Personal Trainers

[Cornfed]

I was wondering what others thought about the merits of the personal training industry.

For one thing, should personal training be regarded as a legitimate field of expert knowledge in the manner of other trades and professions? I would think not because no-one seems to really know a lot about correct exercise and nutrition. Most of what is published on the subject, including in textbooks, is seat-or-the-pants stuff or outright nonsense, so reasonably knowledgeable people such as many on this board would be in as good a position to recommend stuff as anyone else. It seems like an inherently plebian discipline. Even for sports specific training, would specialist knowledge be necessary? I think Mike Metzer was right when he said that highly specific movements are best trained by playing the sport, while scarce gym time should be used for general strength and conditioning. Certainly, most supposed sports specific exercised PTs get people to do seem fairly silly.

Are the courses that train and certify PTs any good and if so, why do most of the people who have done the courses act like complete idiots? When a PT is getting some fatty it do the "dumbbell helicopter" or do the most lat pulldowns possible in two minutes, is the PT prescribing the exercises he was instructed to on his course or just playing a practical joke on his client? Is there any regulation requiring you to do such courses in order to call yourself a PT and if not, why do most people bother? Are the masses impressed with the credential?

[jono]

I was wondering what others thought about the merits of the personal training industry.

For one thing, should personal training be regarded as a legitimate field of expert knowledge in the manner of other trades and professions? I would think not because no-one seems to really know a lot about correct exercise and nutrition. Most of what is published on the subject, including in textbooks, is seat-or-the-pants stuff or outright nonsense, so reasonably knowledgeable people such as many on this board would be in as good a position to recommend stuff as anyone else. It seems like an inherently plebian discipline. Even for sports specific training, would specialist knowledge be necessary? I think Mike Metzer was right when he said that highly specific movements are best trained by playing the sport, while scarce gym time should be used for general strength and conditioning. Certainly, most supposed sports specific exercised PTs get people to do seem fairly silly.

Are the courses that train and certify PTs any good and if so, why do most of the people who have done the courses act like complete idiots? When a PT is getting some fatty it do the "dumbbell helicopter" or do the most lat pulldowns possible in two minutes, is the PT prescribing the exercises he was instructed to on his course or just playing a practical joke on his client? Is there any regulation requiring you to do such courses in order to call yourself a PT and if not, why do most people bother? Are the masses impressed with the credential?

personally i have found when i talk to people, they see PTs as people who know a lot about training etc. and they will trust what they say.

however my experience from watching PTs is that they have no brains or common sense and whatever place they got their qualifications from should be shut down.

people who are on the outside looking in see PTs as a great thing, people on the inside know how crap 99% of PTs really are.

[Cornfed]

personally i have found when i talk to people, they see PTs as people who know a lot about training etc. and they will trust what they say.

however my experience from watching PTs is that they have no brains or common sense and whatever place they got their qualifications from should be shut down.

Well yes, that was my impression too. I suppose most industries these days rely on a healthy dose of fraud and gullibility amongst their customers. But I don't want to prejudge the issue. Would any PTs care to comment?

[deegee]

I think there are a few very knowledgeable pts out there with a load of experience, but they are few and far between, most are of the quickly trained rough working knowlege to make the new gym starter happy.

Most people at my gym who have been going there a while never use the personal trainers and like me do all their own programs.

[Growth]

is the PT prescribing the exercises he was instructed to on his course or just playing a practical joke on his client?

I think the PTs are getting told to give there clients set exercises, or give them a selection from an "ideal" exercise list, because i have seen many PTs who while giving their clients absolute rubbish exercises, will then go and do a more conventional workout themselves.

I would really love to see a client, after getting told "okay roll around on this swiss ball of a few minitues", actually tell the PT, hey this is bullshit, show me some real exersices.

I would be interested to know if the PTs give nutritional advise to their clients, or do they set their whole diet for them, and if so if their nutritional advise is a fancyful as their training advise.

[Tammy]

Well after hearing all the PT bashing I though I would put in my 2 cents worth.

I worked as a PT last year at Les Mills Dunedin whilst I was studying at Univeristy. I believe that I have sufficient knowledge to be able to train others. I have done a BSc and A BPhEd (Sport & Exercise Science) and have a lot of personal experience. In order to train at Les Mills we had to undergo a certification course in session deliver and also business aspects. Most of the PTs at the Dunedin Les Mills had university degrees as well as extensive sporting experience in various fields.

