I’m a personal trainer at a private high dollar training facility that basically makes rich people feel good about themselves and provides the illusion of fitness - even though no one there truly attains it. The owner and head trainer is actually a former state bodybuilding winner and just took second place this last competition. He looks okay, but extremeley unathletic.
Anyways, he was training some women in a group session (of course it was “circuit training”) and one of the exercises in the circuit were high speed broomstick twist.
I just started working there a couple weeks ago so I don't wanna offend anyone yet. They are already intimidated by me because I'm the only one with a CSCS. So with that in mind I approach him cautiously and ig goes like this:
ME - What’s the goal behind the broomstick twist?
TRAINER- I want them to really work there “costals”. This one is great! I used it to get really ripped up for my last show. It makes me tight and carves my sides out like crazy. You have to reeeeeaally concentrate on it for it to work.
ME - Really? Why are they doing them so fast th? Doesn’t the fast speed lower total muscle contraction time and only enhance the elastic qualities of the various tissues when bouncing side to side like that?
TRAINER - I actually want them to do it as fast as possible, it works better that way. You can get more reps in.
Meanwhile the woman is looks like a helicopter blade.
I kid you not this is exactly how it went.
It took all I had not to ask him if he’s ever seen an anatomy chart of the abdominal muscles. I wanted to ask him if he knew which way gravity pulled. I wanted to ask him what direction the “costals” run. I didn’t want bring in the whole danger of extreme rotational forces on the untrained women’s vertebrae.
I hate personal trainers… Except for me and all you guys on here.
I also hate 99% of Physical Therapist. ESPECIALLY the ones who think they can train healthy people with internal rotations and balance balls.
At my old gym, a personal trainer told a client to do curls and pushdowns to work the biceps. I later asked him (not wanting to embarass him in front of his client) how a pushdown would work the bicep.
His explanation: Bi means two, so the bicep (wich means “two muscle”) sits on both sides of the arm.
I asked him about the triceps, and he replied that those are the three “heads” of the shoulder.
I went to the manager of the gym to warn him that this guy is going to hurt somebody, and to enquire about their qualifications. Turns out this PT had none (who could have guessed).
Luckily I found a powerlifting gym soon after.
[quote]gadget wrote:
At my old gym, a personal trainer told a client to do curls and pushdowns to work the biceps. I later asked him (not wanting to embarass him in front of his client) how a pushdown would work the bicep.
His explanation: Bi means two, so the bicep (wich means “two muscle”) sits on both sides of the arm.
I asked him about the triceps, and he replied that those are the three “heads” of the shoulder.
I went to the manager of the gym to warn him that this guy is going to hurt somebody, and to enquire about their qualifications. Turns out this PT had none (who could have guessed).
Luckily I found a powerlifting gym soon after.[/quote]
He should have been shot right then and here. What a twit.
An exercise where you tighten up the muscles in your pelvic area that you use when you’re trying to hold back a pee. (I first heard of these in a LaMaze class that I attended with my wife.)
[/quote]
Mine has been doing them regularly for over 20 years and they work. Once when we had friends over I explained the exercise to them and, gesturing towards the wife, said “Now she can snap pencils with that thing!”
“Good thing for you.” she says. Not funny to me at the time, but…
I know I’ve seen this in post, and I’m pretty sure some of them were posted by trainers - referring to muscles as “bicepts,” “tricepts,” and “quadricepts.” And no, these weren’t just typos, because they consistently kept using these spellings throughout the entire post.
One other thing I found amusing, not necessarily posted by a trainer though: “Tabitha squats.”
“Squeeze really hard at the top to contract your BICEP” … that’s singular folks. Bi means two, so how do the get the “cep” and not the “ceps”.
This is very common even with those who know better.[/quote]
Well, I learned something. I thought that you could refer to one biceps “muscle group” as a “bicep,” but the dictionary does not recognize “bicep” so you’re right - since the “bi” prefix refers to the “cep” it’s always “biceps.”
Oh yeah - “peks.” Although, I suppose since “pecs” is an informal abbreviation for pectorals it doesn’t much matter.
And “cavles” and “claves.” I thought for sure this was a typo but the person kept repeating the same error. My favorite: “calfs.”
“Absdominals.” Although I only saw this once so we can chalk this up to a typo.
I just started working at a high end gym catering to rich folks who just want to be able to say that they have a trainer. I had to go to their in house training weekends, started today.
This is an exact quote from the “master Trainer”(NASM cert) who has been in the fitness industry for twenty some years, and does almost all the training weekends for the area clubs:
“…well, push-ups are a pretty advanced exercise…”
pushups are the foundational beginning of any program. To call them advanced in any way is ridiculous. They’re a good exercise, especially some of the variations, but not advanced. Moron.
I know another “Master” NASM trainer who said “High box step ups are a waste of time for athletes because there’s little real world transfer to the field.”
And “cavles” and “claves.” I thought for sure this was a typo but the person kept repeating the same error. My favorite: “calfs.”[/quote]
Maybe he meant the clavicular head of the pecs? I could see someone calling it “claves”, but I guess context would have given it away if that’s what it was. Oh, and “fs” instead of “ves” is, sadly, becoming acceptable due the frequency of use (e.g., knifes is now accepted by some as an acceptable alternate spelling).
I was benching a weight that was heavy for me, and the trainer watches me. Then he says to me that i should just lift the bar for alot of reps. He said that if i lift it about 30-40 times i would get more “toned”. I laughed.
In my younger days I had a personal trainer tell me that eating carbohydrates were bad because they converted to estrogen. I replied with “Don’t you mean glycogen?” He stared at me for a second dumbfounded, then said no estrogen. What an idiot.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
Rich wrote:
There is no inner chest.
That’s not what Milos says.
[/quote]
Milos also says:
[quote]
Anyone who trains seriously should definitely set some specific goals. Then they should analyze the best ways to achieve these goals through training and nutrition. In my opinion, anyone can achieve reasonable goals within three years. When I say that, I mean regardless of your present condition. If you dedicate yourself for the next 36 months, you could be a competitive bodybuilder at the amateur level. Add a couple more years and you could even be a top Olympia competitor. [/quote]
PUT THE MAGAZINE DOWN, and go look at an anatomy chart.
Maybe it’s just my mentality, but when I’m about to pull I don’t think “This is a squat with the weight in front of me,” I think “this is a deadlift.” Squats and deadlifts are completely unrelated to me psychologically. But maybe I’m wrong.
[quote]danmaftei wrote:
Maybe it’s just my mentality, but when I’m about to pull I don’t think “This is a squat with the weight in front of me,” I think “this is a deadlift.” Squats and deadlifts are completely unrelated to me psychologically. But maybe I’m wrong.[/quote]
Maybe it’s just my mentality, but when I’m about to pull I don’t think “this is a deadlift,” I think “Kevin, you better f-cking get this lift, or you are a f-cking pussy.” But maybe I’m wrong.
I guess the people who are charge of weight training our athletes at the high school I work at would be considered personal trainers, so here’s a few quotes from the gurus at PHS. “Parallel squats will blow out your knees.” “Deadlifts will hurt your back!” “Don’t say the word snatch in here or we’ll report you to the principal.” “Nice max-out on your preacher curl and pec-dec.” (We actually have a chart where we record these “max-outs.”) Oh, yeah, we got our asses handed to us last Friday, 66-6. Everyone wonders why we’re so far behind the other schools.