I know I read a topic about this very subject, but for the life of me I cannot find the thread using the “search engine”.
My mom is 57 years young and has been going to the gym for the past year. The only time she took off was because she had tennis elbow. (She went to the gym around 3 years ago and the trainer worked so hard that she tore a ligament in her left leg. I dont want her to get hurt again.) She is very dedicated and lifts 3x’s a week and does cardio after those three sessions. She has lost over 15 pounds of fat and gained some lbm. However, I am attributing these to more of actually lifting weights for the first time in her life rather than her superior lifting program.
I tried talking to her about her program, but unfortunetly all I can get is “Where you pull the arms down” or “Where you push up on that thing.” She explained to me her routine is 5 arm exercises, 2 legs (she actually said extensions and curls!), and 3 exercises that I have no idea what they are. She does this split 3x’s a week and has been doing this almost exact same thing for the entire year.
Here lies my problem. When she first signed up for the gym, she hired a PT to help her get started. His diet recommendations were horrendous and I actually had to switch his recommendations with a diet I made for her. Luckily she hasnt noticed the switch. However, the routine he gave her is horrible. I tried reasoning with her that this PT isnt that good at all. All she says is that he is so nice and everyone at the gym loves him. Then when I mention personality has nothing to do with helping you get into better shape, she drops “oh he has a degree in some nutrional exercise” major. The only thing this guy has in common with any lifter is that he shaves his legs.
My question is how do I get her to stop paying this douche and actually convince her to start using a decent program? I really hate the fact that my mom is really good friends with him and since he works at a gym and I dont, he now knows more than me. I also get “you know I do know a little bit about things.” It really just burns me that she wastes so much time and money.
Sorry I don’t have any advice. I get this sort of crap all the time. Because I’m not huge and don’t work at a gym, obviously everything that comes out of my mouth is worthless right?
I would help my mom out by trying to train her myself, but the first major problem would be that I live in ATL and she lives in Miami. I only get to check up on how she is doing when I visit 2 times a year.
Ill check the reader mail. That sounds like it is the right spot. However, I was more interested in seeing what other people, not editors, deal with similiar situations. Maybe if they tried getting their wife or husband into shape and met a lot of resistance.
First off I would like to apologize to the editors who work their asses off everyday for this magazine. What I meant and I guess it did not come out this way, was I already read what the editor’s point of view from the Reader’s Mail, but I wanted to hear from what people’s experiences were. I know my Mom has the “proximity bias.” I am extremely happy my Mom hits the gym. However, that did not completely answer my question. I just think there has to be a way to reason with her other than just what she calls “hearsay”. She gets all these medical journals, such as the Harvard Medical Journal or New England Medical journal. So when I say I eat EFA’s or tons of meat she quotes all these studies to the contrary.
So besides quoting a magazine (who she is already skeptical of) how else can I convince her that her PT is a punk and is not helping at all? I want her to have a decent routine to actually keep her healthy insteading having her get injured.
It was Rumbach that started a thread similar to this; except it was about his father, who was a avid runner.
My suggestion to Rummy was to make a deal with his dad. The deal would be that for the next 6-weeks, his dad would follow whatever program (dietary/training) Rummy created. After that 6-weeks, if his dad saw no improvement whatsoever, he could go back to whatever he had been doing before.