S
saudades
Guest
I saw this posted somewhere...excellent article.
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How to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer
by Marc McDougal
Personal Trainers are typically under-educated with little understanding of the fields of study relating to their job. Frighteningly, any chump with a few hundred bucks and a manual can become certified. Because of this prevalence of underachievers, trainers are forced to fabricate ridiculous ideas of what they should be doing with clients, and in fact, what the purpose of a trainer really is. Following is a list and descriptions of the most frequent offenses personal trainers commit, giving the industry a bad name, and leaving me with funny things to write about.
The Bar Molester
This awful training behavior is so commonplace, that it has become expected from clients and actually mistaken as useful. Poor trainers don’t have much to do while a client is performing a set, so in a combination enforcing their own self worth and the client’s dependence; the trainer will assist the client with each and every repetition. The lat pulldown is a steadily abused culprit, but most trainers find a way to manhandle just about every exercise they incorporate. The trainer stands behind the trainee and pushes down on the bar every rep, while on some mental vacation staring at T ‘n A in the cardio area, often playing “Would I, or Wouldn’t I?” *
No logical reason exists for a trainer to have his or her hands all over the weight. Tracking a client’s progression is impossible when an accurate distinction cannot be made between how much the trainee is lifting vs. the trainer. This type of trainer is usually poor at record keeping, because they are either too lazy, or don’t understand the paramount value in the slightest. Or what paramount means. Typically, the trainer will just ballpark a random weight, if it’s too heavy, they do more of the work, if it’s too light, they just leave their hands on the bar anyway to ‘guide the weight’.
I’ve come to realize that trainers will invoke this embarrassing maneuver for one of two reasons. The first, and more sinister of the two, is simply client dependence. The trainer is conditioning the client to need the trainer, and actually cause them to believe that they could not possibly lift weights without the trainer right there molesting the bar throughout the entire set. This dependence obviously increases neediness, and since a trainer that uses this method typically doesn’t have much to offer a client with regards to tangible results, they use this trick to keep them signing over another $80/hour, week after week.
The second of the two types of bar-molesting trainers is the typical gym rat that couldn’t find another job. This trainer isn’t smart enough to do anything like this for the sake of client retention, but he’s seen every other trainer at the club and on TV do this, so he/she thinks this is what personal trainers do. This is a sad, sad soul. This is the same person that would try to cheat on tests off of his neighbor, not paying attention when the teacher would mention that an “A” and a “B” test would be given out, to make sure the person sitting next to you would have a different test. Another F? I need to start sitting next to smarter people.
Exception(s):
When a client is learning a new exercise, and struggles to respond to verbal cues, it can be very helpful to grab a hold of the implement with them and guide them through a few repetitions. However, the key here is letting the bird leave the nest. You must let go of the weight and let them perform the movement by themselves after they understand the movement. If you can’t teach a client a movement with verbal and acute physical cueing, you’re either a lousy trainer or you need to consider a more sedentary hobby, like crossword puzzles. Or maybe you should both just go to the mall.
The second, and very rare exception, is assisted/forced reps. This is an advanced method that should be used extremely rarely, and only with advanced clients. Otherwise, it’s an excuse for being too lazy to come up with effective training modalities.
Which leads me into the next topic...
Mr. Intensity
Instead of researching effective training variations, trainers love to use forced reps to bring up the intensity or something equally ridiculous. Aside from the fact that intensity has everything to do with percentage of 1 rep max (1RM), and nothing to do with how hard a set is, this method is awful for a number of reasons.
Again, a lot of it has to do with dependence. Clients are conditioned to believe they can’t get an effective workout unless they train past failure, with the trainer helping them complete extra forced reps at the end of a set. Any reasonable strength and body composition goals can be achieved without ever completing a single forced rep. In fact, I can count on one hand the times I’ve used forced reps in my own workouts: it certainly isn’t a secret to unlocking the magic door to a super-physique. It is, however a great way to prolong recovery and promote excessive soreness.
