Personal Trainers

[deegee]

I have seen personal trainers who are overweight and out of shape it is not really inspiring, and personaly I would prefer a trainer to be in shape or have been there and have some personal knowledge on bbding

i agree that pts should be in shape, but my main point was the biggest guy may not be the most knowledgeable (sp?)

I have seen some big guys give out some crap advice to begginers thats for sure. big does not make you a good trainer

[Varven]

size does not = experience/knowldege/worth.

Go Look up Charles Glass, He was ( not sure if he still is this year) the coach of Gunter Schlierkamp. Gunter isnt exactly small just cause his PT is tiny is he,,, ?

tallulahangie, what gym are you in at New Lynn, I reside there but use the gym at my uni. Yes fat female PT's shouldnt be teaching others, Ive seen this at the gym at Unitec at Mt Albert as well ... not a good look 8)

[hrdcor]

if you dont practise what you teach , do not expect me to heed your advise,as i can read to you know, (just a bad speller)

[tallulahangie]

Club Physical...

[THEBERG]

Are you serious? For a start, lets move away from Bodybuilding here, because as a PT I deal with clients who want to get fit, lose weight, rehab injuries, as well as build lean muscle etc. When someone presents to you who is 4 months pregnant, has high blood pressure, wants to increase her core strength and keep a certain level of fitness to help her thru her pregnancy what do you do? Oh, and she takes some medication (beta blockers) for the blood pressure. Do you even know how to use a Sphygnomamometer?

If you were to prescribe a meal plan to a woman who wants to loose weight but has an over-active Thyroid gland what would you do?

I have a client who has recently had a battle with Prostate Cancer, as well as a pro-lapsed disc between L3 and L4. My directive from his Doctor and Physio was to have him loose 15kg of fat and to increase his core strength so he recovered more quickly from the rather invasive prostate surgery and didn't have a recurrence of the prolapsed disc. With my help he achieved the goals. I'd be interested Cornfed, what would you prescribe for him?

These are some reasons why PTs should all be qualified. The idiots that prescribe 'pie eating' amongst other things give educated workers like myself, and Tammy and many others bad names. I hope you find these reasons to your liking Cornfed.

I agree with Waldo, i am currently completing my physical eductaion degree and contray to what people think we dont just kick balls and throw frizbees all day.

PT must have suffcient knowledge to know what to do when someone is on Beta bLockers, pregnant, injuries and many other illnesses.

Cornfed you said "test him with very light weights on various whole body compound exercises (squat, dl, sldl, power clean etc.)" but deadlifts, power cleans and even squats aint such a good idea for people who are beginners and people that have injuries and some illness. I would difently wouldnt prescribe powercleans to beginners or people with muscle imbalances and poor cooridnation. Also even doing squats and deadlifts with some with high blood pressure could cause problems.

Also the interent isnot a very reliable source of information to use, do you believe everthing you read??

I have also noted in my years in training that bodybuilders generally make the worst PTs. I do bodybuilding myself and would never prescirbe how i train to someone else unless they were gunning for BBing, but most bber's think that this style of training is the only way.

Training people aint as easy as people think especially when working with the general public with many medical conditions people have.

But knowledge doesnt necessarily make a good trainer you must have some expereince in the field and be able to communicate wll, I know plent of kids in my classes who know more than me but cant communicate or show how exercises are to be done correctly.

[Cornfed]

PT must have suffcient knowledge to know what to do when someone is on Beta bLockers, pregnant, injuries and many other illnesses.

Only if they took those cases. Most people wouldn't have such specialized requirements. It is not necessary to be able to train everyone to train anyone.

Cornfed you said "test him with very light weights on various whole body compound exercises (squat, dl, sldl, power clean etc.)" but deadlifts, power cleans and even squats aint such a good idea for people who are beginners and people that have injuries and some illness. I would difently wouldnt prescribe powercleans to beginners or people with muscle imbalances and poor cooridnation. Also even doing squats and deadlifts with some with high blood pressure could cause problems.

What do others think about this? Aside from being the only kind of exercises to develop serious core strength, I would have thought that - provided light weights are used - they are ideal for beginners precisely because they require, and therefore develop, good muscular coordination. As to people with injuries, it varies from case to case. When I hurt my back last year, deadlifts seemed to aggravate the injury whereas sldls seemed to aid in recovery - hence the idea of trying a bunch of different exercises.

What exactly makes you think this is a bad idea? Is it because this issue has been examined in published reproducible experiments and your viewpoint proven beyond a reasonable doubt, or is it just something your tutors or whoever have told you? If the latter, what makes your two cents worth any more reliable than mine?

Also the interent isnot a very reliable source of information to use, do you believe everthing you read??

Of course not. Some of what is written on the Internet and most of what is written in physed text books that I've read is a lot of nonsense. I don't think there really is much hard science in this area, which is why I don't think much formal education in it is possible or desirable.

But knowledge doesnt necessarily make a good trainer you must have some expereince in the field and be able to communicate wll,

Right, and experience has traditionally been gained on the job by starting with easy cases and working your way up to the more difficult stuff.

I know plent of kids in my classes who know more than me but cant communicate or show how exercises are to be done correctly.

