Person Trainers, A Question For You

[MayhemMaker]

Often times on bodybuilding.com you will see a thread about "idiotic personal trainers" at gyms having their clientelle do things like 100 reps of curls, drop sets for 100 reps, telling them not to deadlift or squat, telling them certain things will hurt them even though most would disagree, the list can go on and on.

How do you feel about PTs who teach this type of stuff, and if you teach it, how do you feel?

Do you ever see other PTs doing it ?

If anyone teaches this type of stuff, don't be offended because I didn't mean it that way.

[mstockwe87]

it doesnt bother me really...judging from the trainers that worked alongside me, the way a trainer trains their client is generally a reflection of their experience if they have any. Most of the trainers that worked with me were college grads with a basic cert but little personal exercise experience. The best trainers I know practice what they preach and preach what they have practiced.

[EMISGOD]

Most of the trainers I see, particularly at chain gyms, are not trainers so much as exercise demonstrators and often poor ones at that. Ask them about dieting and you can be treated to blank stares, particularly if you get into carb manipulation, carb timing and dialog about the glycemic index. Ask them how to break a stall and very few of them will have anything meaningful to offer. Very few of them can ever answer the question of "why" when applied to anything.

The obvious answer to your question is incompetence in conjunction with fear. Most of them know they're hacks and unless they can teach their client to focus on form, assuming they know it to begin with, they don't want their client doing any "dangerous" exercises, as it opens them and the gym and its corporate masters up to liability. So, if you follow this, they teach their client wrong, their client feels strong one day, loads up a bunch of weights beyond what their current limit is and either injures or kills themselves...big whoops, right? They are trying to avoid this scenario.

Some of them don't feel that certain exercises are necessary. Most people are well into a stall when they go to a trainer. This feeds into one of the ways to break a stall and so even the mediocre crap the trainer has them do yields some degree of results. So, if they want to try an exercise that the trainer doesn't like and he says no, he has the position of authority bestowed upon him by the client, whether that position is deserved or not. It could be sour grapes for the trainer or what I mentioned or the idea that 90% of the people coming in are not looking for nor desirous of hardcore or intense exercises. Thus, keep the plebes happy and keep the money coming in...

[gischer]

depends upon the trainers really. A majority of my clientel deadlifts and squats regularly. If they can't squat to paralell i work with them until they can. Squats and deadlifts, aside from the fact that they develope a great deal of lower body strength, are highly applicable to everday life. For the middle aged and elderly I really attribute proper squat and deadlifting form to being highly injury preventative (i.e. picking up a heavy box/standing up from an awkward position). When I explain this clients really begin to understand that it isn't just for PL'ers/BB'ers/Males in general.



I think a big reason why trainers often use really easy/simple exercises, at very low resistnace is b/c many clients don't really like to work hard, especially intially. So clients will just do sets of 50 situps so that the clients "can feel the burn," and think that they are working hard.

Most trainers at my gym are pretty good in this area, but there are deffinetly some who do all of their exercises on one foot, only with one arm because it builds "core strength."

edit: I'm working on a M.S. in clinical nutrition, and I deffinetly do a lot of in-depth work with my clients in this area. Though often I reserve strategies such as carb timing for the more advanced clients, or those who are truly stuck, as it takes a bit of work to teach, and is tough for the average person to follow through with.

I do my best not to attempt to instruct my clients in something (whether based on nutrition or exercise, etc.) unless I can explain the "why" that Emisgod was referring to. A lot of the time clients will want to call you out on it, and when you don't have the answer you end up sounding pretty unintelligent. Which, as Emisgod noted, is why many trainers don't go into great depth in certain areas. If I truely don't understand (happens from time to time in regards to supplementation), I simply tell them that I will research it.


btw. I'm ISSA, and NESTA certified, and working on NCSF. None of which are all that reputable, but I get a pay raise for getting them, and got a huge discount...

[mavrick77]

Often times on bodybuilding.com you will see a thread about "idiotic personal trainers" at gyms having their clientelle do things like 100 reps of curls, drop sets for 100 reps, telling them not to deadlift or squat, telling them certain things will hurt them even though most would disagree, the list can go on and on.

How do you feel about PTs who teach this type of stuff, and if you teach it, how do you feel?

Do you ever see other PTs doing it ?

If anyone teaches this type of stuff, don't be offended because I didn't mean it that way.

now I see people do stupid crap all the time, but I would not consider a drop set of 100 reps stupid. that is a great way to burn a muscle out.

for example, I train my gf personally... she is a very muscular woman, however more muscular in the legs then the upper half. so I keep the reps in the 8-12 rep range with heavy compound movements up top....HOWEVER in the lower half we focus for her on alot of super sets, drop sets, and compound movements with higher reps then normal....and guess what, her shape has changed, she is more of a hourglass shape now, rather then bulkier in the legs. however her leg definition is WAY up. so I by no means would call that idiotic, but I guess some people who are uninformed or lacking knowledge might.

NOW ON THE OTHER HAND.....if you have a Male client who is 120lbs soaking wet, who's goal is to gain weight, and you have him working a bodypart 3x a week for a 100reps....yes I would call that idiotic.

[Roadsterd]

now I see people do stupid crap all the time, but I would not consider a drop set of 100 reps stupid. that is a great way to burn a muscle out.

for example, I train my gf personally... she is a very muscular woman, however more muscular in the legs then the upper half. so I keep the reps in the 8-12 rep range with heavy compound movements up top....HOWEVER in the lower half we focus for her on alot of super sets, drop sets, and compound movements with higher reps then normal....and guess what, her shape has changed, she is more of a hourglass shape now, rather then bulkier in the legs. however her leg definition is WAY up. so I by no means would call that idiotic, but I guess some people who are uninformed or lacking knowledge might.

