Asian Trainers
Longtime readers of this blog know that I have a background as a strength and physique trainer. I have an older blog called Strength and Physique, where I discuss all things strength and bodybuilding. I have readers of all ethnicities and backgrounds, but I noticed that a lot of my readers gravitated towards me because I was an Asian male. The very fact that I was an Asian male with a strength training background was novel to them. They needed an Asian male to relate to concerning advice about weightlifting and diet.
My previous post Strength Training for the Asian Lifter is still my most popular post on this blog. Since then, a lot of Asian American men have gotten into the "PT on the Web" biz. I was reminded of this when 8 Asians posted some blurb about some accountant who's now going to play for the Miami Dolphins. The accountant's trainer was Chad Ikei.
I remember Chad Ikei, because he worked with Charles Poliquin and actually posed for an article that Poliquin wrote on back exercises. Chad is a strong guy and really knows his stuff. But I got to tell you that I hate the way he's selling himself. Take a look at his website and take note of what you see:
Ikei Performance.
That's right. You saw correctly. Half naked samurai warriors who aren't even Japanese. This is sort of a common marketing strategy among PT's: equating discipline and strength in the gym with the warrior spirit. Everybody's familiar with the 300 workout or the Spartacus workout. People think if they do these workouts, then they'll sport the gladiator physique.
It's the same mentality with these samurai workouts. It's actually a common theme. A trainer at this facility (where I used to train my clients at) asked me for some advice on supplementing his personal training business with magazine articles and books. I gave him some advice, and he began publishing articles at the same sites that I had published. But he also resorted to marketing his Asian heritage by channeling the samurai: Samurai Strategies for Strength
This guy, Nate Miyaki, used to work the wrestling circuit as well as the Kamikaze Kid:
As you can see, Nate is a phenomenal acrobatic athlete. I always saw him doing Capoeira moves at the gym. Now I don't knock these guys for trying to market and brand themselves. Hell, my strength blog says, "Personal training for the professional warrior." I'm channeling the warrior spirit too. But I cringe every time I see Asian trainers trying to market themselves by pointing out their Asian-ness.
Asian men shouldn't have special back workouts or special chest workouts. It's not like Asian guys are a different species with different anatomies and different physiologies. There may be differences in size, hormones and diet, but the same workout advice applies, regardless if you're Asian or not. It's more important to recognize body type as opposed to race. So if you're a skinny Asian dude who wants to put on muscle, then you'd follow the same advice as a skinny white guy or a skinny Black guy.
As I told Byron on the Big WoWo podcast: Everybody takes the same path in achieving a strong physique. It's just that the path is longer for some than for others. Byron pointed out this other Asian trainer who specializes strength training for MMA. Note the chop suey font: Eric Wong.
Again, not knocking his expertise. I just cringe every time I see the chop suey font. You might as well bang the gongs while you're at it. At least he redeems himself by doing one arm push ups. You're not a man unless you can do one arm push ups!
So as you can see, there are plenty of Asian trainers on the Web. As far as Web trainers, Mike Chang is probably the most famous. For the longest time I got Mike Chang mixed up with this other trainer and thought to myself, "The gay Asian trainer is really popular now." Lo and behold, I was getting Mike Chang mixed up with Peter Fever:
While Mike Chang and Peter Fever are extremely popular, their popularity pales in comparison to the popularity of yoga instructor Rodney Yee
Part of my expertise as a personal trainer is tactical fitness or tacfit for short. In other words, one of my specialties is strength and conditioning for the "professional warrior." Law enforcement, military and public safety in general. Modern day warriors, not those of the past. So my own workouts are a combination of the power lifts (bench press, deadlift and squat variations), explosive lifts (kettlebell clean and press, snatches), calisthenics (pull-up variations, dips, hanging leg raise and one arm push ups) and joint mobility and health. One of the training goals of a professional warrior is to have a high power to weight ratio. In other words, you have to be strong, but be extremely lean.
Gymnasts have great power to weight ratios. Here's one trainer that I subscribe to that shows you how to do gymnastic exercises:
My previous post Strength Training for the Asian Lifter is still my most popular post on this blog. Since then, a lot of Asian American men have gotten into the "PT on the Web" biz. I was reminded of this when 8 Asians posted some blurb about some accountant who's now going to play for the Miami Dolphins. The accountant's trainer was Chad Ikei.
I remember Chad Ikei, because he worked with Charles Poliquin and actually posed for an article that Poliquin wrote on back exercises. Chad is a strong guy and really knows his stuff. But I got to tell you that I hate the way he's selling himself. Take a look at his website and take note of what you see:
Ikei Performance.
