Personal training sucks! The whole concept is flawed. you get someone in for an hour a week, beast them until they can’t walk. Then send them on their way hoping for the best.
This is the approach that many of the personal trainers I have met take, and here is where the issue is. In my humble opinion, a PT that’s sole goal is to make you feel like death and have you struggling to brush your teeth is not a trainer I want to use. For me, it shows a lack of knowledge in their field “I don’t know what I’m doing so I’m going to beast you.”
Of course, there is a time and a place for hitting your limit, but it’s not all the time and all over the place. A proper fitness programme should have periodization and build up. It should start with optimal natural movement patterns, in where everything else is built on top.
You wouldn’t build a house without first putting in the foundations. (or if you did it would soon topple over).
I like HIIT training, I really do, but constant high-intensity workouts, without first achieving optimal stability and mobility, is just asking for an injury.
Here’s the problem, personal training, isn’t a single profession. You are someone’s:
- Strength and conditioning coach
- Physiotherapist
- Councilor
- Nutritionist
- Holistic health practitioner
- Friend
In reality, you are more like someone’s life coach, I really believe this is the reason so many personal trainers struggle with client retention, the clients don’t come back if they don’t get results.
To really help someone turn their life around, we need to advise on everything from nutrition, to sleep patterns even all the way to managing stress levels. All these factors will have an effect on the client’s overall health.
The health industry has boomed over the last 20 years, people are becoming more aware on their health than ever before. I now see more gyms, fitness studios and personal training services than ever before. This is a great thing! however, people have a nasty habit of profiting off booms such as ours in our little corner of the world.
I’ve seen YouTube fitness stars that are more famous for being eye candy than for their actual knowledge, if they are such a good trainer why are they making videos and not in the gym, you know, training people! (there are of course exceptions, I thoroughly recommend watching the strength camp series).
I’ve also seen all sorts of cheap online personal training certifications popping up, producing crap personal trainers! Don’t fall into this trap.
The key to fixing this problem lies in the education, don’t kid yourself, you don’t know it all. experience in doing it wrong is still wrong. If you would like to become a personal trainer, pay good money for your education, people can take stuff away from you, your education is yours, it’s the most valuable asset you have.
Learning should be an ongoing thing, for the rest of your life. The more I read, the more I realise how little I actually know, each book or course leads me to another and unlocks a whole new world of learning. Ego is a bitch and its usually the trainer that claim to know it all, that know the least.
This is why I got into the education side of the fitness industry, it’s difficult to help people that are stuck in their ways, but hopefully, I can help the up and comers.
If you would like to potentially look at a role as a personal trainer and join our booming industry, and do it right, check out the website from the good people at the East Midlands Fitness Academy. If you’re lucky, you may even get me as your teacher!
www.eastmidlandsfitnessacademy.com