The problem with being a PT is that in the past anyone could walk off the street and say they were a personal trainer without having to have any credentials at all. I believe that is why NZ is now tryinhg to put in place standards so that perople have some guide as to what may make a PT qualified.

I am sure that there are a lot of PTs our there just giving out a standard programme and I see it all the time in the gym where I train, all the ladies are doing one programme and all the males are doing another, but when the PT themselves train they do nothing like what they give their clients.

So I think you can say yes there are some really crap PTs out there but there are also some really high quality PTs who get results and are getting some bad rap because of unqualified PTs letting the profession down. Not all PTs are bad, so when you diss them, just remember that. But like all other people who train it is still nice to get the advice of others who have experimented with different training methods themselves

[Tammy]

Also PTs should not be giving specific diet advice unless they are a trained nutritionist or are working from a proven programme that they are trained in. There is some really rubbish advice out there and PTs are all too often only adding to an already confusing topic

[bleat]

When I got my gym membership I had the option to pay $45 for 3 one hour long PT sessions, needless to say as an utter newbie I jumped at the chance.

He asked what my goals were, to which I told him I want to built like Will Smith- I just saw i-Robot

Anyway... he set me up with a plan that hit every single bodypart in an hour. Needless to say I didn't see a hell of a lot happening until I did some reading and made a split. The PT only mentioned nutrition when I brought it up, to which he told me, quite literally, to eat more pies. Again more research was called for.

After my PT session a week or so back from a family friend who was trained by someone who has been bodybuilding for 20 years, I cringe seeing what the PT's are teaching at my gym. From plans to form, it just isn't pretty.

Saying that I'm sure there is a trade off between safety and results, and as I'm / most BBers are more interested in results- to an extent obviously, I'm prepared to take more of a risk, and push myself that much harder. Whereas personal training, as a business, has to have safety as their main priority. They can't run the risk of someone buggering themselves and blaming them. That's the only thing I can come up with, because some of the nonsense I see them passing on just doesn't compute.

Just on a side note a friend of mine gets trained by the 2004 NZ National BB Champ, not to name names, but he's an apparently totally supplement free BB- as in no whey, creatine nothing and encourages my mate to do the same. I really don't get it, which frustrates me as this guy has some real potential. Saying that I shouldn't be complaining- he's selling me the supplements he never got around to using at half RRP :grin:

[Tammy]

PTs may have to have safety but they are in the business of getting results, if people don't see results do you think they are going to go back to that person? I sure as hell wouldn't! Plus there business will not grow if other members do not see that PTs clients getting results

[bleat]

Yeah you'd think that, but why then when I say that I'm trying to put on a heap of muscle would the guy set me up with some soft inefficient program and tell me to eat pies. Surely he didn't expect me to get results worthwhile of comming back to him on that advice did he?

[Pseudonym]

I think PTs usually mean well. The trouble is there are so many ways of achieving the same goal in BBing - so many different techniques, and so many theories.

A PT might not come from a bodybuilding background, and so they're solely reliant on their course for information. While training, a PT might learn something that makes sense to him/her, and they'll adopt it. Then they get a job with a gym, and stop studying. And that's where the problem lies...

If a PT is a good one, they'll try to spend time on bodybuilding forums like these, learning new theories and techniques, and hearing how well they work for other people. The few PTs that do this are well worth the money for an occasional session. Unfortunately, these PTs are rare gems.

[jono]

but speaking of good pts.. the guy on the wgtn champs poster phily nuku is prolly the best pt at my gym mayb 1 or 2 other pts that are up to standard apart from him

[deegee]

Eat more pies. I love it. Anyparticular brand or flavour? or are any pies like what ever brand the local servo sells late at night after a nights drinking good?

[Cornfed]

I have done a BSc and A BPhEd (Sport & Exercise Science) [..] The problem with being a PT is that in the past anyone could walk off the street and say they were a personal trainer without having to have any credentials at all.

