I just wanted to get everyones opinion on the Personal Training programs that 24 Hour Fitness condones; it is basically NASM’s OPT program design. What have your experiences been?
No experience but I’m gonna say waste of money
I use 24-Hour Fitness, because I travel. I can find one just about anywhere West of Dallas. I have only met one PT, that I thought was good. He was the exception. Most of them are students and some have no idea what they are talking about. Too many think a PT is to keep you company while you work out.
Most of the PT’s I have seen at the 24HR I go to are very young. I don’t believe I have ever seen them have their clients do any compound movements, but rather your tricep kickback pushdown and bicep curl routine and a lot of ball work.
I think they do a good job for the level of client they are working with but obviously an advanced lifter would be better off on their own.
[quote]Elkhntr1 wrote:
Most of the PT’s I have seen at the 24HR I go to are very young. I don’t believe I have ever seen them have their clients do any compound movements, but rather your tricep kickback pushdown and bicep curl routine and a lot of ball work.
I think they do a good job for the level of client they are working with but obviously an advanced lifter would be better off on their own. [/quote]
This is true, but look at the majority of people walking into gyms lately. It really isn’t necessary to teach a client to squat or do power cleans when the client is an overweight housewife who hired a trainer just so she could brag to her friends about it.
I used to work for 24 Hour Fitness and most of my clients were women who seemed to just want a friend or to be seen with a trainer. I had to push them to do basic exercises, even on machines.
24 Hour Fitness trains its personal trainers to get clients in and out as quickly as possible, thus the “Xpress Zone” where they have the machines all arranged for a cheap full body workout in 30 minutes. For the average weekend warrior who thinks bench pressing the bar is a workout, this is just fine. If your goals include actually looking like someone who lifts weights seriously, you would do better to train on your own and simply ask them questions if you have them and they are free.
NASM is all about having the client’s “core” balanced. You can get some good information out of it, but mostly you’ll just need it to get paid a greater percentage. You just have to weed through it and pick out what you think is good info.
Thank you for the replies. I am not asking this question from the perspective that I am considering working with a trainer, I am just curious what those of you with experience in what they advocate opinions are, thanks again.
waste of money, waste of time!
a few years ago I had a free personal training thing and I decided to use it.
they gave me a program and a diet and honestly, it wasn’t very good. None of the following existed in it:
squats
deadlifts
overhead pressing
cleans/snatches
but it did have 4 exercises done on a stability ball (crunches, side crunches, curls (what the fuck?) and flys) as well as incline, and flat benching, then chest exercises on two different machines, ONE rowing exercise, and for legs it was leg curls and extensions, and besides the ball stuff, there was crunches, and crunches (none weighted). For arms, there was curls, reverse curls, preachers, preacher reverse curls, skull crushers, kickbacks, and sort’ve a french press thing done while standing.
the diet had put my former 155 pound skinny ass on about 2000 calories a day, lots of carbs, some protein, and very little fat.
I wish I had found T-Nation back then, I actually wasted only ONE PT session with that workout plan as the first workout took me almost 2 hours to complete, and I honestly found it worthless so I never used it again.
The diet on the other hand I figured was sound advice, needless to say, I didn’t gain a SINGLE pound after that for a few months, then it hit me… EAT MORE!
maybe I just got the freebie PT session or the guy training me was a pure dumb shit, I dunno, but I would suggest you use an exercise program from here to help you towards your goals as well as a suitable diet plan. Both of which will have MUCH more knowledge poured into them than the PT at 24 whore fatness will probably have. (I still workout at a 24 hour in the summers, I can’t even use chalk… those bastards)
I’m a trainer at a small chain of clubs in Oregon. We use the Apex software for creating diet plans, simply because it was the best software out there at the time we bought into it, and legally we cannot give our clients nutrition plans off the top of our heads. We are not registered dieticians/nutritionists.
Using the Apex software allows us help out our clients nutritionally, even though for myself I do not use their nutritional plans. When the trainer is working with the software, they have the option of getting a full-on, NASM-designed workout plan to give to their clients as well as the meal plan.
Pretty much every trainer in the club designs workouts for their clients, and it’s safe to say not all trainers are equally competent.
I do not claim to be the cat’s ass when it comes to program design, but your chances of getting a really great resistance training program from a trainer at 24 Hour or any health club are probably less than great. A lot of fluff and novelty, not a lot of function and economy.
They seem to revel in making their trainees do strange and bizarre exercises. I recently witnessed one trying to get an old lady who looked like she’d never been to a gym do a one-legged cable flye while standing on a balance bag.
