I never cease to be amazed at the amount of people who train for no specific reason and then are upset because their bodies do not change. The classic line that we hear when we first interview clients is that they “want to be fitter”. Unfortunately this means something different to everyone, so if you go into a gym and work with a ‘normal’ personal trainer you will get a generic program of fitness. What is needed is a more thorough examination of what it means to be fit, for some this means that they want to be able to run a half marathon in 1.45 (lovely and specific), and for others fitness means looking more attractive to the opposite sex (horribly vague). Once we have the real reason for training we can break it down onto specific achievable goals.
Most people deep down have specific fitness goals when they go into the gym but often they do not want to admit it because they don’t want to come across as being shallow and narcissistic. Trust me we have heard it all before and if we don’t hear that you want some sort of aesthetic improvement we know you are lying! If the trainer does not know what you want from your training, then you start off knowing that you will never achieve your true goals. From a trainers perspective it is also important to be realistic about what you can achieve, unless the client is a true freak or is supplementing with illegal products, then that bodybuilder physique is unlikely to develop within 6 weeks. We need to be realistic about what is achievable and in what timescales, this comes from knowledge about how the body adapts to training stimulus and from experience.
If you go into the gym and you find yourself doing the same exercises as your trainer does or the same exercises that their other clients do ask yourself: Do these people have the same goals as me, do they have the same exercise history, do they have the same stresses in their lives, do they have the same injury history? If not then why are they doing the same exercise program???? You need to be doing what is optimal for you rather than what is convenient for the trainer or what is the current flavor of the day.
I understand that many clients want the body that their trainer has, many trainers set themselves up as role-models and objects of aspiration. But could they do your job, do they have your qualifications or experience to succeed in your profession? Of course not, this is what they do for a living, they can’t do your job, why would you be able to do theirs. Just because your trainer does a particular exercise program it does not mean that it is the right exercise for you, in fact it probably means that that particular exercise program is not suitable for you. Clients will be attracted to trainers who specialize in particular areas, Corina attracts endurance athletes, I attract more strength athletes but they are all individuals and as such their programs will all be different. But even within this specialization the clients need to be doing exercises that are right for them rather than what I am doing, if I am training to do some martial arts I don’t expect my clients to be replicating my training. Unfortunately when we see exercise programs given by other trainers we can often guess what the trainer is training for rather than what the client is training for, they do the same exercises and the same workouts, this is just lazy and unprofessional.
You are unique and your exercise and recovery regime must reflect this. Do the exercises that are right for you, the exercises that will get you the results that you want rather than the exercises that everyone else does or the exercises that are just convenient for the trainer to prescribe.
Alan
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