So many wonderful methods of extending sets and exercise manipulation exist; this just screams lack of knowledge. And, coincidentally is often accompanied by actual screams.
And now to expand on another briefly mentioned point…
Record Keeping is for Accountants
Tracking clients’ workouts is so rare that it astounds me. I’ve even heard this referred to as a negative thing as in “You won’t find any of those damn clipboard trainers here”. What? You also won’t find an IQ in three digits. Workouts should be planned, the more detailed the better. A trainer should have a general guideline of the exact exercises, sets, reps, rest periods and loads written out before the workout starts. This is of course subject to change during the workout based on performance, injuries, etc, but it needs to be tracked and improved upon every single workout. This is the trainer’s main job!
Progression should involve an increase of around 2% in load every workout, or an increase in volume, density (decrease in rest periods, or completing more work in the same time frame), perceived exertion of a set, or a combination of many other variables. But just taking a client through a bunch of exercises with the intent of ‘kicking their ass’ is a joke and guarantees nothing in the way of progression or results of any kind. Clients don’t know the difference, as long as they feel like they worked hard they think they’re getting their money’s worth. And when they’re still fat and weak four months later, the trainer can always blame their diet.
Speaking of tracking…
Measurements are for Tailors
Lack of confidence coupled with laziness tends to fuel this tire fire. A client should have body fat and midsection circumferences taken at minimum once per month. And I’m not talking about handing off a bioelectrical impedance unit, waiting for 3 beeps and writing down a number. A caliper test needs to be administered, the more sites the better. I prefer a 9-site test, which not only gives you an idea of where they are losing or not losing, it can also give a great idea of any hormonal imbalances that need to be addressed.
Midsection circumferences (widest and narrowest points) should be used to track visceral fat gain/loss. I’ve seen clients’ abdomen skinfold stay the same or even go up by a millimeter when they’ve lost an inch or more from the circumference around the same area. Unless the client has done zero abdominal strength training and somehow lost a significant amount of muscle in the area (highly unlikely), you can bet this means that his or her body has been removing visceral fat before the subcutaneous fat. This would have shown up as a lack of progress if calipers were the only method relied upon.
Trainers are often scared to perform these tests regularly because it’s an all out fraud alert if the client doesn’t (and often won’t) see any progress. And when they do perform the tests, the trainer typically improves the results for the sake of the client. Most trainers are so poor at proper caliper usage; that this is a shot in the dark anyway. A good trainer should be able to take 5 clients body fat measurements on a 9-site test, record all the numbers, then start over with a blank sheet and get the exact same numbers on all 5 clients, down to each millimeter (trust me, there’s no way to memorize all of these). That’s 45 numbers that should match up; most trainers will come up with around 20 matching. If you can’t come up with at least 40, you’re not training any of my clients when I’m sick. Luckily, I never get sick.
Super Spotters
Back in the day when I was a young(er) pup, I recall an encounter with a fellow trainer at a health club that has always stayed with me. He approached me as I was teaching an advanced client how to perform a proper hang clean. His eyes were glazed over in a mix of confusion and fear, and he finally found the words to ask me, “So, how do you spot a client when they’re doing this? From the front, or from the back?”
Many trainers feel as though their job title is interchangeable with ‘Professional Spotter’. This typically goes hand in hand with the Bar Molester. They feel as though they need to hover on top of a client during every rep of every set, in case something goes horribly wrong.
Of course the right answer to his naïve inquiry, was, you don’t spot a hang clean, you stay the hell back and let them do the set! I always hoped I’d get a chance to find this trainer spotting a client performing Romanian Deadlifts from behind, and I could walk by spouting out, “boww chicka bow bowwwww” porn music.
Again, when in doubt, get your hands off the bar. Let the client perform the set, and observe their movement patterns looking for muscular imbalances and dynamic postural deviations. In other words, do something useful.
