Physical exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Diet can get you far on the path to fitness, but it can't do what exercise can do for strength, cardiovascular fitness, lung capacity, and muscle tone. To help you in your exercise endeavors, you can hire a personal trainer. But should you? There are some excellent personal trainers out there, and if you can afford it, they can help you reach your goals faster. But it's no fun to talk about the good personal trainers. Let's talk about the ones you should avoid at all costs.
What do I know about this? I don't have a personal trainer, but as a high school and college athlete I've trained with many coaches, and as a lifelong fitness freak I've spent countless hours watching the trainers and their disciples at gyms. That, and, I almost hired a trainer recently, and in fact it is he that inspires this post...let's call him Trainer Ted.
Why did I almost train with Trainer Ted? I didn't really want to, but my free session with Trainer Ted grew out of an innocuous question that I asked him while working out. I had seen Trainer Ted before, and although I didn't particularly like his personality (way too loud in the gym), I noticed he taught his students mostly good exercise technique and he had good muscle development. So it seemed he knew what he was doing. I went up to him and asked him about his favorite chest exercises, as this was an area I wanted to improve at the time. We got to talking and he convinced me into doing a free session with him.
Now let me put this in some context. Usually when I ask a trainer or other gym-goer a question, I get my answer, thank him, and go about my workout. As an aside, at my gym of choice, I usually get one of two answers when I ask someone about their workout routines:
1) "My drug of choice is X, I can get you a good deal, here's my card."
2) "You think I have good calf (or other body part) development?! I have never worked that body part in my life!"
Many denizens of my gym make no secret of their drug use or of their criminal records. It's a refreshing place. But Trainer Ted did not let me go after I declined to buy his drug of choice! He began selling his services very hard, to the point that I felt that I had no way out. I felt bad, and accepted a free training session. I won't make that mistake again.
Let's get on with it, here are the behaviors - most of which Trainer Ted exhibited - that should tip you off to fire, or not to hire, your trainer.
1 - He encourages dangerous technique. One of the first things Trainer Ted wanted to do was to check my bench press technique. I told him I didn’t want to bench much because I had some shoulder pain that benching aggravated, but I agreed we should check my technique. To Trainer Ted’s delight, he spotted something he could change in my technique. He told me my grip was all wrong and that I should adopt the Suicide Grip. The Suicide Grip is called the Suicide Grip for a reason. It is a thumbless grip on the bar, and if the bar slips and you have a lot of plates on it, you’ll be very lucky to avoid hospitalization. Professional athletes sometimes end up in the hospital for life-saving surgery because of this silly grip.
I told Trainer Ted I do not train that way, but he insisted it was the only way to bench. I told Trainer Ted that I regularly train with benchers who put up over 300 and 400 pounds, and they seem to do just fine with a full grip on the bar, and I don’t want to bench anyway! I was not having it, I don’t care if the Suicide Grip feels a little better for some people, it’s not for me, and most people should never try it, even with a spotter. In the gym, safety always comes first, always. Trainer Ted would not compromise on this issue and became visibly upset. Bad Trainer Ted!
2 - He ignores your goals. I have well developed glutes from lots of back and front squats. I don’t want my butt to get any bigger, and so I have switched to lunges as the mainstay of my leg routine. I love my lunges, they’re harder than squats, and I believe they’re a better exercise overall. Trainer Ted wanted to see my squat technique, so I showed him, but I told him I don’t want to do any squats (just like I told him I don’t want to bench), because my butt was developed enough, and I told him I wanted to focus on correcting my slight shoulder roll and improving my posture. His response was, “Well I’m gonna make you squat! Your butt will be huge! HUGE!!! Look at me! I can barely fit into these pants!” Are you serious Ted? I’m telling you what I want to work on and you’re telling me no? Why would I ever pay you money for that?
Listen Trainer Teds of the world, your job is to help your clients reach their goals. Not your goals. You can have some input into your clients’ goals, but if your client wants to lose weight, you put him on a routine focused on low intensity and high intensity aerobic exercise and a clean diet, not a heavy weight training routine with bulking shakes. You have to listen to your client and act accordingly, the client is the boss and if you don’t listen to her wants and needs, you’re out of a job.
3 - He's FAT. I know I’m going to get in trouble for this one. But if your goal is to improve your body composition and attain a lean physique, you should NOT be taking lessons from a trainer who can’t do it himself. Being lean is a skill, and if your trainer is 50 pounds overweight he has not mastered this skill. How will he convey its mastery to you? If you’re trying to lose weight and expose those abs, you need a good role model – someone who can actually do it. Besides, it’s not motivating and highly nauseating when the guy who’s yelling at you to sprint faster is munching on a giant sub with mustard dribbling down his chin. You know exactly what I'm talking about.
4 - He makes fun of your fellow gym-goers. Trainer Ted was all over this one as soon as he showed up 30 minutes late for my free evaluation session. As we chatted, he regularly pointed to the women that passed by and would say “She’s so fat,” or “I would hit that,” or “She’s cute but look at that cellulite,” or “She really needs to get the fat off her arms,” and so forth. First, this is extremely unprofessional, and rude. I knew immediately that I would not be hiring Trainer Ted. When you’re a trainer, you have to respect those around you and know that you are judged on everything that you say, so keep your stupidity to yourself. By disparaging others, you’re telling your client that you will talk about the client behind her back too. It’s disgusting. And for the record, those women Trainer Ted made fun of were all in fantastic shape and regular gym-goers who were within earshot of his comments. With any luck, they’ll complain and Ted will be kicked out of this gym.
5 - He tries to sign you up for 50 sessions all at once. You’ve barely just met and this guy wants a long-term commitment. Danger! He wants to sign you up quickly before you discover he has no idea what he’s doing, and then you’re locked in. If you’re signing up with a trainer that you don’t know that well, go for the pay-as-you-go option. When Trainer Ted told me that I was in dire straits and would need to have at least 3 sessions with him per week at a cost of 90 dollars per session (after the discount), I got out of there. He was shocked that I turned down his generous offer.
6 - He tells you that you are doing everything incorrectly, and only with his help will you be able to reform. Along with that, he talks about secret knowledge that only he and a select few possess. Trainer Ted was like this, he kept telling me about his physiology expertise, but he kept repeating the same statement over and over again. Guess what? I don’t need to be reminded about this one particular fact about the shoulder every 5 minutes.
One of my favorite things about Trainer Ted is that whenever I would say something that he perceived as smart about health or fitness, he would respond, “Oh yea, I told you that!” No Trainer Ted, I read it…in a book! Now I’m not saying that I have nothing left to learn, I have a lot left to learn, and there is a lot that a good trainer can still teach me. But I have been training for many years, and was a semi-professional athlete for a few years, so I’m probably not doing everything wrong, but only some things. If your trainer makes himself out to be a legendary fitness guru who will correct all of your bad technique, beware. Also beware of the constant critic, the trainer who tells you everything you are doing is wrong, but he can’t tell you what to correct. His mantra is “you’re doing it wrong and you’ll never learn.”
7 - You pay him to watch you do cardio. The most this trainer does is count your beads of sweat and make a big show about taking your blood pressure or attaching your heart rate monitor. If your trainer isn’t doing anything besides sitting on the chest press machine watching your water bottle, you shouldn’t be paying him. Fire him and spend some of the money you save on motivating music.
