Let me know some of the WORST THINGS YOU HAVE OVERHEARD PERSONAL TRAINERS SAYING OR DOING Okay I just started working as a trainer. Already I am pissed when I see clients that I could help and teach the methods of Poliquin, Cy Wilson, Bill Roberts, Charles Staley, Ian King, etc. Instead they are being trained by people who have the IQ of the average special olympic athlete. I see them doing all fucking cybex machines or exercises in horrible form. I mean they should make you have a degree for this profession. Its so easy to get certified…I mean my friend got certified at a local community college. He’s a dumb fuck and doesnt know what the hell he’s talking about…yet hes a trainer and hes built due too genetics and people follow him…its really sad…holla at me let me hear yall vent.
I regret that you feel away about trainers… I guess your club just doesn’t hire the right ones… I am a person trainer and feel that I am a great train and I could get you to where you need to be… Where do think Poliquin, Ian King and all those guys that write in this magizne started at somewhere down the line they were trainers at a health club, school, college, pros where ever…
Although I do believe that not enough trainers seeks knowledge… Yes its great to read a mag every once in while there’s a great one like Testerone but there is a vast of information out there that qualifed trainers can give you. Also whos to say that the trainers train there clients wrong on cybex machines maybe the client has shoulder joint issues or knee joint issues and can’t do the same free weight motion that every one else is. I suggest you to ask them a question or two they may have more kownledge then you think. But if you think the answer is wrong you move on to the next trainer. There is bound to be one trainer in your club that is “Smart”. If you think its that easy why don’t you try to be one.
I feel your pain. There are many sub-par personal trainers dispensing misinformation and perpetuating fitness myths. On the other hand, depending on who your clientele are, you have to be careful who you are teaching Ian King Style workouts and Bill Roberts style supplementation and diet plans. Most of my clients are beginners in the age range of 40-60 years old. It would be innappropriate for me to introduce them to some of the progressive approaches that I’ve learned on this site right away if ever. What you’ll find as a personal trainer is that many of your clients will have much less enthusiasm, commitment, and focus than you have if you are reading this site. It is a disheartening revelation that I have come to accept. I’ve been personal training for 4 years and I’ve had well over 150 different clients. I’ve had a handful (maybe 8) whom I’ve had develop to the point that I taught them some of the more progresive stuff with diet and training. And it took all the time energy and commitment I could muster just to get them to that point. I’ve found that personal trainers become much more than technical support for people. Many people will just hire you to hang out with them while they’re at the gym (sort of a status thing…“look at me…I hired a personal trainer, I’m rich”). Or girls or older women will hire you with “hidden agendas”. Or gay men will hire you with “hidden agendas”(this one caught me by surprise when it first happened). I’ve also discovered that many people hire trainers thinking that we have the ever sought after “magic bullet” and then they will not have to work hard to get in shape. Many trainers “sell” the magic bullet thinking and sometimes unintentionally rip people off. People want you to tell them how easy it will be and that you can look good fast. If you tell them stuff like this, money will fly into your pockets fast. Many trainers like your friend get certified and then obtain clients easilty because they are naturally in good shape. Then when they try and teach clients how to get in shape, they have no basis by which to refer to. I mean if you have good genetics and you’re in relatively good shape no matter what you eat or how you train, then you have nothing to teach your clientele. One other point I’d like to make to you is the fact that it is often the bonehead trainers that are making much more money than those of us who have a genuine desire for our clients to achieve their objectives. So keep this in mind if you decide to personal train full-time. I personal train in the evenings and on weekends and I have another full-time job as my primary income. This provides me with the opportunity to be choosy when I decide to take on a client. I often explain to clients ahead of time the level of commitment I expect from them ahead of time(diet logs, cardio sessions outside of our training session, and an open mind for new approaches). I tell them it will be hard and that they will have to sacrifice. This scares most people off from the outset, but it helps me find the people who want to make genuine improvements.
I never see trainers teach or have their clients use ‘terrible’ form… and having clientel use Polquin or King methods or whatever isn’t necessarily needed. It’s arrogant for many ‘t-men’ or bodybuilding know-it-alls to assume that others have the same goals as they do… namely to build muscle per se… at almost any cost.
The vast majority of trainers take on clients who are 1. ignorant of how to even use the equipment let alone arrive at a program; and 2.take on resistance training for the pure health of it… mainly in that it’s extremely effective long term in warding off natural degenerative age-related functional and structural integrity.