----------------------------------------
How to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer
by Marc McDougal
Personal Trainers are typically under-educated with little understanding of the fields of study relating to their job. Frighteningly, any chump with a few hundred bucks and a manual can become certified. Because of this prevalence of underachievers, trainers are forced to fabricate ridiculous ideas of what they should be doing with clients, and in fact, what the purpose of a trainer really is. Following is a list and descriptions of the most frequent offenses personal trainers commit, giving the industry a bad name, and leaving me with funny things to write about.
The Bar Molester
This awful training behavior is so commonplace, that it has become expected from clients and actually mistaken as useful. Poor trainers don’t have much to do while a client is performing a set, so in a combination enforcing their own self worth and the client’s dependence; the trainer will assist the client with each and every repetition. The lat pulldown is a steadily abused culprit, but most trainers find a way to manhandle just about every exercise they incorporate. The trainer stands behind the trainee and pushes down on the bar every rep, while on some mental vacation staring at T ‘n A in the cardio area, often playing “Would I, or Wouldn’t I?” *
No logical reason exists for a trainer to have his or her hands all over the weight. Tracking a client’s progression is impossible when an accurate distinction cannot be made between how much the trainee is lifting vs. the trainer. This type of trainer is usually poor at record keeping, because they are either too lazy, or don’t understand the paramount value in the slightest. Or what paramount means. Typically, the trainer will just ballpark a random weight, if it’s too heavy, they do more of the work, if it’s too light, they just leave their hands on the bar anyway to ‘guide the weight’.
I’ve come to realize that trainers will invoke this embarrassing maneuver for one of two reasons. The first, and more sinister of the two, is simply client dependence. The trainer is conditioning the client to need the trainer, and actually cause them to believe that they could not possibly lift weights without the trainer right there molesting the bar throughout the entire set. This dependence obviously increases neediness, and since a trainer that uses this method typically doesn’t have much to offer a client with regards to tangible results, they use this trick to keep them signing over another $80/hour, week after week.
The second of the two types of bar-molesting trainers is the typical gym rat that couldn’t find another job. This trainer isn’t smart enough to do anything like this for the sake of client retention, but he’s seen every other trainer at the club and on TV do this, so he/she thinks this is what personal trainers do. This is a sad, sad soul. This is the same person that would try to cheat on tests off of his neighbor, not paying attention when the teacher would mention that an “A” and a “B” test would be given out, to make sure the person sitting next to you would have a different test. Another F? I need to start sitting next to smarter people.
Exception(s):
When a client is learning a new exercise, and struggles to respond to verbal cues, it can be very helpful to grab a hold of the implement with them and guide them through a few repetitions. However, the key here is letting the bird leave the nest. You must let go of the weight and let them perform the movement by themselves after they understand the movement. If you can’t teach a client a movement with verbal and acute physical cueing, you’re either a lousy trainer or you need to consider a more sedentary hobby, like crossword puzzles. Or maybe you should both just go to the mall.
The second, and very rare exception, is assisted/forced reps. This is an advanced method that should be used extremely rarely, and only with advanced clients. Otherwise, it’s an excuse for being too lazy to come up with effective training modalities.
Which leads me into the next topic...
Mr. Intensity
Instead of researching effective training variations, trainers love to use forced reps to bring up the intensity or something equally ridiculous. Aside from the fact that intensity has everything to do with percentage of 1 rep max (1RM), and nothing to do with how hard a set is, this method is awful for a number of reasons.
Again, a lot of it has to do with dependence. Clients are conditioned to believe they can’t get an effective workout unless they train past failure, with the trainer helping them complete extra forced reps at the end of a set. Any reasonable strength and body composition goals can be achieved without ever completing a single forced rep. In fact, I can count on one hand the times I’ve used forced reps in my own workouts: it certainly isn’t a secret to unlocking the magic door to a super-physique. It is, however a great way to prolong recovery and promote excessive soreness.
