Trainer Appearance

[noendsnoskinz]

Looking like a bodybuilder vs a normal, healthy person will certainly affect the number of clients you get.

You will get FAR LESS.

Wake up.



Jules, you know that when "normals" think of someone in "super great shape", they do not picture Ronnie Coleman. Bodybuilders do not even enter the minds of the general public. "Super great shape" to them is this look:



16-20% BF, Tanned, and slightly visible abs or just a flat stomach. No veins, no significant muscle definition anywhere (by BB standards)

first let me just say thanks for all the replies I didn't think it that much of a difference . but when i was comparing a bodybuilder to a healthy person it was more like say a personal trainer looking like ll cool j vs someone looking like Micheal phelps.Again just judging by appearance and not by the results they can get their clients. The reason i ask this is because my ideal physique is to be somewhere where LL and was wondering that when i become a pt if that may help me or not get more clients.

p.s. I'm about 5'4 so i don't think ill be that intimidating lol

[bigfrog]

first let me just say thanks for all the replies I didn't think it that much of a difference . but when i was comparing a bodybuilder to a healthy person it was more like say a personal trainer looking like ll cool j vs someone looking like Micheal phelps.Again just judging by appearance and not by the results they can get their clients. The reason i ask this is because my ideal physique is to be somewhere where LL and was wondering that when i become a pt if that may help me or not get more clients.

p.s. I'm about 5'4 so i don't think ill be that intimidating lol

It can make a difference. I don't give it a chance to though.

[FFT2009]

Think about it from your own point of view, would you hire an out of shape trainer over someone who has a good size, good definition etc?

[foster_tg]

I get alot of women clients because of the way I look and my physique. The funny thing is that alot of the women's husbands pick me out to train their wives.

As an amateur bodybuilder, I moving up to the next level to it will be interesting to see how women and men react to me as a bulked up bodybuilder.

[flexapeal]

I can't stand that juls from the tv show. She doesn't know what shes talking about, from what I've seen anyway. My wife was watching her one day on the rechel ray show and she said there was no such thing as a platuea. Are you nuts!!! Personal trainers don't need to look like the Hulk, they just need to be fit and healthy. Most body builders are too big and have lack of mobility and this hurts their overall performance of daily duties.

[flexapeal]

I"ve got a friend that has huge arms and he can't even comb his hair or scratch his head. So I would not take advice from him because I like scratching my hair, lol.

[jules_d1]

I"ve got a friend that has huge arms and he can't even comb his hair or scratch his head. So I would not take advice from him because I like scratching my hair, lol.

so just because he looks like that you think he will make all his clients look like that too?

[flexapeal]

Well the question was about apperance and if i saw a trainer who couldn't even put his hat on I think i would go elsewhere.

[sasquatch989]

first let me just say thanks for all the replies I didn't think it that much of a difference . but when i was comparing a bodybuilder to a healthy person it was more like say a personal trainer looking like ll cool j vs someone looking like Micheal phelps.Again just judging by appearance and not by the results they can get their clients. The reason i ask this is because my ideal physique is to be somewhere where LL and was wondering that when i become a pt if that may help me or not get more clients.

p.s. I'm about 5'4 so i don't think ill be that intimidating lol

Endz, you will find that no matter what strategy you take to find clients, your success will depend on your strategy of retention. For every 7-8 potentials, a good salesman (pt's are salesmen) will close 1. Maybe that 1 chose you b/c you look like LLCoolJ, and that's fine. But if you are a poor trainer (i'll define that in a moment), then you will see your few hard earned clients leave you. And recruiting fresh meat will become an even harder task. This applies to PT's who are independent and employees.

However, if you focus on being a good trainer, then the Word of Mouth Network will do much of the selling for you. One of the proverbs of sales is "Let the product sell itself" If you are delivering a truly quality service then after a while you won't have to try as hard to close new clients, new leads will seek you out instead of you seeking them, and losing clients becomes less of a problem.

