have elevated blood pressure. You want to be mindful of doing exercises on the ground, hopping back up, squeezing things real hard. Don't want to have your client to have a heart attack on your watch.
Speaker 1:Doesn't look good on the resume. What could it be? I know Chris is big into the grip strength. It's one of the standards of the week. If you're online with the show up in a CPT or in person in Santa Monica, it's one of the first things that we test. It is a great indicator of longevity. People living to be a hundred plus have more grip strength. As we age. Dynopenia kicks in Loss of power due to age. The ability to squeeze that dynamometer as hard as you can is an awesome indication of longevity. As I just said I'm repeating myself, I've had a couple of cups of coffee. It's a better test than doing some type of VO2 max test. It's more effective, it's more efficient and it's a better indicator of living to be a hundred plus.
Speaker 1:So why wouldn't we be doing that? If you are a hunk and you're a personal trainer, you should be squeezing greater than 130 when it comes to pounds, and then, for ladies, you hunkettes 90. That's one of the show-up strength and conditioning standards that we have. Are you strong enough to be a trainer? You should be testing that regularly. Oh my God, I'm on the edge of my seat. What could it be, chris? Let me tell you a little story.
Speaker 1:This last weekend in Austin, nick showed up. He's a trainer at Crunch. I worked with him over 12 years ago when I was teaching an NPTI. We have recently partnered with them so we can now say that our certification is partnered with the two best gyms in the world Equinox and Lifetime, as well as the number one best personal training school, npti. We let bygones be bygones in the past and the little drama that we had we swept it under the bridge and now we are linking up to help trainers become qualified. So if you want that long-term hands-on learning experience, six-month program there's numerous locations throughout the nation and also international. Our buddy, jorge, down there in South America, jorge, is the owner of an NPTI in Quito. We want to do a seminar internationally this year. That's one of our goals to get to a country we've never been to. Could it be Quito, could it be Colombia, uk, maybe Canada? We will see. Oh, I hope I have you on the edge of your seats.
Speaker 1:Nick went through my program over 12 years ago and in his class there was an incident that happened and I remember vividly. It was Heather and Will, and when you pair up trainers, you get this hands-on learning part of MPTI, so it's a cool experience. It's not the same as training a client, though, because your clients typically aren't in great shape. So what happened in lab that day? It'll be about three or four hours of going over anatomy, programming and so forth, and then two hours of the practical. You train one another and Heather was taking Will through the workout. And then two hours of the practical you train one another and Heather was taking Will through the workout, and I remember walking around helping people with their form, adding some trainer engagement, getting them to think about their exercise selection, and I glanced over at the room and I saw them staring at each other. Heather was a deer in the headlights, will was white as hell, and I knew exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:Guys have that thing called ego. We're a bunch of dipshits. So when you ask a guy, how are we doing during a workout. He could be on his last breath, last heartbeat. He's going to give you a thumbs up. I'm good, I'm good, push me harder, go, go, go and as a newer trainer, you're going to listen to it. We got to annihilate our clients, right. So she was asking Will how he's holding up, but she didn't ask, as we later found out that Will got after it the night before, drank a little too much, didn't sleep that well.
Speaker 1:Alcohol shoots up your body temp. You're not able to get into that deep REM. Cortisol's running amok. It's going to mess with everything. So you wake up, you don't eat and then you show up to class. Wasn't drinking a lot of water, so not only was he dehydrated, hungover, he didn't have fuel in his system. Glucose levels are low. Uh-oh, there's my hit right there. Let's see if you can guess it.
Speaker 1:Every trainer should keep with them glucose tablets, because you got a really cool gland under your tongue, similar to the subscapularis. Sub meets underneath the sublingual gland. If you go to a Mexican food restaurant and you order some lingua, that is tongue. If you go to a Mexican food restaurant and you order some lingua that is tongue, bilingual means you can speak two tongues. You have a sublingual gland. Maybe sometimes you're eating and you get some water that comes out like a snake. You're gleeking. My brothers and I would always gleek on one another. Growing up in a household full of boys, we just liked to piss each other off so you could gleek. It was a privilege. That gland allows for immediate absorption into the bloodstream. So Will's blood glucose levels were significantly low and he kept on just saying he was okay and okay, I'm okay.
Speaker 1:When you're doing a squat your quads, your glutes, your adductors, all things you got to know, part of the agonist and synergist to get your certification with the qualified show-up fitness CPT you do some pushups. You're getting your chest, anterior, deltoid triceps, serratus anterior A lot of muscles are taking in glucose. So your brain starts getting a little woozy. Starts getting a little woozy. It's common to go white. The color from his face just dropped. So he needed immediate fuel. Guess what wouldn't work very well A protein shake water, because we need glucose If you wanted to be healthy and you gave him that Saratoga water. It's the best out there. That guy did the morning routine. It's heaven.
