E20 | The Movement Detective NOT a Personal Trainer—Joseph Gonzalez

Joseph Gonzalez isn’t your typical personal trainer. He’s called The Movement Detective. If you want to lose weight or have specific fitness goals, he’s not your guy. For people struggling with pain like constant lower back tension, he’s the guy that troubleshoots that and other postural and movement dysfunction in people.  [Timestamp 0:59]

What did he want to be while growing up?

His earliest memory was some kind of scientist. Then as he got older, he wanted to be a sniper. [Timestamp 1:57]

Why MIT?

In spite of having a terrible math teacher for three years, he managed to get into an Advanced Math class so that he could qualify to take the physics class he wanted to. Because of his love for Physics, going to MIT seemed like an obvious choice. [Timestamp 3:05]

What happened when Joseph went to MIT?

Nothing he did at MIT appealed to him. What he learned was either too theoretical or too hands-on and it bored him. [Timestamp 5:09]

What made him decide to drop out of MIT?

He was among the 30-40% of students that failed and if he wanted to continue going to MIT, he had to switch majors. So he switched over to management. Going to school became so depressing he slept through his finals. That combined with the financial stress made him decide to drop out. [Timestamp 6:01]

Next steps?

According to him, he “bounced around” a lot. For a while, he worked at a comic book store. Then when one of his fraternity brothers reached out to him about starting a T-shirt screen-printing company, he helped with running the business. Eventually, he was doing all the customer service. In time though, he grew to hate the redundancy. Living shut out from the world wasn’t for him. [Timestamp 9:21]

How did he get into the personal training industry?

He was working out and had lost a lot of his college weight. While taking dance lessons in a salsa class, he was introduced to a Chinese Martial Arts teacher. He started training with him and a few months in, he suggested Joseph become a personal trainer. [Timestamp 12:28]

How did personal training start off?

After conducting his first training session, he was encircled by several veteran trainers, curious to know how long he had been training people. They were appalled to learn that they had just witnessed his first session, they thought he was doing so for years. [Timestamp 13:54]

How did dancing and martial arts help his personal training career?

Dancing and Martial Arts taught him how to stack skills. Before moving on to a new technique, one had to master a prerequisite basic. That gave him a significant advantage over other trainers as he was able to discern when the person he was training had reached their limit. He created a safe environment for his trainees by ensuring they had mastered the basic movement techniques before moving on to another. [Timestamp 16:47]

If you like working out, does that mean you can become a personal trainer?

Joseph feels that people that like to work out and decide to become personal trainers for that reason are lazy. Being a good personal trainer is a job, like any other, that requires professionalism. Working at Crunch taught him how to work with people and be professional. [Timestamp 20:14]

What certifications are required to become a personal trainer?

Organizations like ACE or NASM are governing bodies that offer certification courses. To Joseph, many of these are worthless. To him, it’s more important how a personal trainer looks at the human body and the neurological implications that go with it. [Timestamp 21:25]

How much does Personal training pay?

At one establishment he worked, personal trainers got paid between $26-$55 per session. [Timestamp 26:27]

What did he do after leaving Crunch?

With intentions to help a friend open a new gym, he left Crunch. Unfortunately, a problem came up with the real estate company and Joseph found himself bouncing between gyms trying to figure out where he’d offer his training. [Timestamp 31:24]

How did he injure his hip?

During a sparring session, he blew out his hip. He spent the following year in constant pain, to the point he couldn’t sleep. He put on weight and was irritable. He even lost some clients as a result. He saw eight different specialists, even a Shaman, but none helped. [Timestamp 32:38]

How did he get relief?

He met a trainer, Michael Zhao,  through a mutual friend and they all got together. He watched as his best friend was being trained. He’d never seen anyone train like that before. In between clients, Joseph asked Mike to do the same thing with him. After assessing him on a massage table, Mike guided him through an exercise on the floor. After he got up and walked, his pain was gone. [Timestamp 34:12]

What was going on?

Perplexed Joseph asked what just happened. Mike smiled and just said “Neuroscience, do you feel better?” Joseph asked Mike to teach him. He dumped a heavy book called Principles of Neuroscience into Joseph’s lap. Every two weeks, he gave Joseph a new book to read. He went down a rabbit hole of cognitive neuroscience, motor control, the memory system, osteokinematics, emotional regulation, psychoanalysis. No stone was left unturned.[Timestamp 36:25]

How did he transition into this new field within the fitness industry?

Applying these new principles with his client was challenging. The warm-up sessions, called resets could take anywhere from 15-45 minutes because the trainee had to get their bodies in a certain position, feel certain muscles working, and then coordinate that with their breathing. It was mentally taxing. Some clients got pissed off because they spent so much time doing the resets and didn’t get any time to actually work out. [Timestamp 40:12]

Mistakes personal trainers make?

The inability to “hold space” for someone having an emotional breakdown. Saying things like, “Hey don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal” isn’t supportive. It’s more damaging. It’s not about language, not about learning what to do, or how to say the right things. It’s about resolving your internal issues first so that you can create a safe environment for others. [Timestamp 44:53]

Tips for those that are working from home and/or staring at a screen all-day

Get up and lie down in a dark room for 3-5 minutes and don’t allow light to enter your field of vision. Staring at a computer all day fires up your visual system too much and automatically fires up muscles in your neck and upper back. It's not just about posture. [Timestamp 54:21]

 

Do you have constant neck or back pain? Need some help?

Get in touch with Joseph Gonzalez:

Follow and/connect with him on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube.
Or visit his website www.MejorStrength.com

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