Why should this be regarded as problematic? Or to put it another way, why should the system be set up so that a good keen man (or woman) starting out in something he is likes just can't get ahead? What advantage do you feel your degree gives you over me or anyone else? Having to get a degree to design workout routines seems completely unnecessary, and in any case I suspect the courses of study are all bullshit anyway. What's more, is seems to attract the very worst sort of people to training. Instead of being experienced and knowledgeable people who are genuinely interested in exercise, most of them are middle-class stiffs who sleepwalk their way through qualifications in order to sleepwalk their way through a career selected on the basis of being marginally less hateful than their other options of being cubicle dweebs or burger-flippers. They also need to gouge their clients in order to pay off their student loans.

I don't think the requirement for qualifications in this or most other fields has anything to do with improving the quality of service (and if it does it certainly isn't working). It is about supporting a huge parasitical qualifications industry, protecting the vested interests from superior competition and requiring people to take time out of the workforce in order to conceal the true rate of unemployment.

PTs may have to have safety but they are in the business of getting results, if people don't see results do you think they are going to go back to that person? I sure as hell wouldn't! Plus there business will not grow if other members do not see that PTs clients getting results

Is it actually true that PTs rely on repeat business? A lot of gyms make money by signing people up for long terms in special promotions and having most of them quit after a month or two, thus freeing up floor space. With this setup, incompetent PTs designing silly routines would actually be an asset.

[deegee]

Brilliant stuff, so refreshingly cynical. but then my sense of humour is very dry.

Cubical dweebs

burger flipers

middle class stiffs

love it great stuff, the best post I have read in a long time.

I am a believer that as a general rule, passion for a sport and experience will set you in better stead than a book learning.

[Tammy]

Yes I have seen some people who are supposed to have a degree in exercise prescription not even know what the most basic of exercises are let alone how to do them themselves or how to get somebody else to do them. IMO (and it is my opinion only) a degree gives someone assurance that they know they theory behind what they are prescribing. A degree is not the be all and end all but it gives you a good base to start. Practical experience is a highly important factor in being able to prescribe exercise, cos you can know all the theory in the world but if you haven't put it into practice then it is useless knowledge. To that extent gyms should not be letting PTs train unless they have been put through testing or brought up to standard. New Zealand needs to create some more standards with regards to the fitness industry especially now with NZers ever increasing waistlines, as in the past anyone has been able to set themselves up as a PT.

[Tammy]

Walking off the street and setting yourself up as a PT if you have never lifted a weight before in your life or haven't any knowledge of exercise or prescription is obviously going to be problematic!!! A lot of people could get injured and the amount of bull shit information that is out there at the moment will increase 10 fold. Even on this board everyone here has a different opinion, and some people seem to be so bogged down in the theories behind everything that they overanalyse their workouts rather than just getting on with the job at hand. These people that write the theories have they proven them? Do they come from scientific research? and most importantly do they work? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and what works for one person will not work in the same way for another, which is why it is soo important to know some background history, in all of that their are tried and true ways of exercising that will always produce results even if these results vary between people.

[Cornfed]

IMO (and it is my opinion only) a degree gives someone assurance that they know they theory behind what they are prescribing. A degree is not the be all and end all but it gives you a good base to start.

Does anyone really have a theoretical basis in this area? For example, is there an agreed upon scientifically proven mechanism proposed even for something as fundamental as what causes a muscle to grow? Also, how specifically do you think your degrees would be an advantage. Suppose a trainee had lagging triceps. I as a layman would generally be able to diagnose this problem as I've had enough experience of observing the relative strength of various muscle groups to know when one is lagging. I would understand that triceps are a three-headed muscle which provide power for pushing-type movements, which tend to be isolated by taking a narrow grip. I would know of about 20 different exercises that could be prescribed to train them, some of which (like rope pulldowns and dips) work all three heads and some which target particular heads. I would have some basis for selecting particular exercises and routines depending on the trainee's goals and current condition. How do you think this level of knowledge is deficient for designing routines and what specific advantages do you believe your superior theoretical grounding would bring to the situation?

New Zealand needs to create some more standards with regards to the fitness industry

Suppose I enter into an agreement with someone to design his or her workout routine in exchange for a fee - what business is that of yours? Who are you to say whether this is a good arrangement or not? It would be up to the client as an adult human being to do due diligence on whether I was a good trainer, which he or she would be more likely to do given that I don't have any phoney certification to hide behind.