Speaker 1:Wouldn't do shit sometimes this is referred to as growth hormone-induced vomiting if you were to throw up because all those hormones are running amok in your system. So what we did? I said, heather, go sit down over there because you're freaking them out. Gave them a couple pills and these things are just pure glucose. 60 calories per four tablets. I'm not going to be counting your macros on this. We're talking about bringing you back to life. Literally 15 grams of carbohydrate, it's just pure glucose. And what this does is it gets into your system and it brings you back to life literally, because what can happen is you pass out.
Speaker 1:It's very common for your eyes to flutter in the back of your head and in these situations, probably the worst thing you could do is allow for your client to go to the bathroom. Hmm, why is that, chris? Think about it If you're training a dude and you're a female and the guy goes to the bathroom, he's probably going to go into the stall maybe. Splash some water on his face he gets woozy, he passes out, hits his head on the toilet dead. Splash some water on his face he gets woozy, he passes out, hits his head on the toilet dead. Not a good thing. We don't want that resume. To say you trained 2,300 people successfully with one death does not look good. I doubt you'd get hired at Lifetime and Equinox if that was the case.
Speaker 1:So to prevent that understand, guys are idiots, one but two to have a better read on when your client is hitting that edge and about to fall off. So when you're asking them questions if they're not communicating as well. That's why the talk test is a great example of where they're at. If they're huffing and puffing and they're not having a conversation with you, they can't get the words out. The intensity is probably a little too high. So bring it back, allow for them to talk and then get back into the next set. It's always difficult because we want to crush our clients, because we think they absolutely have to sweat and they have to get that burn because that's what society says is right. They told me during the assessment they take F45 and they love the intensity. So you listen to your client and you push them to what you think is a high intense level, but they can't handle it.
Speaker 1:You have to remember the average person overestimates how hard they exercise. They also underestimate how much they consume. I only eat 1500 calories. Bullshit, francine. You're probably getting 2700, because that's what the average American's getting. It's actually a thousand calories more closer to 4,000, freaking calories.
Speaker 1:We're not calling them out and saying you're an idiot, you're lying, but you have to know this. Just like when you go to the doctor and you say how many drinks did you have this week? One to two, three to four, five to six. Everyone goes one to two. Doctors know that you're lying. These are things that, as trainers, we need to know and have a good understanding. And this is what the problem is with the entry standards. You don't get this information in a textbook You're not going to read about Will, who's about to pass out and die because he drank too much, didn't sleep well and didn't report these findings to the trainer.
Speaker 1:Water won't do anything. Protein won't do anything because it takes long to break down and get into your bloodstream. Glucose tablets will get into your bloodstream extremely fast. If you had soda, that would work. Grape juice, orange juice typically, fluids are best. I also remember vividly there was a nurse in that same class because she said another thing that you could keep on you are lollipops because you put it in your mouth and you swirl it around.
Speaker 1:Now, if you give someone something like a cliff bar, that's better than nothing, but if they pass out and they fall over and most of the time we pass out going backwards you could have your neck hyper-extended and now you have this bolus in the back of your throat which would most likely cause some type of choking. So we want to avoid that. Having them get something into their system as quickly as possible, keep their mind entertained. If this was the first time that you've had this happen, talk about things that are likely that they're going to experience because they're internalizing. They're thinking oh my God, my heart is fluttering, feels like my heart is in my throat, I'm cold. I don't have much feeling in my hands that can set off an anxiety attack. So let them know these are the symptoms you're probably experiencing. I know it's scary, but this is because the high intensity and the lack of glucose in your system.
Speaker 1:It's even common to get some flurries in your eyesight. I remember one time in Walnut Creek I did some hill sprints and I hadn't done them in ages and my heart rate must have been at max capacity because I did about 10 rounds. And I went back home and I took a shower and I remember in the shower I got really woozy and I lost half of my sight, called my pops, as you always do, actually. I called my mom and my dad answered. I said, dad, I just did this crazy workout and I'm feeling really woozy. I don't know if I should go to the hospital or what. I lost half my vision and he laughed and he said ha nice, knowing you, son, you're probably going to die. I remember that conversation vividly. I didn't die but he said just get some glucose in it, you're going to be fine. All the great things you learned from your parents. I remember I had a cup of orange juice and very quickly I felt better. Gatorade would be awesome, but there needs to be calories.
Speaker 1:I had another incident which was very scary. Student came in about 240, 50 pounds, big dude and they're working out going through the practical and the student passed out that's 250 pounds of dead weight. And I remember bringing the guy back, kind of slapping him around, checked his radial pulse Wasn't there. Checked his brachial pulse Wasn't there. The last one you check carotid. You don't want to go straight to the carotid because that's blood flow going to your brain. You go there last and if there was no pulse, got to call 911, get the AED. Go through that scary situation. But he had a pulse. So we just waited and as he came back his eyes were fluttering. It was scary and I'm thinking, holy shit, this dude's going to die. Gave him some glucose tablets, chewed up, he slowly started coming back. I could tell his words weren't there. He's just kind of soaking in that experience. Super, super scary.
