My Treatise on Personal Trainers

A friend at work recently came to me for some “training” advice. I got all excited, ME (no one’s ever asked me that before). I assumed that it was carte blanche for me to launch into a huge 1-man Crossfit commercial (as if my co-workers hadn’t heard enough already). But by the time I’d already told him about free Saturday workouts, Murph, the thin layer of post-WOD chalk that will start to build up in your car, the “badge-of-honor” torn hands and what it’s like to kip for the first time…my co-worker asked me to lower my voice and stop waving my arms long enough for him to say “no, I was thinking about getting a personal trainer…can you recommend one?”

 

So here is my cheap-seats primer on personal trainers.

 

For someone who was not born into this Jock World, as someone who still only just barely has a visitor’s pass, being told what to do by a trainer or coach is a relatively foreign concept.

 

That being said, I am 100% certain that I owe what little athleticism I have achieved to the trainers and coaches that have had the patience to work with me. I am not athletically gifted…that I can lift any amount of weight without hurting myself and others is only attributed to some legit trainers and coaches that I have met over the years.

 

I have also learned (through experience and observation) that there are all kinds of different types of trainers and coaches. Some are good, some not-so-much. But the type of trainer that you hire to help you to achieve your fitness goals really depends a lot on how you relate and connect with their training style (these are just generalizations and are not characterizations of particular individuals…really):

 

• “The Mentor”: Provides all sorts of guidance during your training session. Trouble at home? Is the boss on your ass? This guy has the answer. He will tell you what to eat, how to talk to girls at parties and will tell you why the other trainers in the gym are total DBs. If he was not a trainer, he would be a great bartender.

 

• “The Jock”: Athletically gifted and cannot understand why your body does not have the god-given grace and strength that he has enjoyed and taken-for-granted since childhood. Can be a great motivator if you have extremely high self esteem (or anti depressants), otherwise, you’re screwed.

 

• “The Educator”: Makes regular references to muscle groups, technical movements, training theories and gym equipment in Latin. Progress is tracked in PPT and Excel.

 

• “The Buddy”: If you were not paying this guy (a lot), he would’ve made a great neighbor, cubicle mate, or brother-in-law. But you are paying this guy (a lot). So you kind of start to question why this guy who tells great stories and laughs at all of your crumby jokes is also racking your weights for you. Weird. Oh yeah, you’re paying him. (A lot).

 

• “The Drill Sergeant”: Not a lot going on here except for yelling and motivation through negative reinforcement. Probably does not spend a lot of time correcting form or spotting you during a lift. But will certainly make everyone else at the gym assume that you’re a badass just for putting up with his abuse.

 

• “The Stroker”: The whole session leaves you feeling like you just aced the SATs without even studying. You know that the praise is not earned or deserved because you showed up late and a little drunk for the session. This type is often found teaching bikram yoga where the room’s so f’ing hot you’d probably believe anything they tell you anyway.

 

• “The Chick”: Nothing is more motivating to a guy than to be challenged by the fairer gender. Really, if the bar that some roid’ed-out-trainer dude talked you into loading with more weight than you could push collapses on your chest, that’s his fault. But if that same tonnage was loaded on the bar by your chick trainer and you drop it, well, you’ve just failed at the one task that god designed into your chromosomal identity: to show chicks how strong you are. Any guy who intentionally hires a female trainer is either (a) totally whipped and could not figure out any other way to spend 1 hour 2x per week with her (b) crazy.

 

In the end, whether you hire a trainer or have the good fortune to stumble into a box with a great team of coaches, I think that it’s a personal decision that only you can make. I know that working out at a mainstream gym just does not work for me anymore. I also know that Crossfit does not work for certain people or accommodate their fitness goals or limitations.

 

And all kidding aside, I have worked with many really good trainers in the past, many of whom embodied a little bit of “all of the above” qualities (though I’ve never had a female trainer, I just made that up). All you really need is a lot of communication about your goals and limitations and trust; trust that your trainer is knowledgeable and dedicated to helping you achieve your goals.