When you should run for the exit

Photo Courtesy of peminumkopi

We’ve discussed this before, how the Personal Training field is completely unregulated. This clearly will attract EXTREMELY unqualified “trainers” to jump into the field and thus we have high level trainers and really REALLY low level personal trainers. Because of this I’m often asked, “Is XYZ safe for me to do, my personal trainer has me do it”. So I thought it’ll be a great posting to discuss when you should run for the exits! 

If your personal trainer says squats are bad for The knees!

photo courtesy of Dean_in_SF

This is a LONG and outdated theory by Dr. Karl Klein from the University of Texas. Without going into too much detail, he pretty much skewed the research and it’s shown that there was subjectivity therefore allowing for human error causing this study to be FALSE. Clearly this trainer isn’t brushing up on his continuing education…so you should run for the exit!

If your’e interested in reading a little more about Dr. Klein’s research, Jason Shea did a great write up on it here.

Not Listening

Courtesy of Kurichan+

I’ve seen this time and time again, where a client says it’s too hard or too heavy etc… and the personal trainer just says you NEED to do this if you want X goal. Now off course there are times when I want to push my client, even when they don’t believe in themselves, but I’m not talking about those rare exceptions. I’m talking about where it’s clearly evident the client can not do X weight or is getting pushed beyond their comfort zone and it’s just unsafe.

The trainer needs to understand that the personal training session is a little bit of a compromise, the trainer needs to meet you at the level of fitness you’re at and the client also needs to learn to push a little too. While this is all subjective the point here is if the trainer is not listening to you, it’s probably time for you to find one that does.

Booty Touch

Photo by Mahalie

There is NO excuse for a trainer to touch a client in a inappropriate manner. This means the personal trainer that helped you do pull ups by pushing up on your butt or stretched you by grabbing your inner thigh probably shouldn’t be working in this field and maybe just maybe you should RUN for the exit!

The NY Times did a write about how some “…Personal Trainers are Getting Too Personal”

If it feels wrong and looks wrong, it’s probably wrong: