First trainee ever

[francesco.decaro]

I've been on the forum for a while.
My dream is to become an SSC.
I'm on my 2nd attempt at NLP, towards the late novice phase, but still some way to go. I've learned quite a few lessons nonetheless.
I've listened to all of the podcasts, some more than once, I've obviously watched almost all videos on the channel, read the Blue and Gray books, more than once, but never enough, and I kinda coached a friend of mine but for a short period of time (still, she made some progress and learned to squat, deadlift from the rack, and bench).
I've had my own garage gym for a year now.

So, today, a man I had already met once, in the condominium that my garage is in, told me that he told his teenage son about my gym and he was interested. So I told him to call his son so I could show him the gym and talk a little bit about what I do.
They both seem interested and I'll probably meet with the boy, he's 16 years old, to teach him the lifts, and if he likes it, we should begin the program in January.

This kid plays soccer, as a goalie (thankfully, not a lot of conditioning going on) and tennis. He practices 6x a week and only has Thursday free. Plus, he's got school every morning. He's 6ft tall, obviously skinny, I'd say around 70kg (155lbs). I immediately told him he will have to eat a lot. He didn't seem scared by this or by the explanation of the program. He told me he never did any of the lifts, which I think is much better, nothing to unlearn. He had some concerns about his growth, since he recently had a growth spurt. I told him nothing to worry about, if it happens again and it impacts the training somehow, we'll adjust accordingly. I'm guessing the only problems would be changing the form of the lifts because of different anthropometry.

Anyway, this would be my actual first trainee.
To recap:
-16 yo
- 6ft 155lbs
-soccer (goalie) + tennis 6x/week
-busy with school
-recently had a growth spurt


What would be the best advice you can give me on how to handle this?

Thanks!

[AndrewLewis]

1) He'll rush through every exercise. The first thing you'll have to do is slow him down during the teaching progression.
2) When he's ready to quit, just let him quit.
3) If you're getting paid to do this, get insurance and a waiver.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You're going to have him once a week?

[francesco.decaro]

You're going to have him once a week?

That seemed to be his idea. He was pretty concerned with how busy he is with school.
I forgot to mention he plays soccer and tennis after 5pm.

I told him the program requires 3 days a week, that for the first few weeks the workouts will be 45-60 minutes, and that it is definetely worth finding the time to do it, especially for his sport career. And I told him once a week won't really drive any adaptation.
My idea would be to put him on a Tue-Thu-Sat schedule, that way he has Thursday without sport practice and Sunday which is probably without school or less school hours anyway. Soccer games are usually played on Sundays. Tuesday would be the only busy day, but it would also be the first training day of the week.

1) He'll rush through every exercise. The first thing you'll have to do is slow him down during the teaching progression.
2) When he's ready to quit, just let him quit.
3) If you're getting paid to do this, get insurance and a waiver.

His dad asked me what my pay is, but I don't do this for a living so I told him to not worry about it and that if the kid decides to actually start the program, we'll figure it out.
The experience is my priority of course, so I won't ask for money if the kid only shows up a couple times.
And I don't really know how the insurance thing would work anyway.

I forgot to mention, I'm from Italy, we have free healthcare, so if the kid were to get hurt, which I find very difficult, it wouldn't be a problem

[Mark Rippetoe]

Unless this kid is prepared to eat 5-6000 calories a day, and train 3 days a week, and stop about 2/3 of his other running around, you cannot get any progress out of him. And if you don't make them pay you, the kid will only show up a couple of times. Not every situation can be managed productively.

[francesco.decaro]

Unless this kid is prepared to eat 5-6000 calories a day, and train 3 days a week, and stop about 2/3 of his other running around, you cannot get any progress out of him. And if you don't make them pay you, the kid will only show up a couple of times. Not every situation can be managed productively.

I'll try to make these points very clear to him.
I'll keep the thread updated if I need more advice.
Thanks, Rip and Andrew!

[francesco.decaro]

I'll keep posting here so I don't make a new thread for every new potential client.

Male, 28yo, went from 265lbs down to 190lbs in about a year, about 5'7", is missing two phalanges in the ring finger of his left hand. He told me he does deadlifts and it's never been a problem.
Does anyone of you have any experience with this? It shouldn't be a big problem, right?

[Mark Rippetoe]

If it hasn't been a problem for him, it shouldn't be a problem for you.