Steve Schneider

Supervised and Instructed by Kurt Cannata

Steve is a 53-year old male who had a heart attack in 1998 with a family history of heart disease. Prior to his heart attack, Steve looked like a pasty-white bloated beached whale; at 6' 1' tall, Steve weighed in at 350 lbs. He currently is being seen by an Endocrinologist, a Cardiologist, a Urologist, a Nephrologist, and a Pulmonologist. He suffers from diabetes and sleep apnea. He has past fractures of both ankles and his left wrist. His left knee "acts up" and gets stiff when not in use, but feels great after training, and his doctors have encouraged him to exercise. He "eats out" for most of his meals and drinks plenty of water and soda pop. He now weighs 260 lbs.

I have known of Steve for many years. In the past years he has said, "I want to train with you," but when I attempted to make that happen, he was not willing. FINALLY I was in a position to see him regularly in passing during the workweek and I TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THESE OPPORTUNITIES... simply by asking how he was doing and letting him do the talking. To make a long story short - the commitment was made.

Steve started training with me on July 6, 2002. Our agreement was that he would train once per week with me in private. He would also keep up his end of the deal by attending his gym and performing aerobic sessions and circuit weight training sessions. I started him out on a series of Leg Press, Chest Press, and Pulldowns for 3 mild sets of at least 90 seconds each for several sessions. I increased the weight on some sets to get him used to simply pushing weight in the 3 major areas; simple enough, but a tough task for him. Since he was also walking on a treadmill during the week he proved his fitness level worthy of moving on to harder training.

I started to isolate his muscles and train with less volume while increasing the intensity. I would alternate upper body and lower body from week to week so that I did not make him do too much during each session; this was extremely difficult for Steve. I found out after a few sessions that one hard set was just too much for him to bear and he could not do it effectively, and so I wound up lowering the weights. The first set is not to failure but is hard. The second set (after about 60 seconds or less rest) is much harder, but also not to failure. He has responded well to performing 2 sets per exercise in this fashion. A sample routine is as follows:

He has not lost any bodyweight since training with me; in my opinion, he does not want to test himself that much. His clothes are fitting much more loosely and he has firmed up his "doughy" parts. He could not do one rep with 10 lbs. (the lowest weight) on my ab crunch machine when he started - he can now perform reps with 20 lbs.

SUMMARY

Steve is a typical American male who has contributed to his physical damage by eating poorly, no exercise and living a non-caring lifestyle - then, his near death experience woke him up. He has come a long way in trying to achieve more. He still can do more now but refuses to push himself another notch. He seems to not want to change his bad eating habits, i.e. snacking at work, poor choices in restaurants, but he does manage to be somewhat careful. He really enjoys training with me and would not train at all if I were not present. He is the type of person that trainers need to look for to acquire services from, especially since Steve is consistent and pays on time. He has missed "several" appointments by calling at that last minute and pays for the session without argument or even asking. He will continue to train with me once per week at least for the next year and I believe he will continue longer that that.

The always challenging part with this person, as well as many others like Steve, is that I am the motivation and the reason he trains. This means I MUST ALWAYS BE UP for the sessions no matter how my day has gone or whatever else I may feel - there is no excuse. A pro is a pro and must be ready when it's time to perform. Steve's "success" can only be measured against himself and his own desires. He has achieved success by these measures.