Crappy Personal Trainer Syndrome

I recently was in the middle of a discussion that seems to sprout its ugly head every month or so. Why are there so many "bad" personal trainers in this industry? Why do people pay them to give them horrible service?

I have been in the midst of this conversion a few times. The answer for these questions seem to be this:

-It is too easy to become a personal trainer.

- People love bargains and gimmicks. Whatever works the fastest and is the cheapest is the best.

This obviously is a major problem for good personal trainers out their looking to really help their clients and wanting to charge for their time they spend providing quality service in and out of the gym.

Well, because I am pretty weary from constantly talking about this, I will simply get to the point and point out what I believe will make a good trainer and what a potential client should look for.

Good Trainers

1. Well educated in their craft. Do not simply rely on easy to obtain certifications. They have extended amount of experience and knowledge.
2. They really want to help the client they work with. The client is not just another person to make warmup for 10 minutes on a treadmill and count reps for.
3. Train clients on an individual basis. The trainer must be able to assess the client before training him or her.
4. Talks the talk and walk the walk. Doesn't tell a client to not eat donuts and then gobbles down a dozen every night.
5. Is not afraid to leave a client who fails to commit. Training someone who doesn't want to do as the trainer says is not worth training.

Smart Clients:

1. Do not judge a trainer on looks. You should be impressed with the knowledge of that trainer and not his abs.
2. Looks for a trainers background. Knows the trainer should have at least a few years under his belt, and a respectable certification to back him up (ACSM,NSCA,NASM and Chek)
3. Trainer explains workout and keeps a journal on clients progress. Nothing worse than a trainer who can't remember anything about you but your name.
4. Trainer focuses on you during session and does not watch music videos or strike up useless conversations with others. I hate that the most
5. Trainer is always prompt.

These are just a few things to catch. We can only hope that clients and trainers both become smarter about personal training

A Bit About Me

Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog. In this blog , I'm going to tell you a bit about me. I have been in the fitness industry for quite sometime now and still find things about it that are surprising. I created the website called The Fitness Road to keep people like myself informed on solid principles and ideas in the industry. As we all know, there are a lot of fitness sites and so called gurus out there giving out a lot of information and a lot of b.s. It is pretty hard to decipher between the two at times. The Fitness Road started as a site to help decipher the crapola from the stuff that works. We are certainly not the only site to do this. In fact, I rather like the idea of standing with truthful sites and professionals who cut through the garbage and bring you the facts.

When I thought about making a blog about me, I found that much of what I pursue and have accomplished is highly influenced by the philosophy behind The Fitness Road. I really like looking into complications of strength and conditioning. There is A TON of information out there. I take this information and simplify into its basic components. For the most part, every experiment, training philosophy and guide will follow basic principles in fitness. Hell, life is pretty much the same way. Basic principles bind us all whether we like it or not. One major principle I use as a filter of all other information is SAID principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand). The principle simply means people (and animals) adapt specifically to their daily life and changes. In my eyes, life throws some serious obstacles at you. To overcome the obstacle it usually takes a change in simple patterns in life. Whether that is waking up earlier, eating more or less, being more patient, or whatever. It is a change that must happen to overcome the obstacle and "adapt" to the new environment (stimulus).

Obviously, I like to go off on rants from time to time. To keep from ranting anymore, I'm going to wrap this up with a little overview of me:

I'm a active guy who is either up and training or "rehabing" old injuries. I am a huge ancient history buff, there is some crazy stuff that went on in those periods (pretty close to crazy stuff that happens now). My goal right now is to bring my clean and snatch lift over 225lb. and to bring my deadlift back up to 450lb. From my experience in the fitness industry, I am wise enough to seek out "functional" methods of training. Train hard but be smart. I only hope when I turn 50 I am not the guy who says "If only I knew then what I know now...".

Thanks for tuning in, see you in the next blog