Five Questions For a Five-Star Fitness Professional Mark Tenore, Personal Trainer

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By Sal | September 23, 2009

Welcome to the fourth installment of PersonalTrainerCoach.com’s, “5 Questions.”  There’s a pretty simple format; I ask an accomplished, 5-star fitness professional 5 questions and they answer them.  There’s a lot to learn from other successful fitness professionals - strength coaches, personal trainers, athletic trainers, physical therapists – and these folks can teach us a lot about our business and ourselves. This feature will allow people from different backgrounds to tell their story and express their views on the profession.

This week I’d like to thank Mark Tenore, a personal trainer who works in New York City, for participating in this feature and for taking the time to answer my questions.

Mark has been at the top of the personal training profession in Manhattan for over 20 years. As the Head
Trainer at New York City’s prestigious La Palestra Center for Preventative Medicine from 1994-2007, Mark and his staff represented the cutting edge of the personal training business in the ultra-competitive/ultra-demanding Manhattan market. After almost 15 years of guiding the training philosophy and programs for La Palestra’s staff and clientele Mark is working as an independent trainer and is one of the Big Apple’s best trainers.

1) What was your reason for getting into, and how did you get into, the fitness business?

I was involved in athletics throughout my life so it seemed like a natural progression to get into the personal training business. I didn't start teaching and training clients professionally until my friend Pat Mannochia opened La Palestra Center for Preventive Medicine, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and asked me to join his staff.  It was at La Palestra where I earned my training chops, so to speak.



2) How do you feel about the way fitness/a healthy lifestyle is portrayed in the media?

There’s some good information every now and then but, unfortunately, it comes in sound bites or is presented in a circus like manner.  You know, people screaming incessantly at one another or surrounded by hype, and you have to sift through all the nonsense to get to any content.

3) What is your training philosophy? You can give me your “Elevator Pitch” or the long version, your call.

If I had to sum up my training philosophy I would say to train and teach as though your life depended on it, because it does. My personal tradition was very Spartan, we didn't rely on endless theorizing or hyperbole and we had limited resources so we just got down to it, with rusty weights in a basement or in a backyard. We were armed with an uncompromising and unrelenting attitude. Needless to say, they were some of the happiest times of my life. I have always tried to get my clients to understand and incorporate this attitude as much as possible.

4) How has the fitness business changed since you first started training clients?

Everyone has greater access to information. I think the various disciplines in the health care industry see the need to work more cohesively if they are to provide people with the best care. Fitness professionals can strengthen their own skills and knowledge base by exposing themselves to others in the field. To be able to do this has been a great experience for me.

5) What’s the biggest problem/most common hurdle that you have to help your clients deal with? Nutrition issues, motivation issues, commitment issues, something else?

Lethargy. And this pertains to all of the issues you mention in the question, as well. But first and foremost I have to recognize it and address it within myself in order for me to perform optimally for my clientele. People are multi-dimensional and live complicated lives, so you never know what aspect of their personality will show up on any given day, so you have to adapt and improvise according to the present situation. So ultimately, you are only as effective as the questions you ask at the particular moment.

Trainers are, for the most part, highly disciplined people, and to understand more than most how difficult it is to walk the walk they can be more empathetic to clients who are struggling with certain issues - nutrition, motivation, commitment, etc. We'll always develop another gadget or fancy program, but the teacher is the head of the spear, regardless of how tough the flesh is to pierce.  Whether it’s tomorrow or one hundred years from now, were always gonna have to drag our asses out of bed. And as Einstein so aptly put it, "Nothing happens until something moves."

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