The qualities of a good trainer depend on the overall gist of your service, and perhaps that is another thread.

To me, a good trainer doesn't need to follow all those stupid cues from what our PT books tells us about empathy, caring, blah blha blah. I dont even know if punctuality would fit on there in some cases. But what i do believe is this:
If you are passionate about being a trainer, then all those other things ought to fall into place. But that;s just me. New thread coming soon.....

But in your case, focus on being the best trainer you can be and things like appearance will then only matter to you.

[Al Shades]

I"ve got a friend that has huge arms and he can't even comb his hair or scratch his head. So I would not take advice from him because I like scratching my hair, lol.

No you don't.

[Calhexas]

Judging on appearance, could the way a pt looks possibly get them more clients? I'm talking about someone who looks like a bodybuilder opposed to someone who just looks healthy.

Appearance is definitely a competitive edge in the exercise profession. Healthy looking individuals appear more likely to know how to live healthy, and therefore are usually correlated with more exercise/health knowledge.

I would say a very fit looking trainer would have a fundamental edge over a trainer who looks less fit.

However, I would like to say that it is quite possible for a person who looks like a fitness model to not be a very good trainer...and it is quite possible for an overweight/unhealthy looking individual to be a great motivator and have extensive exercise knowledge. It all depends on how much the client weighs the whole "practice what you preach" principle.

I've known some very athletic looking trainers that are pretty crappy at their job however.

[XtremeFitnessINC]

Its a proven fact that many people choose a trainer that isnt in super great shape (eg bb'er or fitness model) and looks more like them as they feel more emotionally attached/related to them. The trainer that is in very good shape can be very intimidating.


Just another example of emotive thinking overpowering logic.

Huh? I highly doubt it has been proven, unless you just made that statement up. It varies from person to person but I believe most go for the look they are after which normally is a very fit person.

not proven, just opinion

[XtremeFitnessINC]

Judging a PT on boyd image is like judging a doctor based on if he wears glasses or not....

Watch them train (you or someone else) and go from there.

However, from experience I know most "bodybuilder-type" trainers are morons who are going to lazily walk you from machine to machine to machine.......

Two completely different professions, you are comparing apples to airplanes. As a personal trainer, it seems we are always judged by our appearance. Therefore most of us are on our "A" game when it comes to being well groomed and physically fit. Being fit doesn't make you a better trainer in which I agree with you about part of your statement but most clients definitely take our physical appearance into consideration when it comes to hiring a PT.

Ask yourself this:

Would you buy a "FAT" burning supplement from a chubby guy or a ripped fit model?

Would you hiring the 5'2 300lb female trainer for weight loss or the 5'2 115 female trainer for weight loss?

Is it fair? No

Should we suck it up and stay fit? Yes.

Nature of the business

[flexapeal]

The bottom line is just use common sense when picking a trainer. You can't always judge a book by its cover, unless they are a fitness trainer. If the PT is muscle bound you need to worry about looking like him because it probably took him years and proper diet to acheive this. So if you pick a PT because of looks this could be misleading just like the ads in muscle mags. As long as the PT is fit and can do the workouts with the client they should be fine.

[noendsnoskinz]

Endz, you will find that no matter what strategy you take to find clients, your success will depend on your strategy of retention. For every 7-8 potentials, a good salesman (pt's are salesmen) will close 1. Maybe that 1 chose you b/c you look like LLCoolJ, and that's fine. But if you are a poor trainer (i'll define that in a moment), then you will see your few hard earned clients leave you. And recruiting fresh meat will become an even harder task. This applies to PT's who are independent and employees.

However, if you focus on being a good trainer, then the Word of Mouth Network will do much of the selling for you. One of the proverbs of sales is "Let the product sell itself" If you are delivering a truly quality service then after a while you won't have to try as hard to close new clients, new leads will seek you out instead of you seeking them, and losing clients becomes less of a problem.