NOW ON THE OTHER HAND.....if you have a Male client who is 120lbs soaking wet, who's goal is to gain weight, and you have him working a bodypart 3x a week for a 100reps....yes I would call that idiotic.

My gf is just like yours and I have her routine set up the same way. Supersets, compound movements w/ higher reps), but when you say higher reps I think of 15-20. Any more than that seems a bit excessive, weight is way too light.

[mstockwe87]

Most of the trainers I see, particularly at chain gyms, are not trainers so much as exercise demonstrators and often poor ones at that. Ask them about dieting and you can be treated to blank stares, particularly if you get into carb manipulation, carb timing and dialog about the glycemic index. Ask them how to break a stall and very few of them will have anything meaningful to offer. Very few of them can ever answer the question of "why" when applied to anything.

The obvious answer to your question is incompetence in conjunction with fear. Most of them know they're hacks and unless they can teach their client to focus on form, assuming they know it to begin with, they don't want their client doing any "dangerous" exercises, as it opens them and the gym and its corporate masters up to liability. So, if you follow this, they teach their client wrong, their client feels strong one day, loads up a bunch of weights beyond what their current limit is and either injures or kills themselves...big whoops, right? They are trying to avoid this scenario.

Some of them don't feel that certain exercises are necessary. Most people are well into a stall when they go to a trainer. This feeds into one of the ways to break a stall and so even the mediocre crap the trainer has them do yields some degree of results. So, if they want to try an exercise that the trainer doesn't like and he says no, he has the position of authority bestowed upon him by the client, whether that position is deserved or not. It could be sour grapes for the trainer or what I mentioned or the idea that 90% of the people coming in are not looking for nor desirous of hardcore or intense exercises. Thus, keep the plebes happy and keep the money coming in...

that pretty much sums up my experience around other trainers. I worked for a chain gym once upon a time and the main goal was to keep that $$ comin in. The way most trainers did that was follow the sales training they were given and get their clients into routines based on the latest fad program they saw somewhere. Like Emisgod says, most trainers dont know the "why" when it comes to exercise/nutrition and get owned when a client asks for the rationale behind 100 rep exercises...too bad that the clients usually dont ask for that rationale. They assume because someone has either a company cert or any cert in general, that person automatically knows the science behind their methods. In truth all it tells you if someone has a certification is that they were able to temporarily absorb some info and pass a test, it doesn't guarantee that they comprehend what they learned.

[Environ]

I choose to concentrate on my own business and I do not get involved in what another trainer is doing. I've enough to be doing minding my own business. I use the knowledge that I learned through a whole range of certifications to design my workouts. I'm there to get results for the client, not impress them with the latest gimmicky exercise or inappropriate training modality.

We were thought that, as long as you can justify it, you can put anything in a workout. If you see a trainer getting 65 year old Mavis doing a drop set, ask him/her to justify this choice.

What I don't like is when all trainers get tarred with the same brush It even happens on this site.

[johnrich69]

Most of the trainers I see, particularly at chain gyms, are not trainers so much as exercise demonstrators and often poor ones at that. Ask them about dieting and you can be treated to blank stares, particularly if you get into carb manipulation, carb timing and dialog about the glycemic index. Ask them how to break a stall and very few of them will have anything meaningful to offer. Very few of them can ever answer the question of "why" when applied to anything.

The obvious answer to your question is incompetence in conjunction with fear. Most of them know they're hacks and unless they can teach their client to focus on form, assuming they know it to begin with, they don't want their client doing any "dangerous" exercises, as it opens them and the gym and its corporate masters up to liability. So, if you follow this, they teach their client wrong, their client feels strong one day, loads up a bunch of weights beyond what their current limit is and either injures or kills themselves...big whoops, right? They are trying to avoid this scenario.

Some of them don't feel that certain exercises are necessary. Most people are well into a stall when they go to a trainer. This feeds into one of the ways to break a stall and so even the mediocre crap the trainer has them do yields some degree of results. So, if they want to try an exercise that the trainer doesn't like and he says no, he has the position of authority bestowed upon him by the client, whether that position is deserved or not. It could be sour grapes for the trainer or what I mentioned or the idea that 90% of the people coming in are not looking for nor desirous of hardcore or intense exercises. Thus, keep the plebes happy and keep the money coming in...

I think he has hit this one right on the money!

[CantSeeMe]

Another thing to consider is that you need to know where to client is at in order to understand the workout. Perhaps the trainer is avoiding squats and deads because the client has a herniated disk or torn meniscus. You can't really judge a training session from the outside. The only person that a trainer really needs to concern themselves with pleasing is the client.

The other thing that always gets overlooked on these forums is that the vast majority of personal training clients are NOT interested in bodybuilding. Most just want to lose weight and get off their ass and DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL for an hour.

[Be-Be]

Depends on the client's goals and if they are seeing the results they want. If the trainer is doing the same thing with everyone (no matter what it is), that's not good. But the client may have a specific goal or injury or physical limitation that causes an apparently strange workout to make sense.

That being said, I've had clients come to be because they stopped seeing results or weren't meeting their goals with previous trainers because the trainer was stuck in a training rut or using an ineffective workout.

I've also had clients request strange workouts. If, after I've talked to them about the drawbacks, they still want to give me money to do it and it won't hurt them, why not. Perhaps after awhile I can convince them to do something more sensible and get better results.