A tragic feature of modern NZ life is the pervasion of the fascist idea that it should be necessary to beg the permission of some so-called authority before doing anything. As a result, it is getting so that if you want to blow your nose you need a degree, professional certification, a licence, a permit, resource consent and planning permission. The costs such a mentality imposes are absolutely ruining us, and as you yourself seem to acknowledge, it doesn't even ensure good quality. Quite the reverse in fact. Whole industries these days are allowed to proceed as outright scams because they are legitimized and protected from competition by regulations. And far from keeping incompetent and indifferent people out of particular industries, it serves to keep them in. Suppose a hobbyist lifter chose to put out his shingle as a PT. If he turned out to be no good at the job or didn't like it, he would probably quit and do something else, which is as it should be. However, if he had had to spend a fortune on a degree and certification, and was faced with having to do the same again to get into any other profession, then likely he would have no choice but to stay in the job.

[OB1KINOBIE]

well mmmmmmm some good feedback here (cornfed and others) ok i'm a p.t. been in the industry over 20 years and ive worked with everyone from the general public up to world champions in a variety of sports,ive had the privalidge to work with some of the best conditioners in the world too, also been a b/b judge among other things. the n z fitness industry is in my humble opinion a big joke! when they certify people the one thing they don't teach them is how to write a program!!! how dumn is that?? the one thing they have to know how to do and they dont teach them that? anyway i'll write more soon as i want my free tee lol, think i only have 16 posts to go? :pfft:

[frogie2001]

I agree with many of these posts, and am laughing my arse off at the eat pie recomendation. I've jsut started working at a gym (just reception stuf) and am shocked in so many ways that the qualified PT's throw clients around. personally i think i spend more time pushing weights and researching new techiniques than them and I am not allowed to work as a PT due to the lack of qual, an insurance thing.

Personally i normally onl listen to people with proven track records, either with the physique or sport i want to emulate or have trained the champs.

when it comes to due diligence of qualification i don't think people have a chance at this. would any PT give back 3 months worth of fees if their client didn't get the results they wanted. holly shit could you imagine the standard of service they would receive if you could get a refund like that?

[jono]

I agree with many of these posts, and am laughing my arse off at the eat pie recomendation. I've jsut started working at a gym (just reception stuf) and am shocked in so many ways that the qualified PT's throw clients around. personally i think i spend more time pushing weights and researching new techiniques than them and I am not allowed to work as a PT due to the lack of qual, an insurance thing.

Personally i normally onl listen to people with proven track records, either with the physique or sport i want to emulate or have trained the champs.

when it comes to due diligence of qualification i don't think people have a chance at this. would any PT give back 3 months worth of fees if their client didn't get the results they wanted. holly shit could you imagine the standard of service they would receive if you could get a refund like that?

problem with a system like that is, the pt cant be with the client 24/7 and make sure they eat and sleep enough.

[frogie2001]

yeah I know i reckon the end of it that many pt's don't give instruction on resting eating enough to get the results. still only providing a half service.

I met a trainer once that said if the client doesn't get results they would be refunded. the client came back after 3 months and said they weren't happy. it was thrown out though because after asking for a truthful answer the client didn't stick to the diet nor do any cardio on the off days. that trainer earned a lot of respect from me for just saying that.

[jono]

yeah I know i reckon the end of it that many pt's don't give instruction on resting eating enough to get the results. still only providing a half service.

I met a trainer once that said if the client doesn't get results they would be refunded. the client came back after 3 months and said they weren't happy. it was thrown out though because after asking for a truthful answer the client didn't stick to the diet nor do any cardio on the off days. that trainer earned a lot of respect from me for just saying that.

if i was a pt (which im not) i would focus more on diet etc than training.

you only need to be shown how to do an ex once. then you can do it.

so unless your some heartless person there is no need to bleed people over a long time when you dont have to.

[frogie2001]

I agree.

if i were a PT i would concentrate on diet, as most of the clients may only be after results from a month or two they would need to see it, and i reckon 80% of visual results are from diet. if the client were in for the long haul and had the basics down than go for the weights training.

[frogie2001]

http://www.radicalfitness.com.au/

this sort of thing gets my goat also. mini enterprise, certifying traininers, so only they can do classes. seems a little silly, however I can't fault them on business sense.