That's right. You saw correctly. Half naked samurai warriors who aren't even Japanese. This is sort of a common marketing strategy among PT's: equating discipline and strength in the gym with the warrior spirit. Everybody's familiar with the 300 workout or the Spartacus workout. People think if they do these workouts, then they'll sport the gladiator physique.
It's the same mentality with these samurai workouts. It's actually a common theme. A trainer at this facility (where I used to train my clients at) asked me for some advice on supplementing his personal training business with magazine articles and books. I gave him some advice, and he began publishing articles at the same sites that I had published. But he also resorted to marketing his Asian heritage by channeling the samurai: Samurai Strategies for Strength
This guy, Nate Miyaki, used to work the wrestling circuit as well as the Kamikaze Kid:
As you can see, Nate is a phenomenal acrobatic athlete. I always saw him doing Capoeira moves at the gym. Now I don't knock these guys for trying to market and brand themselves. Hell, my strength blog says, "Personal training for the professional warrior." I'm channeling the warrior spirit too. But I cringe every time I see Asian trainers trying to market themselves by pointing out their Asian-ness.
Asian men shouldn't have special back workouts or special chest workouts. It's not like Asian guys are a different species with different anatomies and different physiologies. There may be differences in size, hormones and diet, but the same workout advice applies, regardless if you're Asian or not. It's more important to recognize body type as opposed to race. So if you're a skinny Asian dude who wants to put on muscle, then you'd follow the same advice as a skinny white guy or a skinny Black guy.
As I told Byron on the Big WoWo podcast: Everybody takes the same path in achieving a strong physique. It's just that the path is longer for some than for others. Byron pointed out this other Asian trainer who specializes strength training for MMA. Note the chop suey font: Eric Wong.
Again, not knocking his expertise. I just cringe every time I see the chop suey font. You might as well bang the gongs while you're at it. At least he redeems himself by doing one arm push ups. You're not a man unless you can do one arm push ups!
So as you can see, there are plenty of Asian trainers on the Web. As far as Web trainers, Mike Chang is probably the most famous. For the longest time I got Mike Chang mixed up with this other trainer and thought to myself, "The gay Asian trainer is really popular now." Lo and behold, I was getting Mike Chang mixed up with Peter Fever:
While Mike Chang and Peter Fever are extremely popular, their popularity pales in comparison to the popularity of yoga instructor Rodney Yee
Part of my expertise as a personal trainer is tactical fitness or tacfit for short. In other words, one of my specialties is strength and conditioning for the "professional warrior." Law enforcement, military and public safety in general. Modern day warriors, not those of the past. So my own workouts are a combination of the power lifts (bench press, deadlift and squat variations), explosive lifts (kettlebell clean and press, snatches), calisthenics (pull-up variations, dips, hanging leg raise and one arm push ups) and joint mobility and health. One of the training goals of a professional warrior is to have a high power to weight ratio. In other words, you have to be strong, but be extremely lean.
Gymnasts have great power to weight ratios. Here's one trainer that I subscribe to that shows you how to do gymnastic exercises:
Comments
Just wanted to make a short comment on the recent post about Asian Trainers on your blog. James is a good guy, an awesome coach and author, and a great representative of the Asian community. He was very generous in helping me get started with my writing career.
So this is in no way mean to be critical, but I feel like I was slightly misrepresented in this piece as trying to take advantage of m...y heritage. To be fair, I can see how it might come off that way, but I feel I deserve a chance to explain.
(1) With my time touring as the Kamikaze Kid, the characters and scripts were created by writers, and were completely out of my control. Because of my wrestling style, I think the writers wanted to capture the fact that I would endanger myself with acrobatic moves to get a victory, more so than my Japanese heritage itself. In fact my tag partner was Italian.
(2) There were several articles in the motivational series, Samurai Strategies for Strength was only one of them. I also had a piece which was the Riddle of Steel (which pulled from Conan the Barbarian of all things), and other pieces that quoted Bruce Lee. My overall approach is to pull from all philosophies that I am interested in, including from within my half Japanese heritage, and completely outside of it. Here is a post that explains that if you are interested: http://natemiyaki.com/2011/05/12/legends/
I am proud of my heritage, I am personally interested in the philosophy of Musashi and of samurai warriors in general, and I believe these teachings can help people with their fitness pursuits (and life in general) regardless of their ethnic or cultural background. So I do include them in my overall approach.
If anyone feels this is an attempt at exploiting my heritage, I really do apologize, and just want you to know this is not my intent.
I featured the above trainers, because they are excellent trainers. Their skill and expertise should sell their services. But I wanted to point out a particular branding and marketing amongst trainers, particularly those of Asian descent.