I have a bit of a problem, and I wanted to see what T-Nation readers thought of it.
Yesterday, my personal trainer failed to show up for our session. Research at the front desk uncovered that he scheduled a different client in my usual time slot.
Not wanting to cause a scene and rob the other client of their session, I leave my card and say to have him call me. When he calls half an hour later, he tells me that:
He forgot to write my name in the book when we made the appointment last week. (Okay, that happens. So why was someone ELSE in the appointment book?)
The other client was scheduled two weeks ago. (So you scheduled ME in THEIR time, instead of scheduling THEM in MY time. Can you see why this is not comforting?)
The other client did not show up. (How do you know? I was standing right at the front desk where you meet all your clients.)
When the other client did not show up, he went to lunch. (How? I was standing right at the front desk next to the only door into the parking lot.)
These things happen, because he has over forty clients and I am the newest. (This one just leaves me speechless. I can understand why some things would be more difficult with a new client, but I don’t think scheduling is one of them.)
I think this is positively outrageous. My trainer thinks I am being unreasonable. So I figured I would come here and see what you guys thought – am I being a complete dillhole, or is my trainer entirely out of line?
[quote]jackzepplin wrote:
Find a new trainer AND get your money back for that session and/or any already paid for sessions.[/quote]
I fully intend to bend the training coordinator’s ear about this after work, because I don’t think it reflects very well on the gym.
My personal belief is that since I pay for the session I didn’t have when I don’t give the trainer 24 hours notice of a cancellation, I should get a training session I don’t pay for when my trainer doesn’t give me 24 hours notice.
I would also propose that since I now need to redo much of the early work of educating the trainer on my experience and goals, another session or two wouldn’t be an unreasonable thing to expect. I don’t think it’s exactly fair that I need to pay for extra sessions to settle into a new trainer when my current trainer fucks up.
Why, however did you guess?
This is at 24-Hour Fitness. I didn’t particularly mind the exorbitant signup fees; I did, over the long run, get a pretty damn good deal – provided I stay with this gym for five years. But even if I only stay for two, it’s still a reasonable deal, and I think we can pretty much bet on me being there for over a year.
Unfortunately, the trainer has handed me one line of shit after another. I asked him about creatine loading last week, and he said that if he put me on creatine he would prefer I take 20g a day all the time. I think we all know where his head was when he made that statement… thinking about how much creatine he was going to sell me. (As if I’m going to buy Apex anything after the $280 line of bullshit he fed me on the first session… but the gym appears to be chucking Apex and switching to EAS, which is probably a Good Thing.)
The really sad part is I was perfectly willing to ignore the bad supplement recs and stupid dietary plan, handle my own shit on those scores, and just pay for the workout guidance – as long as he didn’t fuck up. Well, OOPS.
As a trainer in a commercial gym, I can assure you that the trainer is not the only person writing names in the appointment book. It could be the PT Director, the Manager, a sales person, or just a front desk person.
Doesn’t matter though. They screwed up and they/he should be kissing your ass to make it right.
Word of advice: meet your trainer before agreeing to work with him or her. Ask a lot of questions. Be demanding. I am amazed at the people who sign up for training with their membership, without ever having met a trainer.
Bottom line: find a different trainer or a different gym if you can.
[quote]wlhcrow wrote:
As a trainer in a commercial gym, I can assure you that the trainer is not the only person writing names in the appointment book.[/quote]
True, but in this case I recognised his handwriting. This is a good point to remember, though.
Agreed entirely – I grilled the crap out of my trainer before I started working with him, but there’s just one problem.
I did not (and in fact still do not) know the first thing about how to tell if a personal trainer is going to be any good.
I liked him, he talked a good game, and he was well-built. That’s really all I had to go on. He told me he had a master’s in kinesiology, which is impressive, but I didn’t exactly ask to verify his diploma – and I became a little skeptical about that claim.
It would be nice to see an article on how to do that initial interview. it would be even nicer to see an article about how to tell your personal trainer is a complete boob. The latter could even be pretty funny.
Kinda stuck with the gym. Different trainer is in the works at the moment, though.
The price depends on volume of purchase. It ranges from $60 a session if I buy one at a time to $45 a session if I buy blocks of ten. I got four free with my membership, and then bought a further six sessions for just over $330 when those were done.
It’s actually a pretty low price for a personal trainer, but I don’t ask or expect much from a trainer. Essentially, all I need is a reliable workout partner who knows proper form and isn’t overly bothered by explaining it repeatedly. It’s difficult for me to evaluate and correct my own form.
I did not (and in fact still do not) know the first thing about how to tell if a personal trainer is going to be any good. <<
If s/he is any good, s/he’ll give you a free workout to sell you on what s/he can offer you as a trainer.
You can tell a lot about a trainer in how the workout is conducted. Is he attentive, does he correct your form (and is he right), does he tell you why he is having you do certain things (does it make sense to you), or why he has you doing this particular workout? Does he ask you questions?
Use your common sense, your intuition, ask for the name and phone number of a satisfied client. Talk to any gym members you might know and ask if they’ve seen the guy working with clients.
As far as the trainer having 40 clients…HA! Not unless he’s spending an hour per week with each of them. Not a very effective strategy in my opinion.
One mark of a good trainer is PLANNING. After meeting with you the first time to discuss your goals and training/diet history your trainer should be able to put together a comprehensive plan to take you on your way. Training, diet, supplements, and restoration techniques should be laid out (according to your budget) in a specific manner and he should be able to tell you all this. When my clients start I am able to tell them exactly what we’ll be doing for the first 6 weeks and why each part of the plan is mapped out as it is. At 6 weeks we assess progress and make changes (with minor changes happening along the way). Your trainer should some sort of plan for assessing you or how else are you going to know quantitatively how you are doing?
