Jeff's Thoughts

• What people really want.

  23 May, 2011

  I have just been asked by another personal trainer on my thoughts about the new fitness gadget out on the market. My reply was simply the same one I have been giving for years – “it will entertain a few clients and will end up in the corner all dusty in a few months”. This example can be seen with the good old powerplate. I would be hard pressed to find one  that actually earned its high price back and didn’t get used as towel holder after a few months.

  The problem is this – Personal trainers are task orientated and not outcome focused. They are not worried about helping to achieve a goal with a client (the odds are most trainers could not tell me a specific goal that they are working on with the individual – and “I want to get toned” is not a goal), they are just worried about the current session. If trainers are not moving forward towards a goal, they have to revert to one thing, and that is entertaining the client. This is why clients and personal trainers alike are always reaching for the new toy, whether it be a body blade, kettlebell, the new “functional” training exercise  or some other poorly made device that is on the market (the iride is my personal favourite –  http://bit.ly/kcAB7e ).

  Everybody who comes into studio41 sits down with me initially and I try to understand what exactly it is that they want. I have been doing this  for 10 years now and no one has ever  told me that they want to be entertained, try all the new toys on the market and just generally have a good time. People tell me about the weight they want to lose, about the new body they want to have and how unhappy they are with a mid section that is ever expanding. i.e: they want results.

  I have been through the years and circles of trying to figure out where I fit into an industry that is completely overrun with people who dont know what they are doing, as a result I have been through my swissball years, (yes once upon a time you could walk into a gym and see me squatting on a swissball), bosu years and of course the “functional” years.

  After training with Charles Poliquin for a number of years, it surprised me how simple his programmes were (not in thought process, but in exercises). After this I really stripped the BS out of my programmes, no toys, no gimmicks. Just getting back to what the essence of my job should me – getting results. Every exercise is chosen to work the client hard, burning calories and building lean muscle tissue, not to entertain. When someone sees themselves changing body shape in only a few weeks, that  is the most powerful gift you can give.

   

   

   

Comments are closed.