What is the stupidest thing you've seen a PT doing with their client in the gym?

Silverback said:

This is what I dislike very much about the so called fitness industry.

building strength (the by products many) and losing fat (counting calories) is a very simple process, made complex by douche bags wanting to make a living out of it.

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But there are a large number of people that do not seem to have a grasp of the fundamentals; like what the food they eat contains even. Shame on them for not getting wise.

Repacked said:

But there are a large number of people that do not seem to have a grasp of the fundamentals; like what the food they eat contains even. Shame on them for not getting wise.

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Your point is?

GP's are glorified script peddlars with bad handwriting ayy, so unless your local PT can sort you out with sum A-class gear I fail to see the connection man!

Silverback said:

This is what I dislike very much about the so called fitness industry.

building strength (the by products many) and losing fat (counting calories) is a very simple process, made complex by douche bags wanting to make a living out of it.

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*shrug*

You ever ordered steak at a restaurant? Isn't cooking a steak a very simple process? So why not do it all yourself? There are lots of things we could do entirely by ourselves. Programme a workout routine, learn good form, cook dinner, wash our clothes, make our own shirts, knit our own socks, wire up our own house, grow our own vegies, paint our house, do our own taxes, and so on. And how dare you drive to work when you didn't build your own car from metal ingots and drill and refine the oil yourself!

We can spend time doing these things ourselves, or spend money having someone else do them. Unless you live in a cabin in the woods preparing everything from raw materials mined, harvested or grown by yourself, you're not really in a position to criticise. It's not a matter of if you pay people to do things for you, only which you pay for.

You can certainly argue that health and fitness-related things are something everyone should take care of themselves. Guess what, I know a chippie who thinks people are idiots to pay chippies. So each of us can make that argument about any particular area. But in the end, most of us don't have the time to do everything ourselves. So we pay others to do those things, this leaves us time for the stuff we do want to spend time on.

And of course, when you do the thing as a hobby and the other person does it as a profession, you will generally find they do it better. So you can do a crap job on your own, or mediocre job with help - and that's if you have an idiot PT like those in this thread - after all, if you think people do dumb shit with a PT, watch the ones doing stuff on their own. If you have a decent trainer it's a choice between crap or at best mediocre on your own, and good with someone else.

I often had gym members tell me that PT is expensive. And yes it is. But 2/3 of gym members never get a programme at all, and 2/3 of those who do, don't do it, and 2/3 of those who do it, don't progress the effort. So 26/27 new members doing things on their own aren't progressing at all. And they pay $1,000 a year at most gyms. So you can pay $1,000 to fail, or $4,000 to succeed.
"Why did you buy a car with no wheels and engine?"
"Well the car that would actually take me somewhere was much more expensive..."

I look forward to your tales of living in a cabin in the woods making everything by hand from scratch.

Silverback said:

Your point is?

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Maybe you should hire a PT.

Kyle Aaron said:

I often had gym members tell me that PT is expensive. And yes it is. But 2/3 of gym members never get a programme at all, and 2/3 of those who do, don't do it, and 2/3 of those who do it, don't progress the effort. So 26/27 new members doing things on their own aren't progressing at all. And they pay $1,000 a year at most gyms. So you can pay $1,000 to fail, or $4,000 to succeed.

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Thats how gyms make money isnt it? The people who pay the membership fee (rip off), but hardly ever show up because they arent seeing results, or its harder than they thought, which means less wear & tear on the equipment, no need for said PT to hold their hand & they'll be the ones buying the gatorade on the way out which is marked up 200% on what they gym bought it for.

I digress, ahhhh i miss public gyms & the stupid, out of shape PT's. One guy at InShape Coogee I overheard telling a client who wanted to lose weight, "just go away & drink water for two weeks, nothing else, then come back and see me". One of the best.

Repacked said:

Maybe you should hire a PT.

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And then?

Yes I retract what I wrote it was a little ott but the reality (in my head) is that it's quite simple one just needs to do just a little research, a little trial and error, when successful results can be real fast, health should be a priority it's not like building a car, or a house, digging a hole but being healthy would enable one to do these things if one desires.

Silverback said:

And then?

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Go to the GP.

Repacked said:

Go to the GP.

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To...?

Silverback said:

Yes I retract what I wrote it was a little ott but the reality (in my head) is that it's quite simple one just needs to do just a little research, a little trial and error, when successful results can be real fast, health should be a priority it's not like building a car, or a house, digging a hole but being healthy would enable one to do these things if one desires.

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But then you have the mass amount of conflicting information all over the internet to decifer through and see who actually knows WTF they are talking about also.