Speaker 1:I said, hey, buddy, how are we doing? This is perfectly normal, everything's all right. It's always great when you have a girl around too, because women and their natural motherly instinct rubbing the back, whispering sweet nothings remind you of your mom and it just makes you feel better. So I remember I had a student that was rubbing his back. Everything's okay, this is perfectly normal. You have to say those things because it calms down the anxieties. What's going on, buddy? Everything all right, you know just, oh man, you can just tell he was freaked out. I just flew back yesterday from Hawaii. I'm okay. What's the big deal about Hawaii?
Speaker 1:He went scuba diving and they tell you not to travel. I believe it was like 24 hours within scuba diving because of your blood levels they get a little more nitrate than the normal and so you can just get this kind of cocktail effect and get a little woozy and because of the change in altitude he came back in. He came to the class. It was just too much too fast. It took him about 30 minutes to come back to reality. I remember he was speaking some nonsense because his glucose levels were super low. That was a very, very scary situation the closest I've ever been to calling 911.
Speaker 1:Now these things can all be avoided by asking the right questions every single time your client comes in. How are we feeling? Did we eat? How did we sleep? Did we do anything last night? If it's the first assessment, we have a very thorough process, but you have to remember every time a client comes in that's how you start, because they could have went out last night and got after it. We're probably going to have elevated hormone levels that are not optimal for the workout. So you just have to take it a little slow. It doesn't mean you're just going to foam roll for an hour, but as you gain the practical experience through the years of training, you will know when it's normal and not normal and maybe it's time to give your client a glucose tablet.
Speaker 1:We keep them at our gym and it's funny because some of your clients just pop them like they're candy, because they taste good. They're little chewables. But I also will take it with them for the first time because it doesn't make them feel weird. They're thinking well, this pill, is it a roofie? I don't know. So you take it with them, chew it, because they taste good. They're a little piece of candy. One tablet's going to be barely 15 calories. It's not going to mess up your macro calculations. Do it for respect and be empathetic for your client. So now you know, get some glucose tablets. I don't have any relationship with any glucose companies. The one I'm looking at right now is called True Plus. You can usually get two or three bottles which have 50 tablets like 20, 30 bucks. Highly highly recommend you take these and keep them on you at all times.
Speaker 1:We're going to be in San Francisco this weekend for our next seminar Saturday and Sunday, 12 to five Really excited to go over some special populations and clients. We have a student who went through our program a while back. She now opened up her gym. Shout out to Glenda. I plan on doing a live podcast while we're there. She has her own gym and she had some special populations come in that we're going to address. We're going to be in Sacramento at the end of the month. I know I say this every time, but I think this will be our best seminar at the end of the month, because we're going to be celebrating some milestones that you just don't see. We got Mr Joseph Knowlton. He got hired at Lifetime less than two years ago, moved up to team lead. Now he's opening a Lifetime gym in Sacramento within two years. It would take most trainers in that situation eight to 10 years.
Speaker 1:You go through show up, you level yourself up. You are doing things in literally a 10th of the time. So when people say you got to go gain experience five, six years in a gym, no show up Trainers are doing it in one show up. Trainers are getting hired at the best gyms and becoming the top trainer within two, three months. You do not see that. How is that possible? When they say it's too good to be true, it must not be, oh, but this is Because trainers lack confidence with the sales process and they lack competence. And when you are competent in movement and you know your anatomy and you have the partnerships with doctors and physical therapists and RDs, chiropractors, massage therapists, you have the Mario star. You literally can train any body, because that's the difference between a qualified trainer and your average certified trainer. You understand the human body. The average trainer barely understands their own. So if you want to level up your career, I'll say that slimy car salesman stuff, make a hundred thousand. But that's what's happening. Did you know the average therapist, physical therapist, the true DPTs they're barely making 70K their first year. We're having trainers make 30, 40% more, because this career is 100% sustainable If you focus where most lack being competent in movement, in programming the assessments, understanding your clientele. In programming the assessments, understanding your clientele, people skills all things that we teach you within the show fitness, cpt. We also have our soft tissue. That's what we teach at the seminars and we have a nutrition certification. You are going to level yourself up, making streams of revenue, becoming a qualified personal trainer.
Speaker 1:Make sure to throw that five-star review into your story. We are picking lucky winners weekly to get prizes, swag, free, certification, cash. When you throw that review into your story, it is helping bring awareness to the world that this is a career. You are not a joke. You should be passionate and proud to tell your significant other, your parents I'm a personal trainer. I am making a difference. I love what I do and, by the way, I'm going to be paying for dinner because I make a lot of freaking money and obviously you're not going to say that. But people think trainers are idiots. We just post TNA pics online all day and it's not a respectable career. But when you focus on where trainers lack and the industry lacks, you are a unicorn and I am proud to say that we are changing the industry, one qualified, certified trainer at a time. It's all about showing up and remember big biceps are better than small ones, and keep showing up.