Meeting with the trainer was a bust...
Angel_Grove_
Posts: 205 Member
He just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that I was actually lifting actual weights already. Kept telling me I needed to use the leg press and the lat pulldown. Butterfly machine, incline press machine... but not TOO heavy. And aparently it's better to do atg squats than just break parallel squats because parallel only works your hips or something, and I'm "not a linebacker"
I finally got him check my form on rows and deadlifts, which is all I really wanted to begin with. But what he showed me was way different than any of the videos I've watched. I think I've seen people in here talk about bent over rows - I guess that's what those were, but deadlifts he had me basically squatting first. Guess I'll have to take some videos and post them up or something.
Got some good core workout tips though, I guess, and I found out what the purpose of the two ropes tied to a bar by the floor in the corner is. Had my BF% checked with the calipers and it was a lot lower than i had come up with based on a formula I found online using measurements, so that w as a nice surprise.
I dunno, maybe I'm just a snot with a bad attitude. He just rubbed me the wrong way from the start. I told him I run 2-3 times a week and do Stronglifts, showed him my logs (for eating and lifting) and it just seemed like he didn't really know what to do with me. He's probably used to people who are just starting from scratch and virtually anything you have them do is going to help.
Oh well. At least it was free (just joined the gym a couple weeks ago). Sorry for the long rambling post!
I finally got him check my form on rows and deadlifts, which is all I really wanted to begin with. But what he showed me was way different than any of the videos I've watched. I think I've seen people in here talk about bent over rows - I guess that's what those were, but deadlifts he had me basically squatting first. Guess I'll have to take some videos and post them up or something.
Got some good core workout tips though, I guess, and I found out what the purpose of the two ropes tied to a bar by the floor in the corner is. Had my BF% checked with the calipers and it was a lot lower than i had come up with based on a formula I found online using measurements, so that w as a nice surprise.
I dunno, maybe I'm just a snot with a bad attitude. He just rubbed me the wrong way from the start. I told him I run 2-3 times a week and do Stronglifts, showed him my logs (for eating and lifting) and it just seemed like he didn't really know what to do with me. He's probably used to people who are just starting from scratch and virtually anything you have them do is going to help.
Oh well. At least it was free (just joined the gym a couple weeks ago). Sorry for the long rambling post!
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I'm sorry. =(
If it was a free session you got by joining the gym, then you're probably right: He didn't know what to do with you!
When I wanted to start StrongLifts, I used a free training session because I was really intimidated by the whole process. When I called to schedule the appointment, the person I spoke to (a different trainer) made me kind of nervous, because she'd never heard of SL. I was afraid the trainer would insist on showing me the machines when what I really wanted was someone to check my form. Fortunately, the trainer I saw was really helpful. I'm sorry you had the opposite experience.0 -
Yeah, the free training session I got at the gym, the "trainer" sat behind a desk and asked me what I wanted to work on, and if I'd rather use machines or free weights, then handed me a printout of an A/B upper/lower workout split that used mostly dumbbells and isolation exercises. I did the 2 workouts to give it a chance but my grip was more challenged than anything (I could already squat much more than I could hold in my hands for the duration of a set of 12), he didn't have me do anything but CURLS with an actual barbell, and the only chest exercises in there was flyes. Why?! Also tried to get him to check my form on some stuff and he barely looked at me before saying "sure" every time.
So yeah, I moved on to other things. The internet is full of more helpful things than this trainer was. We did have a weightlifting coach at the gym for a while though so I am going to see if I could get an hour with him once I'm healed to get feedback on my form from a pro, and hopefully with the oly lifts, too.0 -
Angel_Grove_ wrote: »I dunno, maybe I'm just a snot with a bad attitude.
no, i don't think so. personal chemistry is something that shouldn't have to be justified, and if you want to you can just write this off as 'me and this guy didn't click.'
he does sound really disappointing in quite a number of ways, so you're doing the smart thing by taking the good that there was in your time spent with him, and moving on.
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Yeah, we were doing barbell rows in the gym the other day and the instructor came over and made my husband do these rows where you're basically pulling them up and down your legs. The next day, his back was killing. We felt like the instructors gave us bad advice. I trust the Stronglifts videos more than I trust some minimum wage newbie in a gym. If I felt it was a good trainer with reputation, it'd be different.0
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I had a similar experience this past weekend.
I just joined a gym and I was able to get an hour with a personal trainer for £5 as part of a promotion. I kept telling the trainer that I wanted to start a lifting program and he still insisted on spending close to 20 minutes going over how to use the treadmill and elliptical!
I think there is still a big misconception that all women just want to do cardio all the time... there's a "women only" section of the gym, but all that's there is a bunch of cardio machines.
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when I asked a trainer in my gym about deadlifts, he looked at me funny (like haha, girly, where did you even hear that word) and asked why I want to know that/why I wanted to do these. Erm...duh! But when I told him I want to do them he showed me.
He didn´t make me feel like asking him more with his attitude.0 -
when I asked a trainer in my gym about deadlifts, he looked at me funny (like haha, girly, where did you even hear that word) and asked why I want to know that/why I wanted to do these. Erm...duh! But when I told him I want to do them he showed me.
He didn´t make me feel like asking him more with his attitude.
i had this experience with the only parks board trainer i've done anything with too. really frustrating. she talked all the right 'rah girl power!' talk in these women-on-weights courses i took, but when it came to actual practice everything she demonstrated was either machines or isolation moves with dumbbells. and the word 'tone' kept on and kept on coming up, not the word 'strength'.
it wasn't an accident either, because i kept trying to ask her about compound lifts, and she was constantly 'oh no, you're not ready for that'. apparently it takes months of one-arm curls and machine-assisted rowing before a person is Advanced enough to do a 20lb overhead press or a 45-lb back squat :-/
she was at it again with a new group the last time my workout times overlapped one of her classes. really pisses me off. she's clearly very strong and i'd swear she'd be quite ready to demonstrate things like that to a class full of men, but her condescending attitude towards her own sex makes those 'classes' she gives into a joke.0
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