The qualities of a good trainer depend on the overall gist of your service, and perhaps that is another thread.

To me, a good trainer doesn't need to follow all those stupid cues from what our PT books tells us about empathy, caring, blah blha blah. I dont even know if punctuality would fit on there in some cases. But what i do believe is this:
If you are passionate about being a trainer, then all those other things ought to fall into place. But that;s just me. New thread coming soon.....

But in your case, focus on being the best trainer you can be and things like appearance will then only matter to you.

Thanks for the insight. Yeah i agree that word of mouth is one of the best things to get you clients and in the long run that is what truly matters. I'm probably stressin the issue too much and instead should be, like you said, just the best trainer i can be and be passionate about it and appearance shouldn't really matter it'll just be the icing on the cake i guess.

Btw what do you mean when you said you dont need to follow the cues about being caring and showing empathy? Do you mean that pt's shouldn't be babysitters for their clients?

[SHOWTIME]

Is it fair? No

Should we suck it up and stay fit? Yes.

Nature of the business

This^^^^^^^^^^^^

[martymcfly]

Ask yourself this:

Would you buy a "FAT" burning supplement from a chubby guy or a ripped fit model?

Would you hiring the 5'2 300lb female trainer for weight loss or the 5'2 115 female trainer for weight loss?

Is it fair? No

Should we suck it up and stay fit? Yes.

Nature of the business

great. repped.

[XtremeFitnessINC]

great. repped.

Thanks bro!

[NDame616]

Two completely different professions, you are comparing apples to airplanes. As a personal trainer, it seems we are always judged by our appearance. Therefore most of us are on our "A" game when it comes to being well groomed and physically fit. Being fit doesn't make you a better trainer in which I agree with you about part of your statement but most clients definitely take our physical appearance into consideration when it comes to hiring a PT.

Ask yourself this:

Would you buy a "FAT" burning supplement from a chubby guy or a ripped fit model?

Would you hiring the 5'2 300lb female trainer for weight loss or the 5'2 115 female trainer for weight loss?

Is it fair? No

Should we suck it up and stay fit? Yes.

Nature of the business

there's a huge difference. One of the best fat loss trainers in the world is Alwyn Cosgrove. He has had cancer twice, both times on his death bed. He isn't exactly in shape....but there's no one out there better or smarter than him when it comes to fat loss.

One of the best sports trainers that Iknow of is mike Boyle. He's brilliant, and has trained top athletes from all levels pro and amateur. He looks like a science dork because...that's what he is.

I've worked at, and worked OUT at plenty of gyms with juice monkeys there that don't know WTF they are doing. Should I say a trainer should be a fat blob? No. However, I've seen plenty of worthless bodybuilder trainers (and, of course, I've seen tons of worthless "athletic-type" trainers

[SHOWTIME]

there's a huge difference. One of the best fat loss trainers in the world is Alwyn Cosgrove. He has had cancer twice, both times on his death bed. He isn't exactly in shape....but there's no one out there better or smarter than him when it comes to fat loss.

One of the best sports trainers that Iknow of is mike Boyle. He's brilliant, and has trained top athletes from all levels pro and amateur. He looks like a science dork because...that's what he is.

I've worked at, and worked OUT at plenty of gyms with juice monkeys there that don't know WTF they are doing. Should I say a trainer should be a fat blob? No. However, I've seen plenty of worthless bodybuilder trainers (and, of course, I've seen tons of worthless "athletic-type" trainers

Let me guess your out of shape right?


I do not believe that the poster you quoted said they had to be juice monkeys or in extreme shape, the point was just that the better shape your in, the better you will look and there is no question you will get more clients (I know some may stay away from you if your in great shape but more will come to you) It has been proven in numerous studies that attractive people are more successful and get paid more money while doing the same job.

[NDame616]

I'm 180 bs, 5 foot 9, can bench 280ish, run a few miles at a time but perfer HIIT, bf maybe 12-15% etc. Are there people in "better shape" than me? Sure. However, I am certainly not "out of shape" by any means. Sorry.