Needless to say, it was evident the lady didn’t get anything out of it except the impression that working out was really hard.
There is one PT at the 24HrFatness I go to that seems to have a grasp. She seems to specialize in fat women. It looks like she has them a lot of leg work: hack squats, walking lunges - relatively simple exercises that will build the most muscle as quickly as possible - boost the metabolism - lose weight.
The trainers seem roughly appropriate to the task of teaching novice users. I’d never use one, no one I work out with would ever use one. They never correct form probably because they don’t know the correct form.
RB
Yeah, and the other day they plopped this cable cross-over island closer to the racks(the only two). It bothered me because it felt like they were erasing the SPACE around the racks. Like I had this personal bubble and the racks had its space and all of a sudden when they plopped that down when I was doing deadlifts I felt my space was being gobbled up or something.
and needless to say… I didn’t like.
LOL
-Get Lifted
I work as a PT in a Fitness First Gym here in the UK. Fortunatly ive had the experiance of working with athletes as a strength and conditioning coach prior to working in a commercial fitness invronment. Taking the job as a PT for some supplimental income really.
Well I was in for a real shock, the trainers that i work along side have various standings of knowldege ranging from degree level former army trainers to guys who’ve finished weekend courses. and yes some do perform bizarre exercises with their clients some even advocate using the smith machine “to help build strength”. The doing somthing is better than doing nothing mantra rings strong amoung the trainers here, even if the program/exercises their clients do maybe wrong.
I still prefer my clients to call me a Strength and Conditioning Coach over a Personal Trainer. The very term Personal Trainer seems to have some negative connotations attached to it especially amoung more knowledgeable gym goers.
I prefer to follow ACSM guidelines as outlined in Swain and Leutholtz (2001) “Exercise Prescription (incorperating ACSM Guidelines)” when it comes to dealing with General population or untrained individuals.
as for the NASM OPT programs i dug this up make what you will of it:
OPT? Methodology
Optimum Performance Training?
Until now, most training programs have been based almost entirely on the experiences and goals of bodybuilders, coaches and athletes. And the recent proliferation of scientifically unsupported training programs is not designed to meet the needs of our increasingly deconditioned and injury-prone society.
NASM?s exclusive Optimum Performance Training? (OPT?) method represents the industry?s first and only comprehensive training program based on current scientific research that provides undisputed results specific to individual needs and goals.
Creating a new industry standard for success, OPT? virtually eliminates programming and program-design guesswork for any fitness, sports-performance or sports-medicine professional. By following our systematic OPT? method, our certified professionals now develop training, conditioning or rehabilitation programs scientifically proven to produce remarkable results.
By incorporating six types of training?flexibility, cardiorespiratory, core, balance, power and strength?into every program, the revolutionary and easy-to-use OPT? method improves all biomotor abilities and builds high levels of functional strength, neuromuscular efficiency and dynamic flexibility.
Assessment
At the center of the OPT? method is the assessment. All programs are designed based on a comprehensive and individualized kinetic chain assessment. This head-to-toe fitness and performance evaluation assesses an individual?s strengths and weaknesses in the areas of posture, movement, strength, flexibility and athletic performance. Before embarking on a training program, it is essential to correct any existing imbalances to ensure success.
Individualized Program Design
The OPT? method provides an easy-to-use system for exercise selection based on the client?s needs, abilities and goals. The endless choices of exercises and the unique progressions keep every program fun, dynamic and, most importantly, successful. The following Pyramid of Success represents the various stages of the revolutionary OPT? method.
http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/./1/.1121960028197.24Hrlogo4.GIF
One can’t totally go of off appearances, but when none of the trainers look like they even know what a weight room is, use caution.
I just wanted to see if anyone else has any opinions, Thank You for the responses!
I had an all-clubs pass to 24 Hour Fitness in Seattle.
I mainly worked out downtown, but also dropped in to 3 of the other local locations out of curiosity.
There was no consistency, really. All of the other locations were other gyms that had been taken over and all had their own unique equipment and layout.
One would have some of the Hammer Strength line, another would have other machines from that line, one would have an area with bumper plates, one would maybe have some Nautilus…
As far as the trainers, they ranged from guys who looked like college athletes to fat chicks. That’s right, fat chicks trainers.
Often I would see things like the trainer talking or staring into space while their client was doing a stupid exercise with poor form - you know, light dumbell curls on one foot for a random range of motion, or whatever.
Some of the trainers were apparently pretty good, some obviously sucked.
So I’d say it’s a crap shoot.