Indeed, and their supposed education sometimes doesn't seem to help with their written communication skills either. But more to the point, is their any evidence that education in this area does any good, in the aggregate, at all? It seems that however much education the average PT has, hiring one of them still generally amounts to paying some scrawny dweeb a fortune to tell you not to go more than a third of the way down doing squats.

[sponge]

IMO if they don't have experience then go somewhere else. If they don't have experience in, say, bulking someone up to a good size - then go somewhere else. It's all very well reading the facts out of a text book but experience is a whole different field... but like I said that's my own opinion.

And I think the internet is a pretty good source of information. If you read lots of it and piece it all together (ie find common patterns and disregard the BS) then why would you need a trainer anyway?

I haven't really read the rest of this thread, in case someone has already said this

[Marcus]

IMO it's not so much a matter of bulking someone up, it's more so training them with enough intensity. From what I see PT's don't push some trainees hard enough. They have this fixation that you're not going to put on mass unless you train in the 8-12 rep range.

I think the best PT would be someone who has competed before in the past, has the appropriate qualification, and most importantly, is not scared of mixing things up or noticing when something isn't working for a particular individual.

[THEBERG]

Only if they took those cases. Most people wouldn't have such specialized requirements. It is not necessary to be able to train everyone to train anyone.

What do others think about this? Aside from being the only kind of exercises to develop serious core strength, I would have thought that - provided light weights are used - they are ideal for beginners precisely because they require, and therefore develop, good muscular coordination. As to people with injuries, it varies from case to case. When I hurt my back last year, deadlifts seemed to aggravate the injury whereas sldls seemed to aid in recovery - hence the idea of trying a bunch of different exercises.

What exactly makes you think this is a bad idea? Is it because this issue has been examined in published reproducible experiments and your viewpoint proven beyond a reasonable doubt, or is it just something your tutors or whoever have told you? If the latter, what makes your two cents worth any more reliable than mine?

Of course not. Some of what is written on the Internet and most of what is written in physed text books that I've read is a lot of nonsense. I don't think there really is much hard science in this area, which is why I don't think much formal education in it is possible or desirable.

Right, and experience has traditionally been gained on the job by starting with easy cases and working your way up to the more difficult stuff.

Indeed, and their supposed education sometimes doesn't seem to help with their written communication skills either. But more to the point, is their any evidence that education in this area does any good, in the aggregate, at all? It seems that however much education the average PT has, hiring one of them still generally amounts to paying some scrawny dweeb a fortune to tell you not to go more than a third of the way down doing squats.

Hello cornfed i agree with most of your points, i was just trying to point out that in some cases like medical conditions it is important to have some educational background but you are right in that in the general healthy public it probably isnt needed. From personal expereince my course hasnt taught me much useful about exercise and espcially lifting weights, i have found that me doing bodybuilding and talking to verterans of the area that i have more knowldedge and expereince than the professors at school, i even disagree with them on alot of issues relating to hypertrophy and strength trainging beacuse of my expereince and observations of others.

Those exercises i thought wasnt a good idea was because of therotical knowledge and personal expereince as beginners often dont have good coodrination, even on a bench press most people (i have seen) cant even keep the bar straight) so testing them on more difficult lifts like power cleans aint good but then again as you said it is dependent case by case, some people might have training history or are very coordinated naturally. When i injured my knee this year i couldn't squat but i could leg press so you are right about trying different exercises.

You are right about nonsense advice in published academic journals and books and one of the key things we learn is how to distinguish between whats good and whats bad.

I think that PT's must have a mixture of educationa and expereince. I'm not trying to defend Pt's in any way, i personally think most are rubbish espcially at Les Mills here in Dunedin, i've got a few friends working there and i frequently visit ( i dont train there, i train at a hardcore facility) and i see the crap they do like 1/4 sqauts etc.

Also in some instances i agree that eductaion is useless, i know someone who specialises in Biomechanics and he advocates on squats not to go all the way down. I saw him squating one day and he didnt even go parallel and i mentioned it and he got defensive saying why you shouldnt go all the way etc and we often debate training in general but he's 6,1 and weighs about 85 kilo's and i'm5,7 and weight 93 bigger legs well bigger everything, so in this instance i say the education has actually hindered his progress and his ability to accpet other ideas.

I hope you dont feel that i'm attcaking your ideas Cornfed, i was just trying to highlight why i feel education is important, you sound like your very clued on and i hope to learn amany thing from you. Thats the main reason i came here , that is too get different perscpetives on Bodybuilding and training. I dont feel that my education has given me more intelligence than you but more rather a different take on things.

[Marcus]

in this instance i say the education has actually hindered his progress and his ability to accpet other ideas.

Exactly right here. The biggest hurdle for a PT.

[Pseudonym]

I don't think you can blame the education though. In my opinion, the problem occurs when the trainer STOPS trying to educate himself. Instead of grabbing the first theory they learn and clinging to it religiously, a trainer needs to be open-minded about learning and trying other techniques.

[Marcus]

It's great for a PT to be educated but they need to be able to adapt to what actually happens in the real world.

It's like any job really.