I know an out of shape trainer doesn't make any sense. I wasn't promoting trainers being out of shape and saying that wouldn't affect their bottom line. I was saying a huge juice monkey isn't what people want NOW. PT started in the 70s/80s with BBers just giving out advice at the gym. It's evolved to a science. And, from what I've seen, most BB trainers certainly don't understand the science behind it. They have fat women do lateral raises or a pec dec for 4 sets of 6 because that's what they do.

I've worked at, or worked OUT at 5-6 gyms in the past 10 years. I've yet to see the token BB'er trainer be worth anything.

[Al Shades]

there's a huge difference. One of the best fat loss trainers in the world is Alwyn Cosgrove. He has had cancer twice, both times on his death bed. He isn't exactly in shape....but there's no one out there better or smarter than him when it comes to fat loss.

One of the best sports trainers that Iknow of is mike Boyle.

Both of those guys are well known in the industry because they've been around for a while. With longevity usually come accolades. However, that isn't enough, by itself, to prove that they are "the best in the world".

Cosgrove subscribes to the "compounds>isolations, free weights>machines" dogma. In a contest over getting someone into the best possible shape, he would lose to a skilled bodybuilding coach, guaranteed. I have seen videos of him training average people and it's mostly free weight, bodyweight, and core stuff that he does with his clients. In other words, he is not radically diverging from the familiar NASM/ACSM/ACE protocol that nearly all trainers in commercial gyms abide by.

Boyle trains athletes and, by his own admission, considers injury prevention to be more important than going for maximum performance. Which is surely a sensible stance for someone in his position to take.

The type of "bodybuilding-style" trainer which you deride would get someone into great shape faster than anyone else because the entire sport of bodybuilding IS about gaining as much muscle and carrying as little fat as possible. Absolutely no one knows how to achieve these feats better than bodybuilders. Certainly not your average trainer who teaches housewives how to do lunges on bosu balls.

[NDame616]

Both of those guys are well known in the industry because they've been around for a while. With longevity usually come accolades. However, that isn't enough, by itself, to prove that they are "the best in the world"..

I would argue that their success, both financially and respect from peers is based on their skills. Whether or not that's a result of their longevity in the field, than it doesn't really matter. We live in a field that has a turnover similiar to a Stop and Shop, so longevity has to count for something.

Cosgrove subscribes to the "compounds>isolations, free weights>machines" dogma. In a contest over getting someone into the best possible shape, he would lose to a skilled bodybuilding coach, guaranteed. I have seen videos of him training average people and it's mostly free weight, bodyweight, and core stuff that he does with his clients. In other words, he is not radically diverging from the familiar NASM/ACSM/ACE protocol that nearly all trainers in commercial gyms abide by.

I don't know if it's dogma, but i've also followed his writings for years and years, and he subscribes to working many muscle groups a lot is better than isolating one group once a week. When talkiong about fat loss, I think compounds is clearly far and away better. A deadlift burns more calories than a bicep curl, and a pullup will effect EPOC more than a calf raise. It's simple. you're comparing apples to bicycles when it comes to a fat loss trainer vs a bodybuilder trainer.

Boyle trains athletes and, by his own admission, considers injury prevention to be more important than going for maximum performance. Which is surely a sensible stance for someone in his position to take.

And, when it comes to athletes, 90% of the battle is staying healthy. If your trainer can't keep you healthy, you're worthless and poor. Ken Griffey coud've been the best baseball player to ever play the game, but he couldn't stay healthy for a decade. Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were some of the best pitchers to touch the rubber. But they will never be what they coudl've been. Health is the #1 priority, and any trainer should make that paramount. For an athlete, skill is second to health. So, if you're a ****ty trainer having someone back squat 315 going down 6 inches, and they blow out their ACL and they are shocked...a lot of blame goes on the trainer.

