Yes, you’re very right about not pushing your clients being bullshit. I’m just trying to make the point that liability is a big deal. And the rate of doing free weight exercises injuring people is probably less that on machines. BUT in the public’s eyes it is not. IE Squats hurt the knees as I mentioned before. Is this why some trainers don’t make their clients put on heavy weight and use the pink dumbells? I think so.
You should know though that waivers don’t hold up in court. They may make you feel better, and they may fend off your ex-client some from suing you. BUT if you have truly been negligent a waiver doesn’t mean anything.
Ko is just as frustrated as anyone else here regarding the current state of trainers and commercial health clubs. We (Ko and I) train at a health club that useto be a Golds Gym. Golds allowed private personal trainers train their clients - which was great. We had some wonderful trainers walking about that actually CARED for not just their clients but members of Golds. And it showed. What we see now are trainers that walk on by people performing such things as, lat pulldowns to the back of the neck (!) - and don’t say a word. Oh and of course, the trainers who are training in their off time, doing squats on the smith machine. Yeah, I wanna aspire to that - but that’s cool, when they’re doing that, Ko and I are usually doing our d-lifts (me w/245lbs and Ko w/335lbs) - so, their clients are usually watching US train. Oooops, I’m not trying to brag. Back to the sad state of affairs…but now, we have trainers who can’t for the life tell a client how to perform a dumbbell bench press or tricep cable press. And you wanna know why? Because they haven’t educated themselves in the gym - spent the time and learned how to do these things themselves IN THE GYM. Not from manuals and books. THose are good to learn the basics, to get an idea of the premise of the excercise - but you gotta do it in the gym! Jan Harrell (at one time, the strongest woman in the world) useto be one of the trainers - and what a trainer! She was awesome! Amazing! Yes, I would often start clients out on machines so they could learn the “mechanics” of the excercise and develop the muscular coordiination to move onto the free weights. But that was the purpose of machines and the goal was to always move forward, to learn more and move on. To constantly see results in both physical development AND knowledge of the anatomy, excercise kinisiology and basic nutrition. My clients were always being stimulated and they remained excited! Even if a plateau had been hit in terms of strength or weight loss I always pointed something else to them: “well now we know that this didn’t work…” or “you’ve learned something here, how your body responds to such and such excercise…diet”, etc. The gym is the classroom and the client is the student. Another thing: the gym is also the trianer’s office - how come they don’t take the time to pick up stray weights? Yeah, I know members are messier now than ever, but that shouldn’t matter. Have some goddamn pride of where you train. I did it when I was a trainer - and it even garnered me more clients - they saw that not only did I have a physique and therefore knew how to train, but that I cared, too. And I did, I really did. Oh and a good trainer is also a good business person. So know the business aspects, too I
Thanks patricia you really motivated me…thanks for all the great insight if i have some more ?s i will be sure to holla at ya…and to everyone else that responded thanks also…keep responding though i would love to hear what others have to say…later
This is something that hapened just now, it wasnt with a personal trainer, it was with this girl that is a trainer at the gym i go to. It is not the first time that she tries to “correct” me, but this time was the worst, i realy felt sorry for her…Anyway, i was beggining my leg workout with deadlifts, as i do my first warm up set this girl comes to me and asks " what are you doing that for?" I thought to myself, " shit, here we go again…" and replied “well, im doing deadlfts wich works most of your body, as a part of my leg workout” she replied " you’re doing it wrong, your hands should be bouth facing inwards and you shouldnt bend at your knees, wich are a very delicate joint and cant take that kind of stress", after some more conversation i realised that to her deadlifts, SLD and good mornings were all the same thing, all she knew was the SDL probably from those group classes, anyway, she insisted with me that i was wrong and i started to lose my patient and said " listen, im sorry but ill be fine without your help! You did your job and i chose to do it my way, if i get hurt is my responsability, ok?". I find this very sad, how can this girl work at a gym?? How can she help people and design programs for them? AT the end of my workout i noticed a picture on the wall of a guy performing a smith machine deadlift (?) and pointed it to her, she admited she was wrong, and hopefuly wont ever “correct” me again…
The more I read these comments the more I am thinking that there are few good personal trainers. The main reason I think this is is because all the good ones are strength coaches at either universities or have their own private businesses to train. I know that most coaches at universities don’t make much money and probably make less than some personal trainers, but the perks and respect is a lot better. To me working at a university means working with highly motivated athletes. Working in a public gym means less than optimal people (not in all cases though obviously.) Now don’t get me wrong saying all strength coaches know what they are doing, and no personal trainers do. Just my two cents.
Any leg exercise will hurt your knees if you do it incorrectly. Furthering the myth that squats are “bad” is ridiculous. What next, are you going to tell me that deadlifts are bad for your back? If you want to sit around a worry bout liability then you will always be nothing more than a mediocre trainer babysitting your 3 session clients and whining about how you can’t get any regular clients. Liability is a risk you take when you pursue a career. If you ave a passion for it you do not let that stand in your way. I am a chef so every day i could potentially make somone sick even kill them,but because i know what the hell I am doing ,I make sure that all my food is safe, handled and prepared correctly. Even by doing this I can not be 100% certain that someonewill not get sick, but i am willing to take the risk because cooking is my passion. People like Ian King are willing to take a risk and look where they are.