About becoming a personal trainer

I try and stick to the primal movement patterns.
Which are basically what you've described.

If I write a program I put the stretches immediately after the last exercise for that uses that muscle group. Or tell them to do it inbetween sets for the next exercise. That way I figure they're more likely to do them.

Yesterday I had an argument with another trainer. Before my shift I did a workout, I saw a girl squatting - badly. I stepped in and helped her. Afterwards, another trainer came to me and told me off, saying, "you should only help them during gym shifts or book them in for PT."
"I'm happy to help people, and it builds PT."
"It devalues what we do, it'll lead to less PT for you."
"Results count," I said. "How many clients do you have?"
"Three," he said.
"I have twelve."

Short argument.

In a job that's almost purely PR you'd be crazy not to help people at every chance

That's the way I see it, yes.

And it has won me clients. Of 12 current clients, 4 were given me by the manager, and 8 I recruited myself. 1 of the 8 came from outside the gym (I knew him socially), the other 7 in the gym. Only 1 of 7 was recruited during a gym appointment where I was obliged to help him, the other 6 were recruited after I had many times helped them in the gym, chatted to them, etc. 3 of the 6 I was on duty during gym shifts, the other 3 I was between clients or doing my own workout etc.

So without giving free help I'd have far fewer clients. As well, the boss specifically said that he'd only directed clients my way because I had got and kept my own already.

But in the end, the 12:3 score is all we need know.

Arguments that end in domination are the best kind, nice work.

I wonder if it would also be a case of duty of care seeing someone doing something that could cause injury and not doing anything about it. I guess it depends how far you want to take it otherwise I'd have to tell guys at work to "put the biscuits back" as it's certainly not helping their health and safety.

whitty said:

Arguments that end in domination are the best kind, nice work.

I wonder if it would also be a case of duty of care seeing someone doing something that could cause injury and not doing anything about it.

Click to expand...

I think it is. The organization has a duty of care to it's gym members to keep them injury free. Personal trainers are responsible. Able to respond.

whitty said:

I wonder if it would also be a case of duty of care seeing someone doing something that could cause injury and not doing anything about it. I guess it depends how far you want to take it otherwise I'd have to tell guys at work to "put the biscuits back" as it's certainly not helping their health and safety.

Click to expand...

Certainly employees during rostered hours would have a duty to act to prevent imminent danger. For example, a scrawny 14 year is seen putting 4 plates on each side of the bench press bar and then climbs under it - that's imminent danger, and if I'm rostered on and see it, it's certainly within my "reasonable duty of care" to go over and tell the kid not to.

But when staff are not on duty, and when the danger is not imminent, it'd be up to a court to decide. There are a zillion things to consider, like whether the staff member watching the person lift knew they had health condition X predisposing them to a risk of further injury (eg a knee reconstruction person squatting, a shoulder reco person dipping), how many gym members were around at the time (you can't watch everyone), whether the person had previously accepted or rejected advice, whether the staff member had training in that exercise, etc etc etc.

Most cases of injuries in gyms or during supervised training don't go to trial, someone sues, and either the case is quickly dropped as it's without merit, or it has some possible merit, and is settled out of court with a confidentiality agreement.

Courts in our common law Commonwealth countries are usually fairly reasonable in this respect. The trainer or organisation usually only suffer if they've been extremely stupid. For example, if they get a heavy guy to "bench press" on a swiss ball with heavy weights, it bursts and he falls and breaks his ribs (as Lon Kilgore notes, swiss ball manufacturer's specs tell you not to use weights with them).

In the case I saw, the young woman squatting badly was not in danger of injuring herself. She was just doing quarter squats with the empty barbell and knees slightly tracking inwards as she went on her toes. I suppose she might have lost balance, fallen over and donked her head on the rack; but that sort of danger is what you have any time you walk into the crowded section of a weight room on a busy night. Really the only "danger" was that she would find the exercise uncomfortable or useless, give up squatting and 10 years from now be in a gym saying to some trainer, "squats hurt my knees."

So the "reasonable duty of care" didn't come into my decision to step up and help her out. That was just being a more-or-less competent trainer who actually gives a shit instead of being an incompetent clock-puncher.

Kyle Aaron said:

So the "reasonable duty of care" didn't come into my decision to step up and help her out. That was just being a more-or-less competent trainer who actually gives a shit instead of being an incompetent clock-puncher.

Click to expand...

I fully understand your reasons for doing what you did, I was just curious as to how duty of care works in the gym environment.

I have to tell a guy at work if I see a bee around because he's allergic to them and is more likely to cause him harm than the power lines we play with everyday. It doesn't help that we dress up like flowers either.

Haha. ^

In class we got told of a case in NSW (?) where a lady had a knee reco, and went to see a PT to help make it stronger. Moron got her doing broad jumps, and sure enough, knee blows again. Guy ended up getting off on the premise that she "chose" to do the exercise.

As always, the devil will be in the details of the case. But it's common in injury suits to say that the victim at least partly contributed to their own injury. We all have a reasonable duty of care to ourselves, after all. If we pay another for their advice, then they take on some of that duty. It's not all us or all them, generally.

I am looking for a trainer

... in my area.

However, it turns out that they're really reluctant to tell you how much they cost. I emailed one,


and they replied,


I've had discussions about this with trainers before. Basically they are embarrassed by the high price they've put out there, and they want to give you a big sales spiel before telling you the prices.

At one of my gyms, there was a book with advice on selling PT, it said to avoid mentioning the price until the last possible moment, only telling it after giving a spiel on how awesomely useful training is - and even not to call it "price" or "cost" but to say, "it's an investment in your health of...." But nobody there does that, because it's bullshit and annoys people.