The type of "bodybuilding-style" trainer which you deride would get someone into great shape faster than anyone else because the entire sport of bodybuilding IS about gaining as much muscle and carrying as little fat as possible. Absolutely no one knows how to achieve these feats better than bodybuilders. Certainly not your average trainer who teaches housewives how to do lunges on bosu balls.

What is getting into shape? It's reletive. Take a 2 200 lb women, both twins, and take one through a body building workout, 4 sets of 6, lifting as heavy as possible, lots of machines, isolation, etc....and the other through compounds, circuits, supersets, etc. You really think the one doing isolations is going to lsoe weight faster?

90% of PT clients want fat loss, not looking like a BB'er. Therefore, the should be trained for fat loss.

[sasquatch989]

Thanks for the insight. Yeah i agree that word of mouth is one of the best things to get you clients and in the long run that is what truly matters. I'm probably stressin the issue too much and instead should be, like you said, just the best trainer i can be and be passionate about it and appearance shouldn't really matter it'll just be the icing on the cake i guess.

Btw what do you mean when you said you dont need to follow the cues about being caring and showing empathy? Do you mean that pt's shouldn't be babysitters for their clients?

That's part of it. I think a trainer is there to kick knowledge and provide support, but what seems to be the notion is how not to lose a sale. If i have a client who doesnt want to work for their results, I politely drop them when their sessions are exhausted. It's my integrity as a trainer that is on the line, and I had to learn that the hard way a few yrs back.

[Al Shades]

That's part of it. I think a trainer is there to kick knowledge and provide support, but what seems to be the notion is how not to lose a sale. If i have a client who doesnt want to work for their results, I politely drop them when their sessions are exhausted. It's my integrity as a trainer that is on the line, and I had to learn that the hard way a few yrs back.

That might be an issue if people in this field (the customers) actually cared about getting results. Very few do, I have found. It is almost too difficult to believe, but many people would genuinely prefer to to have a trainer who acts like an adult babysitter, rather than a performance coach.

Seriously, you can you image paying someone $80-100/hr to train you and not looking any different after two years? It's unfathomable, but every major club has clients who have been with their trainers for years and don't look remotely in shape. As usual, women are the worst culprits, probably because most of them aren't spending their own money.

The other thing is that customers are not given a reference point. They are rarely told in any quantifiable terms what type of progress they can expect. And the notion of holding a trainer accountable for obtaining results is almost foreign to this business.

Normal people are such a pain in the ass to deal with, what can you say. In a perfect world, every client would be a competitive athlete or bodybuilder.

[sasquatch989]

Both of those guys are well known in the industry because they've been around for a while. With longevity usually come accolades. However, that isn't enough, by itself, to prove that they are "the best in the world".

Yeah, and Boyle's not that great anyway, and Cosgrove plagiarized half his ****.

Cosgrove subscribes to the "compounds>isolations, free weights>machines" dogma. In a contest over getting someone into the best possible shape, he would lose to a skilled bodybuilding coach, guaranteed. I have seen videos of him training average people and it's mostly free weight, bodyweight, and core stuff that he does with his clients. In other words, he is not radically diverging from the familiar NASM/ACSM/ACE protocol that nearly all trainers in commercial gyms abide by.

I wouldnt call that dogma, and the major cert groups do call for isolation training and machines in their program, but they certainly dont call for HIIT, the way machines were meant to be used.

And honestly, the commercial gyms are where I see ALL the machine training. It's the studios that dont have the space where you see more dumbell, floor, and bosu work.

Boyle trains athletes and, by his own admission, considers injury prevention to be more important than going for maximum performance. Which is surely a sensible stance for someone in his position to take.

Yeah, except boyles athletes are so under developed. Show me a trainer that fails to push his athletes to their margins and I'll show athletes you fall far short of their potential.

Boyle's theories are so junk because the man has such crappy technique all around; his foundation is built on sand. I'd say a fundamental to being a sport trainer is knowing how to teach the athletic squat and the power clean. Go look for vids of his clients and you will see an atrocity to those core lifts.

The type of "bodybuilding-style" trainer which you deride would get someone into great shape faster than anyone else because the entire sport of bodybuilding IS about gaining as much muscle and carrying as little fat as possible. Absolutely no one knows how to achieve these feats better than bodybuilders. Certainly not your average trainer who teaches housewives how to do lunges on bosu balls.

No one knows how to achieve those results with out the juice, either. Besides, there is more emphasis on fat loss rather than muscle gain. Of course some muscle gain in all clients is desirable, but most people don't want to look like bodybuilders.

[Al Shades]

Ndame616, judging by your previous post and your sig I'm sure that we have some fundamental disagreements on fitness in general and particularly how to train people best.

I split everyone who participates in physical training into 3 categories:

1) People who want to improve performance
2) People want to improve appearance
&
3) People who have no clue what they're doing (i.e. everyone who doesn't fit into 1 or 2)

Judging by your sig, you think that "bodybuilding" means training to put on as much muscle mass as possible, then dieting down to step on a stage wearing a bikini while tanned and oiled up. I have an entirely different working definition of bodybuilding.

A bodybuilder, for me, is simply anyone who trains primarily for appearance. In other words, a cosmetic trainer, not an athlete. Category #2 above.

Look at figure competitors. Would you agree that Figure competitions are a subset of bodybuilding? Then how come figure competitors DON'T try to attain as much muscle as possible? There's one chink in your definition.

Here's another: Natural bodybuilders. It's a known fact that you need to use AAS in order to reach the top levels of bodybuilding. So why would an entire class of bodybuilders swear off these drugs if their one and only goal was to get as huge as possible? Obviously, it's because that ISN'T their one and only goal - or there are qualifications which they choose to abide by.

Let's now apply this to average people. A normal woman wants to lose fat, but doesn't want to get down to 5% BF. A normal guy wants to gain muscle, but doesn't want to look like Ronnie Coleman.

So, like the Figure Competitor and the Natural BB'er, normal people are also pursuing bodybuilding related goals, except that each group has its own set of qualifications.

The one thing that unites each group is the fact that they are primarily training to enhance their physical appearance.

I can't make it any simpler than that. Bodybuilding has nothing to do with stepping on stage. Bodybuilding has to do with wanting to improve your appearance. By my definition, at least 80% of people who train with weights are bodybuilders, and that certainly includes the elderly, obese housewives and couch potato's. BB-style training is the optimal method of progression for all of these groups.

"I would argue that their success, both financially and respect from peers is based on their skills"

No objective, quantifiable measure of training aptitude exists in this field. Instead, people care for their own. It turns into one big circle jerk. This happens in every professional field. Cressey praises Cosgrove who praises Boyle who praises Poliquin who praises Waterbury who praises Cressey again and the circle repeats itself. There is no annual competition where Coach Boyle and Coach Cosgrove pit their training ability against lesser known trainers under strict, supervised and controlled conditions with quantifiable outcomes. Until someone starts an event like that, 95% of the "evidence" of one coach's superiority will simply boil down to marketing, hear-say, gossip, etc...

"week. When talkiong about fat loss, I think compounds is clearly far and away better. A deadlift burns more calories than a bicep curl, and a pullup will effect EPOC more than a calf raise."

Losing fat isn't about how many calories you burn at one time. You don't get lean in the gym any more than you build muscle in the gym. Cosgrove agrees with that, ironically enough, except that he applies the analogy to cardio instead of lifting.

"It's simple. you're comparing apples to bicycles whern it comes to a fat loss trainer vs a bodybuilder trainer."

Lol, am I? Why? Because BB'ers don't know anything about fat loss, right - all they do is get big and bulky?



