 Don Evans, CPT
With over 30 years experience teaching and training, Don Evans uses knowledge and skills gained through education and experience to equip clients with the tools necessary to achieve the highest potential for fitness and well-being. Don emphasizes teaching clients how to take control of their personal health and lifestyle habits so they can make a constant, deliberate effort to achieve health and fitness.
After graduating cum laude from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physical Education, Don spent years teaching and coaching in public education from elementary to high school before expanding his expertise with a Masters Degree in Psychology and certification as a personal trainer from the American Counsel on Exercise. He has taught and coached football, basketball and track, weight training and various lifetime sports activities. In addition to teaching in public schools, he has worked as a fitness instructor for several health and fitness companies.
An avid practitioner of his philosophy of fitness, Don trains aerobically and with weights and machines five to six days a week. He has completed the Atlanta Marathon and competed in numerous 10 and 5 K events. He now teaches and trains while developing Fitness Education and Training (FEAT) Consulting Services in Marietta, Georgia.
Questions and Answers
with Don Evans
Below Don explains how he got into the business of personal training,
his overall approach with clients, his fitness philosophies and more.
Q: Why did you choose to become a personal trainer?
A: I chose to become a personal trainer, because I wanted to acquire the knowledge
and skills that would enable me to help people reach their health and fitness goals.
Q: How are you different then other personal trainers? What is your specialty?
A: I specialize in teaching people who are unfamiliar with exercise how to take control of their personal exercise, health, and lifestyle habits so they can make a constant, deliberate effort to stay healthy and fit and achieve the highest potential for well being. Fitness for seniors is a particular interest.
Q: What is your biggest challenge that you face when training clients?
A: The biggest challenge that I face when training clients is overcoming ideas they have that keep them from believing they can reach their goals.
Q: How do you deal with clients who aren't serious?
A: When dealing with clients who aren't serious I attempt to have them focus on the goals that they themselves express and try to ensure that they make obvious, measurable progress towards those goals, so they see the value of their fitness efforts.
Q: What is the most important component to personal training that you advocate to clients?
A: The most important component of personal training that I advocate to clients is that the commitment they bring towards reaching their fitness goals directly impacts the degree of their success. It is my responsibility to demonstrate to the client my commitment to helping them succeed.
Q: What are your strengths as a trainer? weaknesses?
A: One of my strengths as a trainer is the ability to work with clients to identify long-term goals, set realistic short-term goals and to develop an effective fitness plan to enable clients to reach those goals. One of my weaknesses is dealing with the business-oriented aspects of being a personal trainer.
Q: What do you think of the ever popular Atkins Diet??
A: The problem with the "Atkins Diet" is that it emphasizes a narrowly focused bit of truth about nutrition to the exclusion of a more healthy, balanced view of proper eating habits. In my opinion it is the over emphasis on a few facts that may be accurate that makes the "Atkins Diet" potentially dangerous.
Q: What question do you come across most with clients?
A: The question that I encounter most with clients is about how can they lose weight in a particular area of their body?
Q: Who is your favorite fitness author?
A: Covert Bailey is a favorite author, because he stresses the importance of a healthy ratio of lean weight to fat weight as opposed to focusing on total body weight.
Q: Who has been your greatest success story?
A: In all honesty, I must say that I am my own greatest success story. It is my confidence in the knowledge, techniques and experiences that have contributed to my own fitness related successes that allows me to address convincingly the concerns of clients.
Q: What is your advice for clients first starting a fitness program?
A: My advice for clients first starting a fitness program is that they should always keep in mind their long-term goals but that they should focus and work on their short-term goals. Success in reaching short-term goals makes it easier to lead the client to the belief that their long-term goals are attainable.
Q: What type of training do you prefer, one-on-one or group? Why?
A: I prefer one-on-one training, because with one-on-one training the fitness program can be fine tuned to the specific needs of the client. With group training that degree of specificity is not possible.
Q: What are your personal goals for the future?
A: My personal goals for the future are to continue to expand my knowledge and skills related to fitness so that I can improve the quality of my own life and the lives of others.
|