You are right that, it is simple but not easy

YOu only have to pop into your local commercial to see that the majority of people there have no fucking clue what they are doing and even doing a generic cookie cutter program would be more beneficial.

And yes, there are still girls that won't touch weights because they'll get "huge" etc.

As well as that, even if a PT doesn't actually help with the exercises, they offer accountability. I have had quite a few clients who definitely knew what they were doing but left to their own just wouldn't put in the same effort/consistency as if I was training them (or online coaching).

Silverback said:

Yes I retract what I wrote it was a little ott but the reality (in my head) is that it's quite simple one just needs to do just a little research, a little trial and error, when successful results can be real fast, health should be a priority it's not like building a car, or a house, digging a hole but being healthy would enable one to do these things if one desires.

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When I first started going to the gym as a teenager, I followed the programs trainers gave me. None of their programs were perfect (whatever that means), but they were generally passable. In my first year I put on 10kg while remaining <10%BF, so I actually got pretty good results just doing what they told me to do. After that first year, I felt I had enough knowledge to start doing "a little research." Progress went downhill and problems started arising. A year later I stopped training altogether for about 6 months.

When I returned to training, I let one of the trainers at the new gym take me through a new program, which was an awful lot like what the old trainers at the old gym had given me. Things started working right again. Then one of the guys I was studying with (who was into bodybuilding and did a lot of "research") started showing up at the gym at the same time and giving me his brotivation. For about two weeks I made more progress, then stopped progressing altogether.

When I started studying to become a PT myself, I learned more about training in 3 weeks than I had in 3 years. For a while I made very good progress once again. Mental health issues stopped progress for a while after that. Progress has been slow since, because I'm not a beginner anymore, so it will always be slow. I became qualified in 2008; now the average girl that I train gets stronger in 3 months than I did in the entire 3 years leading up to becoming a PT. I do everything by trial and error on myself, and funnily enough that involves a lot of error. My clients benefit from my errors, in that we take what my experience says doesn't work, and we don't do it. So they have a much steadier flow of trial and succeed.

TL;DR: You sure can figure it out on your own, but the odds are heavily stacked in favour of you fking up for the most part if you do. A good PT can easily streamline programming and coaching so that you spend most of your time doing stuff that's going to get you direct results and bypass a lot of unnecessary frustration/lack of progress.

[MENTION=7877]RyanF[/MENTION]; Well I wish there were more PT's out there who think like you do with the client's progress/wellbeing in mind! I'd wager the ratio of a good PT vs a clueless paycheck one would be dangerously low

Replace half the ones I see for starters. That skinny ass PT teaching chronically immobile milfs how to 1/8th squat for the first time with a loaded up barbell is getting hell annoying. Rekt

Ryan
you are right in saying a knowledgeable person can make a difference.
a person like that can look at the trainee and very quickly identify what will be the most productive template.

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jzpowahz said:

But then you have the mass amount of conflicting information all over the internet to decifer through and see who actually knows WTF they are talking about also.

You are right that, it is simple but not easy

YOu only have to pop into your local commercial to see that the majority of people there have no fucking clue what they are doing and even doing a generic cookie cutter program would be more beneficial.

And yes, there are still girls that won't touch weights because they'll get "huge" etc.

As well as that, even if a PT doesn't actually help with the exercises, they offer accountability. I have had quite a few clients who definitely knew what they were doing but left to their own just wouldn't put in the same effort/consistency as if I was training them (or online coaching).

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What are your thoughts on this?
without getting into an argument, really just interested in everyones thoughts;


The unavoidable result being that athletes trained by such people do little or nothingin the way of increasing their strength, while being encouraged to perform exercises such as the “power clean” and“jump squats,” neither of which will do anything in the way of increasing strength and both of which are very dangerous.While a very few strength coaches do know what they are doing, the vast majority produce very little in the way ofresults apart from unnecessary injuries. The fact that a man has produced very large muscles or is stronger than usualdoes not mean that he knows much, if literally anything, about the requirements for proper, productive and safe exercise.


Then why were they hired as strength coaches? Because the people who hired them knew absolutely nothing aboutstrength training. A clear case of the blind leading the stupid.
While I do not know just how much income is produced by football every year, I do know that about 60,000 kneeinjuries that require surgery are produced by football annually; so at least the doctors are making a lot of money fromfootball. Being a violent sport, football will continue to produce thousands of serious injuries annually, and this willcontinue to happen regardless of any future safety precautions; but injuries of any kind should never result fromstrength training. On the contrary, properly performed strength training should go a long way in the direction ofpreventing injuries even on the playing field.

I think that more often than not, a PT will try to turn a session into a sport or a type of an event than a injury prevention program designed to improve ones overall healthy lifestyle.