"And, when it comes to athletes, 90% of the battle is staying healthy"

I never said it wasn't. I said Boyle's stance makes sense for someone in his position. But you can't have it both ways. The saying goes, "World records are broken by athletes who are in pain". The price for keeping your athletes injury free is that you are not going to be able to push the cutting edge of performance. Therefore, if an athlete wanted a world record at all costs, Boyle would not necessarily be the best coach to see about it.

"What is getting into shape? It's reletive. Take a 2 200 lb women, both twins, and take one through a body building workout, 4 sets of 6, lifting as heavy as possible, lots of machines, isolation, etc....and the other through compounds, circuits, supersets, etc. You really think the one doing isolations is going to lsoe weight faster?"

First of all, their ability to lose weight will largely be dictated by their diet, not what they do in the gym. Second, the person using machines WILL progress faster because machine exercises are a lot less technically complex than free weight compounds. Normal people are completely unable to do things like squats and deadlifts with proper form.

But most important of all, "bodybuilding style" doesn't involve trying to "lift as heavy as possible" - to the contrary, in fact. You're mixing up BB'ers with PLers. BB'ers don't give a **** about resistance, they don't lift weights, they contract their muscles against resistance. I never do "4 sets of 6". The vast majority of my sets are over 12 reps and I don't do multiple consecutive sets. Almost everything is an agonist-antagonist dropset or superset.

"90% of PT clients want fat loss, not looking like a BB'er. Therefore, the should be trained for fat loss"

A red herring. 90% of clients want fat loss. What is fat loss? Fat loss is looking better. Fat loss is improving your appearance. 90% of clients would benefit from a bodybuilding style routine, which is designed for maximal body recomposition (lose fat, build muscle).

Do you really think that if some housewive adopted Ronnie Coleman's exact routine, that she would "look like a BB'er" after a month or two? Lol? How come there are thousands of 19 year old men with flowing testosterone who do just that, and they still don't look anything like Coleman? You actually think it's so easy to do? Haha

[Al Shades]

but most people don't want to look like bodybuilders.

That is a complete and total non-issue. Please stop bringing it up. Most people simply *couldn't* look like bodybuilders even if they spent night and day trying to do so.

Witness the phenomenon called "natural bodybuilding". Most of these guys look like shrimp dipped into gravy sauce at a cocktail buffet. Yet, they are all trying their hardest to get as big and lean as possible.

You simply do not wake up one day and end up looking like a bodybuilder by accident. You guys should find another forum. May I suggest Shape or Men's Health?

[sasquatch989]

There is no annual competition where Coach Boyle and Coach Cosgrove pit their training ability against lesser known trainers under strict, supervised and controlled conditions with quantifiable outcomes. Until someone starts an event like that, 95% of the "evidence" of one coach's superiority will simply boil down to marketing, hear-say, gossip, etc...

Ahh, but there is an annual competition!

There is the STREND, but that **** is stupid and predictable.

I'd suggest http://games.crossfit.com. The workouts for the games change every year and are just brutally insane. the conditions last year were strict and its always quantifiable since its always timed or weighed.

But as far as the circle jerk...yeah, open up a Power Systems catalog and you'll see the same people who will be presenting at this years NSCA National Conference. It;s sick how these ****ers do biznass.

[sasquatch989]

That is a complete and total non-issue. Please stop bringing it up. Most people simply *couldn't* look like bodybuilders even if they spent night and day trying to do so.

Witness the phenomenon called "natural bodybuilding". Most of these guys look like shrimp dipped into gravy sauce at a cocktail buffet. Yet, they are all trying their hardest to get as big and lean as possible.

You simply do not wake up one day and end up looking like a bodybuilder by accident. You guys should find another forum. May I suggest Shape or Men's Health?

I hear your frustration on it. I think the issue of people expecting to go in to a gym and 'look' any certain way, esp how Shape and Mens Health say we are supposed to look, contributes to this line of argument.

And hey, I found thid forum lookin for something else. I couldnt sit back as a cowardly lurker. Now that I'm posting, I cant stop!!!!!!!!!