Official Blog of Allison Ethier

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Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
Official blog of Allison Ethier NSCA Personal Trainer, ISSN Sport Nutrition, Educator & Mom

25 July 2010

Two Months in.

Hi Everyone-

It has been a fabulous summer so far. The last year has been so trying and I think I have finally build a bridge and go 'over it'.  Meaning all the events of the previous year.
I took about 10 days for family vacation in the Maritimes.  Loved being home.  The weather was a complete 180 from the previous year - super sunny and hot while last year was dark and down pour rain the entire time.  This summer's weather has been nearly perfect and we are only half way through. 


Personal Training
July has been a busier month than June for my personal training.  My personal training services @ the ProGym is going well, although it is slow right now. I am told that is normal for this time of year.  Summer, I am told,  sees many individuals take a 'break' from the gym for the summer.   I have had about 10 clients in person so far.  I am always excited to see them and cannot wait to train them.  I would like to be busier, and many friends have given great information.

I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to be busy, and be great right away.  I have to stop doing this.  I am new, the whole experience is new and I cannot expect to have a filled schedule in less than 8 weeks.  I would never have done that with teaching - teaching was all about survival of the day.   It has not even been a month in total that I have been at the gym.  I have been travelling a lot, have been away for vacation with the family - so having clients depends more on me - I need to be at the gym to mingle and meet clients.  I am told everything will pick up by the end of August.  It is really empty during the day at the gym so I think this would be a good time to be branching out - to online training.

Online Training
I have a few online clients right now so much of my time is spend setting that up.  I am almost ready to go live on my website.  Eventually I would like to have both running solid, but somehow I am liking the idea of working from home.  My web guy - MirapDesigns.com - redid my entire site and if you like what you see.... - his name is Paul and he is super reasonable and always responds back to your emails.  Quick, reliable, and good.


Realizations of Competition
I am also preparing for the Europa Texas show August 13th, 14th of next month.  I am finding it challenging to prepare for this show.  I am realizing many things that I have never paid attention to before.  Like my diet for instance, I never realized how little food I do eat to get ready for the show.  It is less than maintenance level calories for off season, but I guess I was just so busy that I ate and went about my day.  Perhaps it is because I feel more present in my life, and can take the time to eat my food, and pay attention to it.

Another thing is the routine - which I love performing but somehow do not like practicing it.  I can totally understand why girls do bikini or figure - the routine is HARD.  I never knew how hard until now.  Although I am still conditioned and not completely out of shape being in perfect routine performing cardio shape is tough.  I will be working through that, and am almost there to be able to run through it 3X full out.  But again, I never noticed that before. 

Then there is the time we spend onstage.   I watched a full show online and it was around 8-10 mins in total that you get to spend onstage. Luckily with fitness we have 2 rounds, but with the elimination of the one piece for figure (which is still a good thing) the amount of work that you do to get onstage begs me to ask the question - is it really all worth it?  Fitness still has 2 rounds which allows us now to have the most time on stage - actually no - we are not equal to the bodybuilders.  They have group comparsions and individual posing.    But if you just look at fitness, figure or bikini of the 3 yes we have the most time onstage.  However, if you are only getting one call out - that is about 2 mins of facetime for 8-12 weeks of contest prep.  I know there is more time outside of that as you don't discount all the prep work you did before that, but if we only look at the 12 weeks before the show, it works out to be (12 weeks x 7day/week x 24hours/day x 60mins/hour) = 120 960 minutes of prep work before a show.   Even if we take out the 24 hours in a day, and put in 2 hours a day of prep (on average over the whole prep and this is being conservative) that is (12 x 7 x 2 x 60) = 10 080 minutes of work for the prep divided by 2 mins for a call out and that is:
5040 mins of work for every 1 mins on stage.

Or in terms of hours that is: 84 hours of work to every 1 min onstage
I am sure you can appreciate the point I am trying to make.

Training me, Training others
I am not sure how girls who compete full time and train others continue to have motivation for themselves.   Giving my motivation to others can be much more rewarding - but having enough for me and then for others is really tough.  I would rather see someone else compete than spend all that energy on me.  I wonder what this is saying about me at this point in my life?  Time to take a break maybe?  Not sure.  I always find I experience these feelings before a show and then when I am at the show things change again - I always am more motivated at the show and cannot wait to do another.  Being around people who are just like me is very inspirational.


August Schedule
So for August I have the Europa show, then I will be off to the Canadian Fitness, Figure and Bikini Nationals in Mississauga at the end of the month.  I will be doing spray tanning at the event.  Sign up today if you are going and I would love to take care of you.
Sign up today!  Visit my facebook page to see images of my work.







For now I will spend the last 3 weeks prepping for the show, and trying add new clients for my business.  I am so excited to get up each and every day.  I am really enjoying life right now.
 Everyone asks - "Will you go back to teaching?"  I am not sure. But I will leave you with this -


Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. - Maria Robinson

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