Thats Personal Training?

I was sitting at home with the wife last night, flipping through the channels, only to find that a new season of “The Biggest Loser” had started. We had watched this show off and on, and often discussed some of the methods that trainers Bob and Jilian employed. While I often scoffed at what was going on, both in the gym, and verbally, it was obviously doing something right. Right? I would disagree. I know that personally, I find that the programs they use, especially on that type of client, were, for lack of a better term, out there. They often showing the contestants doing more in a workout than I would do for myself in a week.  lot of the things i see are fairly advanced as far as trainees go. if you watched the show, you saw them pushing a little triangle sled called a Prowler. It is an amazing conditioning tool. As the proud owner of one of these sleds, I can tell you that, through my own experiences, this is a piece of equipment that people this far out of shape have no business messing with. That is one of the first things I noticed. Nice press for EliteFTS.com, the company that sells them, but outside of that, its all wrong.

The language was out there as well. Some of the things said have no business being used as a motivational tool for clients, regardless of what is going on. Telling a client to bust his ass is one thing. If the first question you ask a new client is, “You ready, bitch?”  You may want to consider a new field. It is not only rude, it is completely unprofessional. As a personal trainer, I find it upsetting, as it casts us in a horrible light, and can subconsciously influence potential clients to stay out of the gym. That doesn’t do anyone any good.

As I was doing my daily reading today, I came across a blog post by Robert “Coach Dos” dos Remidos about this very same thing. He said the exact same thing that I had been thinking for quite a while, and managed to put it much more eloquently than I could probably ever hope to.  He’s good. I hope you guys check it out. He goes much further into what I just talked about, and also talks about some of the psychological aspects and consequences that go with that type of ridiculous program structuring and “motivational” support.

Hopefully you check it out and see what I’m getting at. Thanks to Coach Dos for the inspiration for this post!

Tagged as: personal, trainer