So many wonderful methods of extending sets and exercise manipulation exist; this just screams lack of knowledge. And, coincidentally is often accompanied by actual screams.
And now to expand on another briefly mentioned point…
Record Keeping is for Accountants
Tracking clients’ workouts is so rare that it astounds me. I’ve even heard this referred to as a negative thing as in “You won’t find any of those damn clipboard trainers here”. What? You also won’t find an IQ in three digits. Workouts should be planned, the more detailed the better. A trainer should have a general guideline of the exact exercises, sets, reps, rest periods and loads written out before the workout starts. This is of course subject to change during the workout based on performance, injuries, etc, but it needs to be tracked and improved upon every single workout. This is the trainer’s main job!
Progression should involve an increase of around 2% in load every workout, or an increase in volume, density (decrease in rest periods, or completing more work in the same time frame), perceived exertion of a set, or a combination of many other variables. But just taking a client through a bunch of exercises with the intent of ‘kicking their ass’ is a joke and guarantees nothing in the way of progression or results of any kind. Clients don’t know the difference, as long as they feel like they worked hard they think they’re getting their money’s worth. And when they’re still fat and weak four months later, the trainer can always blame their diet.
Speaking of tracking…
Measurements are for Tailors
Lack of confidence coupled with laziness tends to fuel this tire fire. A client should have body fat and midsection circumferences taken at minimum once per month. And I’m not talking about handing off a bioelectrical impedance unit, waiting for 3 beeps and writing down a number. A caliper test needs to be administered, the more sites the better. I prefer a 9-site test, which not only gives you an idea of where they are losing or not losing, it can also give a great idea of any hormonal imbalances that need to be addressed.
Midsection circumferences (widest and narrowest points) should be used to track visceral fat gain/loss. I’ve seen clients’ abdomen skinfold stay the same or even go up by a millimeter when they’ve lost an inch or more from the circumference around the same area. Unless the client has done zero abdominal strength training and somehow lost a significant amount of muscle in the area (highly unlikely), you can bet this means that his or her body has been removing visceral fat before the subcutaneous fat. This would have shown up as a lack of progress if calipers were the only method relied upon.
Trainers are often scared to perform these tests regularly because it’s an all out fraud alert if the client doesn’t (and often won’t) see any progress. And when they do perform the tests, the trainer typically improves the results for the sake of the client. Most trainers are so poor at proper caliper usage; that this is a shot in the dark anyway. A good trainer should be able to take 5 clients body fat measurements on a 9-site test, record all the numbers, then start over with a blank sheet and get the exact same numbers on all 5 clients, down to each millimeter (trust me, there’s no way to memorize all of these). That’s 45 numbers that should match up; most trainers will come up with around 20 matching. If you can’t come up with at least 40, you’re not training any of my clients when I’m sick. Luckily, I never get sick.
Super Spotters
Back in the day when I was a young(er) pup, I recall an encounter with a fellow trainer at a health club that has always stayed with me. He approached me as I was teaching an advanced client how to perform a proper hang clean. His eyes were glazed over in a mix of confusion and fear, and he finally found the words to ask me, “So, how do you spot a client when they’re doing this? From the front, or from the back?”
Many trainers feel as though their job title is interchangeable with ‘Professional Spotter’. This typically goes hand in hand with the Bar Molester. They feel as though they need to hover on top of a client during every rep of every set, in case something goes horribly wrong.
Of course the right answer to his naïve inquiry, was, you don’t spot a hang clean, you stay the hell back and let them do the set! I always hoped I’d get a chance to find this trainer spotting a client performing Romanian Deadlifts from behind, and I could walk by spouting out, “boww chicka bow bowwwww” porn music.
Again, when in doubt, get your hands off the bar. Let the client perform the set, and observe their movement patterns looking for muscular imbalances and dynamic postural deviations. In other words, do something useful.
