Your Trainer
Thomas Crabtree
Bio
Its hard to pin point a time before fitness was a paramount foundation to my existence.
I have always been around sports and physical activity my entire life. Resistance training has been a passion of mine since high school when I used it to strengthen up for football and track and field. However, by the time I was a sophomore at Texas Tech University, I began seriously competing in USAPL sanctioned powerlifting meets with the Texas Tech Powerlifting Club. I quickly worked up the ranks to become the club president after I had successfully qualified for national competition in my first season. The following year, I had helped 15 or so other student athletes train rigorously for collegiate level competition.
My later years of college revolved around training with bodybuilding and cross fit methods to better understand how those philosophies could benefit an off-season powerlifter. However, I grew to become extremely passionate for bodybuilding and the dieting aspect of fitness as I departed from college. My first years post college I worked in the car industry as a sales professional, finance, and internet marketing. During this time I continued to be faithful to my training regiments and learning more about how to progressively overload muscles. My physique improved greatly and customers and friends began to ask more and more about how I was continually progressing. Eventually, I retired from automotive sales to begin the process of getting certified as a personal trainer.
My professional personal training career officially began at the end of 2018 when I started working at 24 Hour Fitness. There, I worked with 15 or so active clients year-round and had seen the training greatly impact many lives of clients. I usually averaged about 20-24 sessions per week and most of my clientele continued to re-sign.
Fast forward into 2020, I am now and independent trainer who can workout my clients across most of Austin. I have the freedom to train a client wherever they need me to be for the most part, and my services are much more dynamic as far as what I could offer as a corporate trainer at 24 Hour Fitness.
My philosophy with personal training is simple: I aim to create an environment and a process where you reach maximum enjoyment, and will be the most willing to stay within a fitness lifestyle that progresses you forward into your goals. I do not simply give instruction on what the workout is, I educate all of my clients on exactly why it is they are performing the asked exercises and the reps and sets needed. My training is comprehensive to exercise and nutrition alike. I can be as hands on or as laissez faire as any client desires me to be.
As I have my personal training business has grown, so has my ability to pursue my passion for bodybuilding. With the help of a bodybuilding coach by the name of Dred Barr, I began competitively bodybuilding in December of 2019. With the awesome foundation I had already created up until that point, I was able to cut down to a lean body weight of 175 pounds and enter the NPC Battle of Texas as a open middle weight bodybuilder. I managed to place in the top 5 at my first show in a non-novice lineup of competitors. My next show is planned for August 29th and I am already getting ready to bring a new and improved physique to the table. My goal personally is the qualify for nationals, and then within a year of that accomplishment compete at nationals and win an IFBB pro-card.
Apart from training and bodybuilding, I love, LOVE to talk about sports cars and super cars. Top gear and the grand tour are two of my favorite tv shows ever! I love to dream about owning a Porsche 911, a Corvette, or any Ferrari or Lamborghini. My passion for cars began in high school when I first laid eyes on a 2008 Mustang Bullitt my chemistry teacher had bought for himself. I then began a long obsession with Mustangs, Camaros, and general muscle cars through most of college. I heavily modified my first mustang throughout the ownership of that car, and constantly dream about how I would do the same to another mustang were I to get one.
My other hobbies include hiking, video games, and getting up to no good with my little brother Andrew.
The Training Approach
3-Phase Plans
1
Activation
The client is first introduced to the culture I am putting them into. They will see how the exercises are grouped together, and be introduced to sets and reps as their stamina and strength begins to grow. Muscle fibers will be often times utilized properly for the first time ever and so a client is activating their muscles more than working out. This is crucial as my goal is not to over train anyone, or ask for incredible feats of strength before the mind-muscle connection is established. This period is educational first, and foundational for later points in the training.
2
Progressive Overload
The meat and potatoes of working the client towards their original goal to gain or lose X amount of pounds. Now that you have become self-aware of the process and where you stand with dexterity of movement and strength, we begin to ramp up (the “progressive” in progressive overload) the difficulty of training via 3 primary methods.
- Adding weight to each set
- Adding reps to each set
- Slowing down the movement
- This is especially crucial and is an extension to further improving the mind muscle connection of a client.
3
Lifestyle
Building
You have successfully accomplished your goal(s). Nobody wants to simply quit training after all the hard work as going through the process helps them discover their goal is very conservative compared to their new vision of what is possible. This is where we :
- Move or expand the goal posts further out so to speak, and plan to accomplish an even more daunting version of their original goal.
- Chose a different direction (from weight loss to muscle gain for example).
- Make consistently training a part of life, even without necessarily having a larger goal in mind, but rather to just enjoy the process and the value it gives to the rest of their life.