Of course, it goes without saying that your trainer should be knowledgable about nutrition, training, etc. If you constantly need to be reminded about your form you might want to take some responsibility on yourself and make an effort to learn and be in control. I don’t buy the fact that you can’t correct yourself. That’s BS. The rest of us do it. If you want a trainer to hold your hand you’re getting exactly what you want. If you want a trainer to teach you new things you’ll have to keep looking.
40 clients can be done. In some commercial gyms, they simply require the trainer to spend the first 7 to 15 minutes with the client at the beginning of thier session, and then another 7 to 15 minutes at the end of their session. This way, they can squeeze in more people inside of a few hours.
Crazy.
Dump the trainer. That’s all I can say for now. My brain is toast tonight.
Dump the trainer. I’m a personal trainer myself, and would not conduct my business in that manner. It’s unprofessional, rude, and indictive of poor work ethic.
[quote]CDarklock wrote:
I liked him, he talked a good game, and he was well-built. That’s really all I had to go on. He told me he had a master’s in kinesiology, which is impressive, but I didn’t exactly ask to verify his diploma – and I became a little skeptical about that claim.[/quote]
IMO, a good build is not necessarily indicative of a good trainer. I once dated a guy with a kinesiology degree who was going into personal training, who was also had a great build. He did not, however, know the first thing about training. (Okay, so he was, in general, incredibly stupid :oP) I’ve heard the same thing said about many pro bodybuilders- they may have wonderful genetics (and lots of $$$ for steroids), but they don’t necessarily know how to get a genetically average person in great shape.
Seriously, though, why pay a trainer if you read this site??
Seriously, though, why pay a trainer if you read this site??[/quote]
Are you kidding? I can’t even begin to think of how someone could come to the conclusion that a trainer is nothing more than a text book.
I’ll come back to this, because I don’t have time to go into what a Personal Trainer is. But, I’ll leave you with this. The best Personal Trainers and athletes hire Personal Trainers.
I gotta run, but feel free to PM me if you want more detail about what a Personal Trainer is and what a good one can do for any one of us.
To address the question of why hire a personal trainer at all… it’s really hard to read this site in a squat rack.
Seriously, while you can read this site and pick up a lot of information, that knowledge is no substitute for experience. A personal trainer brings four things to the table:
Knowledge of what to do
Experience in doing it
An ability to teach
A personal focus
The only thing I can really test at first is the experience angle. (I’m interviewing a new trainer today at 3:00.) Where’s their background, do they have a degree, who certified them, that sort of thing.
The knowledge angle, I have to handle over time – I go out and search for things, then ask my trainer what he thinks. If I get back a load of bullshit, we have a problem… I would much rather hear “I don’t know”. Extra credit if you go find out. (My former trainer failed this test MISERABLY on a few occasions, so I was already leaning toward switching trainers.)
The ability to teach is another one you have to test over time, and it’s the real value of a trainer. It’s not just the ability to say you’re doing it wrong, it’s the ability to rapidly and effectively correct the problem so you can do it right.
Finally, we have the personal focus. A good personal trainer is very much in tune with your needs and your goals. It’s not the same workout program everyone else gets, it’s a specific workout program designed to get your body – with all its unique features – where you want to take it. Sometimes this is very easy to see, sometimes not; it depends on your needs and desires. I don’t have a lot of special needs, and my desires are pretty basic, so it’s hard to evaluate whether a trainer is handing me a turnkey program or something designed specifically for me.
It’s that personal focus that really makes the difference. If you’re not experienced enough to look at a workout program and confidently alter it for your own specific needs, it’s a really good idea to find someone who can – because you’re not the guy who wrote this workout, and you’re not the people who rave about how great it is. You’re you.
Oh, and BuckeyeGirl, while a good build isn’t necessarily indicative of a good trainer… isn’t it sort of necessary in a good trainer? If you ask me, someone with Andy Richter’s waistline is not a credible personal trainer.
I agree that the whole 40 client thing is prob. bullshit. Unless he is doing group training or working some long ass hours. I won’t even consider taking that many clients on…if the trainer is good, he can charge good money and won’t have to work a million hours a week. If he sucks and is in it for the money, which unfortunately most PT’s in commercial gyms are, then he/she will do something like take on too many clients and screw over whomever he/she feels like.
I work for 24hr fitness and if I were you I’d ditch him for someone else. My advice would be to try and check out the other trainers when they are working with their clients. Ask the clients they work with how long they’ve worked with them and if they’re satisfied with their progress. I hate hearing stories like this because there are a lot of good trainers in the company and schumucks like this give us a bad name.
[quote]setor wrote:
I hate hearing stories like this because there are a lot of good trainers in the company and schumucks like this give us a bad name.[/quote]
Different people have different needs. My former trainer will happily schedule people at a moment’s notice. If I had an unpredictable schedule and needed a trainer flexible enough that I could walk into the gym and grab him for a session RIGHT NOW, there’s no doubt in my mind he’s one of a very few trainers who could handle that.
Unfortunately, I think that’s directly related to the problem we had. This chaotic approach is not at all what I want in a trainer, and I’m seriously intolerant of obvious bullshit. I think someone who just wanted to work out and wasn’t planning to “go hardcore” would do really well with this trainer, provided he didn’t give a damn about supplements and was lean enough not to need a prearranged diet. In other words, someone casual. Probably nobody here.
I don’t think it’s so much that I had a BAD trainer, as that I didn’t have a trainer that met my needs. Some people might term his “buy more shit” approach as making him a bad trainer, but I’ve worked in commissioned sales positions before and honestly can’t hold it against him.