The Downside Of Today’s Personal Trainers
Should a person seeking help with fitness program hire a certified personal trainer or non-certified. The question may come to mind when hiring a personal trainer. Do not assume a trainer that works directly for a gym is a valid or qualified personal trainer.
The fitness industry has become a wide-open playing field and free for all for anyone with more knowledge than the person who would pay for training services has. What I am saying is that if someone can pay a gym rent, get certified or not be certified, able to find someone with no knowledge ready and able to pay them to act as a fitness trainer means nothing as to the credibility of trainers today.[/vc_column_text]
Personal Trainers Are Making Up Exercises Without The Knowledge
What is being taught by some personal trainers today at times looks like they just approached a set of cables and was thinking of something that would look interesting to their poorly uneducated client who is about to be prey to a fabricated exercise that just came to the so called trainers mind. If they were asked what muscles or body parts were being engaged as the primary target muscle and have to prove it to someone other than their poor sap of a client, they would fail horribly.
Sales Clerk Today Personal Trainer Tomorrow
I was watching A personal trainer the other day in the gym attempt to do a scapula focused exercise that never engaged the scapula, but did engage the biceps and forearms. This for a lack of a better choice of words, I will refer to as “da trainer” recently started working out and most probably was taught the exercise from the trainer that prepped her for a local bikini show. It seems as thought these shows have sparked more new careers for people that have worked out and placed somewhere in a group of locals that decided to jump on the bandwagon and attempt to change their body and needed a show along with the rest of the girls in the gym that had to have a show to workout. Most of the time these girls have pretty reasonable figures and genetics along with enough ego to take 10 selfies a day and share with the rest of the crew. Please do not take this wrong, because there are some very qualified female trainers who have worked out for years along with study that are well qualified and their business survives on getting groups of girls ready for these bikini competitions. But there are also many that are not and many that are striving as female bodybuilders who prep for a show with loads of enhancements and turn their bodies into shredded steel, only to gain 30lbs within 2 weeks after the bodybuilding show. Trainers should represent a steady stream of fitness without constantly changing their bodies from ripped to fat and bloated. Especially when they are in there 20’s. Imagine what that yoyo weight gains and dietary changes are going to leave them with in there 40’s and up.
Do your homework and seek possible education, length of time in the business, real testimonials with photos that are not just from their best friend. Many gyms with in house personal trainers need to make money and do not care about the trainer they just hired. I have trained clients with extensive personal training certifications that decided to never pursue a personal training business that knew little to nothing about how to train specific muscle groups. The picture on the machine with a weak explanation usually does not teach proper technique and detail of how to posture your body and focus the stress on the proper muscle group. Many certifications focus heavily on how not to get sued. But even at that, I have trained clients that just came from a very high priced gym with highly educated personal trainers that came with a high price tags that left their clients performing squats and falling backwards due to lack of knowledge, proper form and just not caring. One of the first rules as a trainer is to “do no harm”. People are placing there trust and paying good money for a trainer and are getting fleeced daily and it seems to be getting worse.
When my client goes crazy watching a personal trainer spending half their session texting from their phone and rarely lifting their head up to be bothered with what their client is doing. I tell my client of course it is the trainer’s responsibility first to do the right thing, but when a client is putting up with that type of behavior and instruction session after session, I have to place much blame on the client for putting up with it.
On the bright side, most of my most dedicated clients were females! Even when I owned Kung Fu schools for several years females were the most on time and dedicated clients (students) in promptness and scheduled payments.
Updated August 6, 2016 12:35pm
Author Don Niam
