28 May 2009
1 Year of Questions & Anwers
Can’t Believe it has been a Whole Year!
When I first started planning AskTheTrainer.com in January 2008 I didn’t really know what to expect. I was personal training many clients in the gym at the time and didn’t have much time to work on it. It took until early May to create enough content to publish the site.
After I published the site I put countless hours pouring all the knowledge I accumulated through BS and MS degrees in college, personal training certification courses and over 8 years of personal training clients.
I started publishing a weekly Fitness Top 5 List on May 19, 2008 and published it religiously every Monday for 49 straight weeks! I only took a couple weeks off when I moved to Thailand where I am able to work on the website full time.
Bro Science vs. Reality
When I explored the possibilities of creating a fitness website one of the primary motivating factors was the high levels of complete garbage on the internet. What I saw was either utter trash, selling bogus products and generic, cookie-cutter websites reiterating rehashed bro science.
If you don’t know what bro science is here is a simple example. The youtube video of the ripped bodybuilder bench pressing 500 pounds and telling you how you have to eat 600 grams of protein and 6,000 calories a day to gain muscle is bro science as oposed to looking at the 1st law of thermodynamics.
I aggressively pursued creating AskTheTrainer.com because I knew that the content on my site is lacking on the internet today. Why 95% of exercise videos online are videos of fitness models, bodybuilders and athletes lifting weights is beyond me.
I don’t watch Michael Phelps videos to learn how to swim better, I find someone who can show me the techniques. I created simple exercise videos training my actual clients to show that you don’t have to be a pro athlete to perform challenging exercises.
I have what I would guess over 75% of websites don’t have, which is credibility. I partly started the website because I felt like I was wasting my exercise science degrees personal training when kids straight out of high school could do the same thing. I took out thousands of dollars in student loans which I felt like was a waste if I didn’t put my education to use on paper.
I had a choice to make at the beginning of the creation of my site. Use bro science to make money and lose credibility, or to maintain my credibility and try to help every single person I can and I’m glad I chose the latter.
Questions and Answers
Since the site called Ask the trainer questions and answers are a large part of the site. This week’s year aniversery top 5 list was about the Top 5 Health & Fitness Questions for the First year of AskTheTrainer.com At first I had no problems personally answering every question which was sent to me promptly.
Unfortunately I’m getting flooded with questions at a pace which I cannot keep up with. I am now looking for qualified personal trainers to help me answer questions on the personal trainer question page. For personal trainers who want to answer some questions and voice their professional opinions I will give you credit for your answers with a link back to your website.
I am looking for trainers who will answer a question and tell it like it is. I hate telling people what they want to hear just to sell something. Since I’m not selling anything I can voice my 100% honest professional opinion and I think it has given my site’s visitors confidence that they will get a quality answer to their questions.
AskTheTrainer Stats Since May 1 2008
731 Web Pages
530,967 visitors
688 Health/Fitness Question Emails
363 Videos
1536 Subscribers
2,158,313 Video Views
If you are not very internet savvy these numbers may seem like a lot, but when you consider there are an estimated 600,000,000 internet users world-wide the numbers have much, much room to improve.
If you aren’t familiar with everything it takes to create a successful website there is a lot more than just creating a website. Whether you are looking to create a website business for yourself in the future or you know friends who want to the best way to educate yourself on how to create a successful website is Site Build It
To view all my content as it gets published you can view and subscribe to the AskTheTrainer.com FriendFeed
Onward 2009 and Beyond
In the upcoming year my goal is to constantly improve AskTheTrainer.com I am branching out to other personal trainers to help me help the online fitness world “keep it real” by using actual proven science to help people by providing answers to their questions, information and services.
