For the first time ever, I had to “un-friend” someone at Facebook.
Here’s the problem … her latest status update …
[Name Deleted] is "hated" by her clients…and made another one sick today. lol. I’m awesome
No, you’re not awesome.
And how can you “LOL” over “making” someone sick? Besides, you didn’t make someone sick. Your client was tough enough or misguided enough to keep working. You didn’t do anything.
Here’s where my 3-year-old daughter comes in.
When she was first learning to count, she would skip a number, keep counting, then realize she’d skipped something, then start again from 1.
Typically, she’d count, “1-2-3-4-5-7-8-9 – oops, I missed 6 – 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10 – oops, I missed 8 – 1,2,3, [etc].”
So if she were trying to count 15 reps, her personal training client would end up doing more like 40 reps!
Do you think a client somehow completing 40 reps with a weight that should have left her spent at 15 might get sick?
How much “awesome” skill does it take to make a client sick?
Any idiot off the street could “train” someone hard enough to make them sick.
The real skill in personal training is to get the most out of the workout WITHOUT making your client sick.
What positive results do you get when your client gets sick?
None.
- They have to stop the workout.
- It takes them longer to recover.
- They’ve lost much of the nutritional value of their previous meal.
- They probably felt embarrassed in front of their peers.
- They’ll need extra electrolytes just to get back to normal.
- You’ve forced them to associate exercise with negative feelings.
Awesome, indeed.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Dead on, Steve. Couldn’t agree more.
Thanks.
I can not agree MORE!!! Thank you for this post—I was beginning to think there weren’t many of us trainers left that are pursuing a goal of helping change our clients lifestyle benefiting their overall “health” “fitness” and “well-being.” NOT pursuing a goal of how many people you can brag about that they made “sick.” What a disgrace, people should associate working out with feeling good, physically and mentally–and not puking, getting injured, extreme pain and embarrassment.
Hey, Stephen!
Hope all is well. It is a bit sad to see this sort of mentality still around but let’s face it, shows like the Biggest Loser still promote this sort of training philosophy.
I can remember back in the early 80’s getting a well-known Baltimore Oriole in the gym and having him lose his lunch after his third machine – good old school Nautilus stuff! He was so sore after his workout that he never came back! Hey, what can I say, we were ignorant fools back then!
I always tell prospective clients this simple truth, ” the easy thing for a trainer to do is make you work hard, the hardest thing for a trainer to do is get you to work smart”! Bootcamp mentality is appropriate for about 5% of the fitness folks out there and foolish for the rest!
Smart 3 year old!
Pat