Building strength and muscle is,of course going to be a bi-product of the process for them... but the extra-ordinary training, dietary, and psychological measures taken by even averagely committed bodybuilders to acquiring muscle tissue are not needed by these clientel to reap lifelong benefit from weight training.
And yes they might end up doing ‘pussy’ exercises and might look the ‘same’ year after year but hopefully they’ve learned varieties of programs, can do things safely and use reasonable progressive overload to achieve long term benefit.
They don’t need the condescending comments I often read here… which undoubtedly are communicated non-verbally in the gym.
note…I AM a very committed bodybuilder
Most trainers are complete morons who are lucky enough to pass 4th grade. I have worked at and belonged to almost a dozen different gyms. Out of all those gyms I could count the number of qualified and effective trainers on less than one hand. And these were not Bally’s-type pansy gyms.
You will quickly find out that the trainers that are in great shape will get the most clients. Knowledge is not a prerequisite for most people when hiring trainers.
BS
Well, the things I’ve heard from trainers are not what they’ve said to clients -but what they can’t say to clients. For instance - that many of them cannot explain clearly and in simple terms, how to perform a excercise. But y’know there’s so many things that I’ve seen trainers do and say wrong that I couldn’t even start to list them. It’s sad, really. To me a trainer should inspire his/her clients to achieve - but now they are more like “adult-sitters”. Gabbing over senseless crap w/their clients, while sitting on equipment that a member could be using. Eck.
An interesting point I would like to make is that some trainers just stick their clients on machines because of 1)liability purposes 2)the clients are unmotivated so will quit soon, so why take the time to teach them 3) free weights are “harder to do” so hence the more difficult a workout the less the client wants to come back (not in all cases) 4)the trainer doesn’t care if the client advances 5)teaching free weight exercises can be difficult to beginners and trainers can become frustrated. I’m sure there are more, but you get the point. As the other posters said it is hard to take unmotivated people and teach them all you know.
Something else to keep in mind. Training is really about selling yourself, not your knowledge. The guy who knows more and sits around bitching about the trainers who know less but make money needs to get out there and market himself and ignore everyone else.
The trainers at my gym are a wonder to behold. Routines change every three weeks so ‘progress’ is constant (i.e. weights continually go up) but no real results are seen because nothing is trained for longer than three weeks, and that is one light week and two heavy weeks. The best is when I am in the squat rack and the trainers are behind me at the leg press machine telling a client how much benefit they are getting from 1/4 squats… the best is ‘squats can be very dangerous, so we tell our clents to only use the machines to work the legs’. Unfortunately, to stay in business a trainer HAS to work like this to stay in business…
Thanks for all the great insight…I just started personal training and you know you are right about not pushing people to hard because they will quit and you will lose money…i am doing this part time right now to see if i think its worth doing full time…i may do what one guy did and get a full time job and do this on the side for those that really want to get the benefits of hard training…for those that got onto me for being hard on personal trainers…i have a few things to say…the other day my girlfriends personal trainer told her not to do crunchs cuz they will make her stomach big and instead she should do the cybex abdominal machine…what a load of crap…i have used that machine and tried it a million ways and i dont get as good of results in my upper abs as a set of swissball crunches or even floor crunches…another thing…i dont like teaching people machines because it takes stabilizer muscles out of the picture…then these people are more likely to be injured in real life…i am sorry but i am not going to sacrafice teaching piss poor techniques to keep clients…i definitely think i may go into pharmaceutical sales or something and do this personal training on the side…and one last thing to those that said teaching poliquin and ian king principles are to advanced…well yeah they are advanced…i am not teaching these people complex movements or advanced movements…but i do teach them proper movements and rep schemes and get them to do exercises that benefit them more…anyways take what you will from this…but i am really ticked off…thanks to those that responded and those who continue to respond i will check back with this later and see what people have said…thanks
Typing ebonics.
What annoys me the most is that the trainer I hired before (before T-mag anyways) looked at me like I was speaking Greek when I told him I’d like to be able to squat 200 lbs and deadlift 100 lbs in 6-7 months. (My starting weight was really puny…so don’t laugh too hard. 
Eventually he said, “I don’t think girls can do such a thing unless you want to be a competitive body builder.”
I fired him and will never hire another lame trainer again.
