Thursday, December 17, 2009

To Trainer or Not to Trainer

If you've spent any chunk of time talking with me about fitness, then I'm sure you've heard my opinions about trainers at least once... and probably in a quite irritated tone. After a few encounters with some trainers in my gym (posts on this to come!), it finally occurred to me walking home, "Hey! I should write about trainers!"  To trainer or not to trainer.... that is the question indeed.


To be or Not to be
If you ask me, it's more like a Catch-22.  Many beginners assume that 1) they need a trainer, 2) that all trainers are knowledgeable and 3) the trainer is going to be a good use of their time/money. This struggle is usually even worse for women, who thanks to society, stereotypes, so-called "fitness" magazines and the crap crap information out there, have an even higher tendency to be intimidated in the freeweight area. Even worse is when they're told a squat rack would be wasted on a woman!?!?! Their usual solution - hire a trainer.


And here comes the catch: people who don't know what they're doing hire trainers BUTTTTT to tell if a trainer is worthwhile, you kinda really need to know what you're doing yourself, in which case you wouldn't need a trainer.

Great, huh? In my opinion, a lot of the problem comes from the variety of certifications available. It makes it extra difficult to judge a trainer's competence unless you're really familiar with these differences.  I've heard of online programs you don't have to pay for until you pass the test up to real, legit, intense programs where you're actually learning about form and function and nutrition.  Even better is when you can get someone who has a degree related to diet/fitness/physiology - then you know their life is really about this.  So many many trainers can say they're "certified" but what that really means, who knows.

On the other hand, EXPERIENCE and interest deserves a lot of credit as well. I'd much rather be trained by someone who has been there, done that themselves, spends time reading and educating themselves and may have less impressive certifications than by someone with all the certifications in the world and little experience to back it up. I've learned first hand how oh-so important actually testing a lot of this stuff (diet and exercise) out on yourself is and how much you can learn from that.


Ugggh SOOOOO many things wrong in this picture.

Then I have some gender-specific griefs as well. For men, using a trainer on a regular basis is typically more like paying for a spotter and someone to chat with and distract you. Much better off just getting someone to design a workout for you (better yet, finding one yourself), check your form and then do it on your own.  For women, most "strength training" is totally fucking bogus. For the most part, I see more of a plyometric/metabolic bodyweight circuit, and it rarely progress past this. 

Ok, I totally understand that some people need to start there, but THIS ISN'T STRENGTH TRAINING. You might be getting stronger and more fit in some aspects, but you will NOT build muscle like this (and thus not raise your metabolism or improve your body composition, which means you might lose fat, but you might end up skinny-fat and still unhappy).  On the occasion I do see a trainer actually lifting with a woman, the woman is usually asking unquestioningly "what weight do you think i should use" and is never taught to really try to push themselves and their limits.


STEP AWAY from the purty wainbow

And don't get me started on the trainers standing next to their client deadlifting with a totally rounded back (hello injury central) or doing quarter squats or freaking tricep kickbacks (for the love of god, at least do some skull crushers).  So really, these women who have no idea what they're doing and think they're going to right source are usually getting screwed over at quite a high pricetag, and even worse, are getting no closer to their goals, despite the time, money and effort they're putting in. It's really quite infuriating to me actually.


So what should my beginner friend do when looking to start on this journey? Don't get me wrong, I don't think hiring a trainer is the worst thing in the world, but I think educating yourself is the biggest key. It's much more effective to spend an hour learning about proper nutrition and fitness than to spend another hour mindlessly running on the treadmill. But like I said earlier, there's such a crapton of crap out there when it comes to this stuff. How does one begin to sort through this?

Stay tuned for part 2 to this article, where I will give my opinions on where to start, how to progress and some great links about diet (the dreaded 80% of the equation) and exercise (that remaining 20%). In the meantime, there's tons of great links already listed on one of my sidebars. I find skwigg's blog and stumptuous to be particularly good places to start.

/rant

(that means end rant for those that don't spek nerd)

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting points. It makes me feel a bit lucky to have my trainer. Perhaps we could debate on Saturday . . .

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  2. OH my I am completely lost and don't know where to begin. Round 2 please so I don't feel like giving up my exercise and gorging on a box of mini doughnuts.

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  3. FBM- I'm such a gym snob lol, so sorry if i come off harsh. i just get so frustrated with most of what i see and who is considered a "trainer", especially at my gym. we can definitely chat some stuff over though if you're interested :) i just usually try to keep my mouth shut because i know i have a tendency to come off harsh.

    barbs - part 2 will come, but it will be mostly link with a little dialouge. ideas on where to start for nutrition, exercises you can do at home, exercises at the gym, the best way to progress. MOST IMPORTANTLY, something is always better than nothing :)

    This was really just me bitching about trainers lol

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  4. That's an awesome post Kate.

    I don't know what words like plyometric mean, but I assume it's something to do with illegal drugs and a fellow named Chaz.

    But seriously ... good post ... you should do one about buddy systems dos and donts?

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  5. Oh and when I was doing a lot of C++ coding when I wrote notes to myself I'd start them with // ... the thing to do a comment with C++

    When I realized what I was doing I wanted to cry.

    Oh, and belated Merry Christmas!

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