Meet Personal Trainer Dean Jamieson
Personal Trainer Dean Jamieson talks about himself, his passion for health and fitness, and more! Click here to watch the full interview.
Who are you and what do you do?
Dean Jamieson: Who am I and what do I do? I run a personal training business, obviously. A few different aspects to the business is, well, online is one of the big parts of the business now. Everything is online these days. I train people pretty much all over the world. A couple of people in Qatar, people in New York, people in Italy, people in London, some of the places and locations that are training online with me at the moment. What do I concentrate on? I usually concentrate mostly on fat loss, fat loss and performance. Obviously, getting people lean and getting people into shape, we do that by good nutrition protocols and good, hard, targeted in specific training. All online programs are individualized. There is no one size fits all approach to the online stuff. They are all done on an individualized basis.
Take us through how that works. How does the online system work? How is it individualized?
Dean Jamieson: They’ll log onto my website and under the Programs tab, they’ll click in. They will then fill out a series of questions. That will get shot through to me. I’ll look through the answers to the questions and that will give me a good indication of where they’re at with their training, what their goal is, what they want to achieve, whether they’ve got injuries, what they’re doing for their training currently. That will give me a good basis on what needs to happen moving forward. I might email them back with a few more questions that I’ve got to ask, and then I will begin to build them a program on what they’ve told me in regards to goals and what they’re trying to do specifically.
What kind of percentage do you have on your online clients and localized? You’re in Sydney right?
Dean Jamieson: I’m in Sydney, yes. The focus of my business at the moment is currently online. To put a percentage on that, I don’t know right off the top of my head, but a big focus for me is online and helping people all over the world achieve what they want to achieve in regards to their body composition and improving their treatment.
How did you get into the industry in the first place? Take us right back when you started
Dean Jamieson: I go back eight or nine years ago now. When I first started in the industry, I never thought I would be around this long. I just thought I would start out with it and see how it went. I come from a Rugby League background. I played semi-professional rugby league in Australia and in the U.K. So that’s really how I started. Obviously, a love for training and a love for health and fitness, that’s the way I started. I sort of got into it organically. I wanted to work in that industry as well so I became a personal trainer. I’ve been a trainer all over the world, Australia, England, Ireland. I’ve worked in different gyms all over the world. It gives me a good experience and good insight as to where and what other countries are doing as well in training and health and nutrition.
How does it differ training these top athletes as supposed to an average joe?
Dean Jamieson: Great question, if you’re just training the general population, they’re not as professional. Everyone likes to train harder and where I’m living in Cronulla, everyone likes to look good. It’s a big suburb. I am in here, because I guess is, the programming for your training would be a little bit different, obviously. With the guys, you’ve got a couple of different times of the year. You’ve got your pre-season and your year-end season. When they train pre-season, they train four or five days a week in the gym, whereas in season, they might do two or three days, whereas your general population, they can train every day. They’re not having to worry about games on the weekend and their recovering from games and things like that.
Yeah, long days, long days, but if you want to be a personal trainer, that’s what it does involve. People want to train when they’re obviously not working. The majority of the people work nine to five so you are not going to train a lot of people through those nine to five hours. You’re training them before they work or after work.
Give us some reasons why your clients may fail or plateau or struggle to hit their fitness goals. What are some of their common reasons?
Dean Jamieson: A lot of it comes back to mindset, especially when it’s a fat loss goal or a body composition goal. They’re trying to lose a little bit of weight or lose a little bit of body fat. I think you’ve got to be prepared mentally for that. You use the word fat a lot, you get fat. If they don’t get as good as results as what they would have hoped for, I think you’ve got to look at their mindset and see how accountable to their goal, where they actually kept and how much did they actually want to achieve. When a client comes into me and sits down with me, first up I ask them simply, “What are your goals? On a scale of one to ten, how badly do you want to achieve them?” If they’re answering that question on a two or a three, they’re probably not that serious about changing their bodies or wanting to succeed. But, if it’s a ten, you know that they’re going to be ready mentally to succeed with what they want to achieve.
Do you have any tips or suggestion for anyone who is looking to get into the industry for the first time? So a personal trainer want-to-be, any tips?
Dean Jamieson: It would be prepared to wake up early, be prepared to work long hours. It might sound great having the middle of the day off, but you’ve got to be productive in those hours as well. That’s why I enjoy doing the online stuff as well. You’re working early and you’re working late, but that gives you something to really do in the middle of the day as well and something to aim at. You’ve got to love training and you’ve got to love fitness and the health and nutrition yourself. Practice what you preach. That’s what I would tell someone who is looking to start out in the fitness industry. You’re not going to know everything overnight. I’ve been in it eight or nine years now, and I’m still learning every day. Continue to learn is what I would say to someone that is going to try and start out.
Do you have any useful resources, tools, or books or anything that you could recommend that maybe you’ve read recently?
Dean Jamieson: I think in this day and age with the net the way it is, there’s a lot of good guys in the industry, a lot of guys with a lot more experience than myself putting out very valuable information. There’s a whole heap of guys that I look up to in regards to health, fitness and nutrition. The Australian Strength and Conditioning Association, they’re a great one. I can’t speak highly enough of them. Guys in America like Alan Aragon who puts out unbelievable nutrition information. There are so, so many guys. You’ve just got to find your niche and find who suits you as well, and if you’re running a business, what you’re business goals are. You’ll be able to find someone like these guys who can help you and who do put out a lot of free information as well.
Yeah, look him up. He puts out a lot of good info. He’s known to be a guy who does a lot with nutrition and more so with flexible nutrition and flexible dieting. Look him up. He puts out some really good stuff.
Dean Jamieson talking about his business partner…
It’s funny, my partner, we work together and we run the group training stuff together, we do a lot together, he’s actually a diabetic. He helps people get in shape who have diabetes. Obviously, they’ve got different needs for different nutritional needs, so he helps a lot of people with that. He does a really good job with people with diabetes actually.
Where can people get in touch with you in the future if they want?
Dean Jamieson: If you want to get in touch with me, you can get in touch with me at DeanJamiesonpt.com.au or you can get in touch with me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I’m on them all, Dean Jamieson PT. Come and find me. Say hello. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions either.