I also was a Personal Trainer. My belief was (and still is) that a client should be taught the basics in both the training and nutrition. And should meet regularly - but after 6-months it would be more for a once a month maintenance and maybe update. However the health clubs like - well, I won’t mention names - that employ a “McDonalds” work-like ethic in training and pay - believe otherwise. A trainer at one of these clubs had asked me once if I was interested in becoming a part of their “team” - after telling him that they couldn’t (and wouldn’t ) afford me, I also let him know that most of the trainers I saw at this club spent WAY too much time talking with their clients about outside issues like work, shopping ,etc. rather than focusing on the workout. He explained that they (the trainers) were there to listen to the client and to be like a “buddy” in the gym to help get them comfortable for the workout, and that’s what they’re told to do in their training by the club. I KNOW not all trainers are this way - but we all have to admit, that MOST are. It’s sad, but true. And yes, I know that not everyone wants to train like most of us who visit T-Mag, but trainers should know better. But I have to say that most of my clients WANTED to learn, and that I kept them focused on their workouts - and they LOVED it. And they saw results and kept coming back for more…
Rob I wasn’t trying to say you were full of shit at all. I was just trying to make the point that some trainers have different reasons behind using machines. I think you are on the right track becoming a part time trainer therefore you income isn’t based on it, and you can take the client you wish. I have never been a full-time trainer either. I have helped some people out as a favor and some others just came into the weightroom where I work (at a university) and I put them through a little workout. I can tell you though going from highly motivated athletes to older adults really sucks. You take some of the hardest working people that will do anything you say and work at it until they do it right, then go to some housewife who doesn’t want to squat cause “it hurts your knees.” That is why I gave up commercial gyms a few years ago. Too much bullshit.
Saying that pushing a client to hard will make them quit is B.S. The main reason people quit a workout program is because hey do not see any results., and this is because most trainers don’t know what they are doing. Not using free weights because you are worried about liability also shows that you do not have clue. If you teach someone proper form and technique the you should not have to worry about injury. There are some good trainers out there but they are few and far between, mostly because at most of the big corporate gyms they do not pay their trainers very well and this is sad.
Saying liability isn’t an issue is bullshit. Go take a “Sports Law” class and learn how to protect yourself. People will sue for anything. I remember a few cases where a football coach was sued because he required short hair and no facial hair. He then benched players when they wouldn’t comply, so they sued him. Just imagine if someone would get hurt lifting weights that you instruced him or her to do, even if you taught it right. They would bring in witnesses saying these exercises are bad and such. They may not win, but it will be a big hassle, and you better have insurance to cover it. Using a machine may not be any safer and may be even worse for the client, but most people in the publice don’t know that.
There is a powerlifter/trainer at our gym. He trains every single person the same way. Low reps/high weight. These poor females are trying to drop body fat and he’s got them doing max weight for 2 reps on the bench press! Never does any stretching, no warm-up. They come in right off the street and he’s immediately got them doing heavy sets. His belly is full of jelly and he does NOT practice good eating habits (sorry ass mf’r)
Now that is the kind of trainer I would like to spend my hard earned money on. Thanks for the thread.
Ripper
First of all, it’s all about economy of time. Let’s say you have a beginner who has bought 3 sessions…are you going to spend all 3 teaching them free weight exercises with low weight until they “get the hang of it”? Probably not. Different people have different goals, and there are different ways to reach those goals (not all roads lead through 6 meals a day and specialized routines). I have taught people free weight exercises, and I have taught machines, sometimes exclusively either way. The other posters are right when they say that pt clients want results immediately (something not even poliquin or king can give), and most won’t take kindly to light, “learning” workouts…honestly, if you train this way, you won’t make any money. And that’s what the whole bloody profession’s about…making money (unfortunate, but true). And reverend, excuse me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you get certified through ACE? Perhaps you should be a bit kinder to your friend who got a diploma via a course that’s longer than a weekend.
How about this?.. I know a personal trainner who has his own, gym at his house. A girl, who was new to lifting came to his gym and wanted help on toning up a bit. His solution who for her to go on a cycle of steriods.
HELL FUCKIN NO I DIDNT GET CERTIFIED BY ACE!!!..i have a fuckin degree in nutrition and am working on getting certified through nsca…get it right dude…ace fucks sucks like my friends fuckin junior state college degree…geeezzz i am really ticked now…wish i could drop a fuckin bomb on every lazy ass out their…if i get to work and have some clients to train today i am gonna wear em out…later
I did not say liability is bullshit I said not pushing your clients is. And any ways someone can hurt themselves just as easily in a machine as with a free weight so the liabilty is the same. If you are so fucking worried about liability make a client sign a waiver. I used to teach martial arts (my dojo was full contact oriented so people got hurt on occasion), so i know a little about liability. If people are going to be active there is always a chance that someone will get injured. The best you can do is keep your clients as safe as possible, which means know what the fuck you are doing, and if you don’t find a new job.