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Tapping into the inner warrior

Written by: Cary Castagna, QMI Agency
Aug. 29, 2011

Craig Ramsay, a 34-year-old native of Harrow, Ont., is a celebrity trainer based in Los Angeles. The actor and model, dubbed the 'World's Nicest Trainer," is co-trainer on Bravo's Thintervention with Jackie Warner. Ramsay, a former SUNshine Boy, is also the author of Anatomy of Muscle Building. (Supplied)

Celebrity trainer Craig Ramsay seeks out the body's limits

He has been called "the world's nicest trainer."

So it should come as no surprise that Craig Ramsay gives his clients the benefit of the doubt when their performance in the gym isn't quite up to snuff.

"People aren't liars. Their bodies are liars," the blond Canadian-born co-star of Bravo TV's Thintervention says in a phone interview from his Los Angeles home.

"My job is to identify someone's body lying to them."

The truth, Ramsay adds, is people often fall short of their physical potential because they underestimate their true capabilities.

"If someone's tired and feels like they hit their max capability at the gym, it's them feeling this from their body and their body is lying to them," he explains.

"They can push harder, they can go faster, they can lift more."

Ramsay, a 34-year-old native of Harrow, Ont., likes to gently remind clients of mankind's primitive beginnings -- when fitness was all about survival.

"Where did we come from? We used to run in a jungle barefoot," he says, noting the limits of the human body are truly astounding.

"When we're put in (life-or-death) situations, humans can lift cars. We need to tap into our inner warrior when we work out."

The author of Anatomy of Muscle Building tapped into his "inner warrior" more than a decade ago at the age of 23.

"I was a fairly skinny kid and I was sick of being a skinny kid," he recalls.

Ramsay upped the intensity of his workouts and within three months, he packed on 25 pounds of muscle while dropping his body fat percentage to an ultra-lean 4%.

The warrior within him was unleashed.

Not long after, he devoted himself to personal training.

"For me, it was finding the proper intensity in my workouts," he explains of his muscular growth spurt, "so finding what I loved to do, finding what I hated to do, identifying my strengths and weaknesses, and making my weaknesses strengths."

At the time, circa 2000, Ramsay was on the original North American tour of the Mamma Mia musical.

To help promote the show, he appeared in Sun Media newspapers as a SUNshine Boy, wearing black bathing trunks that revealed a physique that's not quite as muscular as it is today.

These days, the former Broadway performer, who trained with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, weighs a beefy 190 pounds at five-foot-10.

The celebrity trainer and fitness model, whose diverse background also includes a stint as a contortionist, warns that before anyone unleashes their inner warrior in the weight room, they should be practising proper nutrition.

"Eating has to be there first. You have to gain control over eating," he says. "If I have an obese client and I work them out to death, I don't know what's going on behind my back -- what they're eating.

"So attack the eating issues first and get the correct information, and then we're golden."

And remember not to sell yourself short.

"Humans are capable of great things. We forget this," Ramsay adds. "Think of the body as a machine and we're reminded of what it's capable of doing."

Visit www.craigramsayfitness.com.

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