Just tell me your fucking prices. If your service's value matches its cost, this won't be a problem.

Yeah I never got that either.
We learnt about all that marketing stuff as well.
Think I rubbed a couple of teachers the wrong way when I said it's just a gimmick to hide the fact that they suck as trainers lol
Only advantage I see is that it'd be easier to sneak in a price raise than if you had the prices plastered everywhere. But really, if you pick the right price to start with you should be able to justify a small increase here and there. Insurance went up, equipment costs went up, cfc courses, rent increase etc etc that's basically what our electrical company does, and I'm sure lots and lots of businesses do it as well

Most gyms don't put their prices up, but will tell you as soon as you ask. Places like Genesis won't. One of my managers works out at a Genesis (if he works out at the gym he manages, nobody will leave him alone to work out, the Genesis is near his home). The area he uses in the gym is close to the desk. He says that every single person is told, "Well, I have to check with my manager, but I think I can do a special deal for you just today only..."

So the reason they don't put prices up is so they can bullshit you. And I don't think anyone falls for this, really. It's just a little bit of theatre, you nod and smile while they perform.

I don't want bullshit, I want good training somewhere close to home.

Kyle Aaron said:

So the reason they don't put prices up is so they can bullshit you. And I don't think anyone falls for this, really. It's just a little bit of theatre, you nod and smile while they perform.

I don't want bullshit, I want good training somewhere close to home.

Click to expand...

My wife sucks that b.s. up, whether its from a cold call on the phone or at the front door or at a gym.

Great thread Kyle

I have read the entire thread and have noted you points about TAFE and RMIT (I wish I was in Melbourne then the choice would be easy).

I am however based in Sydney so I was wondering if anyone has experience up here. What courses have they found to be good/bad and why?

I am looking at doing both Cert III and IV in Fitness.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

RMIT isn't running it anymore anyway, the next best one is CAE, run by Aaron Whear, and also with some modules taught by the ex-RMIT guy.

I don't know of any courses in Sydney.

I hope you have good exercise technique, Schwarzer. I was talking today to a 3rd Exercise Science student who works at reception.
"The other gym I work at," she said, "is smaller."
"Well most gyms have pretty much the same equipment, it's just how shiny is it, and how many of each one. Treadmills, bikes, etc, some benches and dumbbells, some barbells, a squat rack."
"The other one doesn't have a squat rack."
"But..."
"It does have a Smith machine, though."
"Smith machine, excellent, when I want to fuck my clients' knees I just use a hammer, though."
"What?"
"Never mind. No squat rack - do they at least have some Olympic barbells so people can do front squat?"
"Which one's the Olympic barbell?"
Third year Ex Sci and she doesn't know what an Olympic barbell is? I told her.
"Oh yeah they have some of those... 20kg you said though? I couldn't lift that, I tried."
"I suspect you could squat it, at least. You don't know barbell stuff?"
"No, I've never done it."
"Isn't some exercise performance covered in... exercise science?"
"A bit. Lots of anatomy, not much functional stuff. We've done programming though, periodisation and stuff."
"How do you programme a routine without exercises? It's like learning to use a Melways without knowing how to drive."
"We just use the exercises we know. Machines are easy."
"Ah, okay... well come into the gym sometime, I'll show you some exercise stuff."
"Oh I'm not really interested in exercise."
"Then why are you doing exercise science?"
"I'm doing a double with commerce. More interested in management."
"It's good to know what you're managing, though. I mean, I'm not interested in basketball, but I train a woman who plays it, so I have to know a bit about it, doesn't have to be in-depth, but -"

We were interrupted by a couple of people wanting to use a squash court, I decided to walk away before I said something rude.

You might think it's better among trainers and coaches, but unfortunately only a bit. So if you have a broad knowledge of exercise performance, you will stand out as a trainer. You don't have to have competed or even be one of the strongest in the gym. But you do need to know how to perform and coach bodyweight squats, pushups, inverted rows and chinups, barbell squats, kettlebell swings, and so on.

The things you need as a trainer are,

1. communication skills - getting ideas across, empathy, motivation, etc
2. exercise performance - even if you can't describe it, you can demonstrate it, and practicing it will give you a better idea of the difficulties of it, more empathy with clients
3. exercise coaching - learning to express how to do things in a simple way anyone can understand
4. anatomy - so you know what's happening in each exercise
5. common injuries and imbalances/dysfunctions
6. contacts - knowing people in the industry helps you get and keep a job or clients, and gives you knowledge to draw on, if you don't know you can ask someone else; also you need people to vent to when you're pissed off or you'll burn out

PT schools, good or bad, really only give you the last 3. The first 3 you have to get from somewhere else.

I don't think your average PTs know the last 3 very well.

Didn't some dick tell you a while ago that hammies and glutes aren't used in a squat?

Yes, I was told that. I'm still not sure how one achieves hip extension without the use of hip extensor muscles.

I think the best approach would be to teach the exercises and the anatomy together. Everything would make much more sense then.

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for your reply.

In addition to studying my Cert III & IV I was going to complement my knowledge with additional study and research.

I also thought it may be a good idea to get personal training sessions from a number of different trainers to see their techniques and learn what they do good/bad.

Sounds good, mate. I found it surprising in my courses that almost nobody had ever had a trainer or coach. And many people considering entering the career, if you ask, "Do you think it'd be worth paying for a session?" they can't answer you. Well, if you don't think it's worth it, why should your potential clients...