How many of you have personal trainers you love? Hate? Or utterly stupid? Brilliant?

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  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
    One time I had a trainer who would not only arrive 10-20 mins late EACH time we met, he would bring Mcdonalds or Taco Bell etc and eat it in front of me and actually wouldn't direct me so I often just tried to do things on my own on the machines. Granted this was a free trainer who was a student this was supposed to be his "internship" or something sooooo I guess its my fault for going the cheap route and not getting a real professional.


    lol at him eating taco bell in front of you during your work out.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
    I absolutely loved my last trainer - he was the best. But he had a long term family emergency thing and had to quit. My current trainer is fine but just doesn't compare to the last one. So after the old one quit it took me forever to decide to go back - I do LA Fitness - the ones at my main gym only work during the day - you know when I'm at work - so I started venturing out. Went to one nearby - he seemed pretty good asked a lot of questions, asked me to bring my food log the next week, asked if that would be my normal time to come etc - like long term planning. The next day they called me to say he no longer worked there! Oy. And of course all their other trainers work while I'm at work. Tried a girl at a gym further away - she never asked me a single question about my goals or anything. She was pretty good but I couldn't imagine spending time with her every week especially when she wasn't concerned about what my interests were - oh and I had to search for her and we started late - not a good first impression. Then I tried this current guy - he'll do - he at least asks me questions and seems interested in how I'm progressing.

    I've had a couple previous who just assume I can't do much and basically having me do the little pink weights that weigh less than my purse. I need a trainer who tries to kill me not baby me. I can be a pansy on my own in the gym just fine - in fact that's why I need a trainer!
  • JohnnyPenso
    JohnnyPenso Posts: 412 Member
    I've never used a trainer but in my time in the gym I see quite a bit of what I consider poor training, unsuited to to the person being trained. Things like middle aged guys, way out of shape, doing bicep curls on a Smith machine. Lots of talking and little exercising etc.
  • buffalogal42
    buffalogal42 Posts: 374 Member
    Wow - you are due for some luck with a good trainer, OP! Lol

    I LOVE my trainer. I work out with him twice a week (been doing it about 6 mos). I saw how he trained others and thought he might be too "military" for me at first in style (though I didn't doubt his expertise as his people get results!) ... but he eased me in and now I love his style. Motivating and pushes me past where I think I can go. Very focused on form ... there ARE good ones!!
  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
    I am having a hard time reconciling with the Equinox trainer episode :'(

    They have a playbook for their trainers and it's a highly sophisticated enterprise. Their management does not let that kind of behaviour happen.

    Their protocol is to put every member through an equifit program. And they will give you a report of your health and then recommend a trainer from there, only if you don't opt out. I have never heard of a trainer coming in and offer anyone a couple of sessions rightaway. I know because I have been an equinox member since 2008 (briefly stopped for a year in 2013ish timeframe and rejoined)

    And I just don't go to one equinox.... I have the all membership pass which lets me access all their clubs in the five boroughs, and the tri-state area. So I am pretty well-versed with the training habits of their trainers.

    Oh I believe it. I complained to management and they told me just that. Then they mentioned that I had been a member for awhile and had never been through the whole equifit process, and if I'd give them a chance they'd match me up with a trainer who was a good fit.

    To be fair someone at work just happened to mention to me off hand that our job includes a free membership to equinox. And so I just went down there (same building as my office ) and said "no thank you" to the tour and introduction and everything. So I missed the whole "new member sign up" phase. Probably why everything was a mess.
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    . . . welp, i'll shout out for mine. he runs a little 'underground' gym out of a loading bay down at the sketchy side of the tracks, and the first thing that struck me when i checked his web page was how clearly his message came through. "If you have an attitude, go somewhere else." a lot of places pay lip service to that kind of thing, but this guy means it. i spent a year working things out by myself first because it is so hard to find anyone who'll take you seriously when you have r.a. and then it took me quite a while to locate him even after i decided i did need some help.

    this guy takes everyone seriously, and it doesn't seem to matter who his clients are. he'll spend the time quietly getting to know them and then figure out some way of working with them.
  • L0VE3UG
    L0VE3UG Posts: 47 Member
    Gee, some of these trainers sound sketchy. I've seen the type around though, given becoming one isn't too difficult it's the application. Things like eating fast food though? Some just don't take it seriously I guess...

    I've had three throughout the last 5/6 years. The first I only saw a couple times. He wasn't "bad" but expensive and not motivating at all. The second was a woman who was training for her first competition. She obviously knew how to apply things to herself, but she didn't push me. Started me off at such a low weight & when I told her she could kick my *kitten* a little more she didn't take it to heart and babied me. I stopped seeing her around the gym not too longer after I switched trainers....guessing a few other people switched did as well.

    My current trainer is the *kitten*. I stopped doing 1 on 1 with him around November but continue to attend his h.i.i.t classes. I still text him for advice on nutrition or workout ideas and he never fails to respond. I'm lifting so much more weight than when I started and he pushed me to a point where I surprised myself. He made me feel like a badass! He also, though, would get on me about drinking and staying on top of nutrition. He's someone who you can tell is 100% invested in his clients and wants to see them at their best. I was sad to leave the 1 on 1 ($ constraints) but happy to still have his support in a group setting.
  • Lesley2603
    Lesley2603 Posts: 119 Member
    I've been working with my trainer for nearly 18 months. He was assigned to me for induction when I first joined the gym and I couldn't have asked for better. He has encouraged me, supported me, pushed me, never given up on me, laughed when I swore at him. I definitely couldn't have come this far without his support.
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
    I just bought a package for personal training, and I'm super nervous about it. She's got great reviews and has won these awards, but I've had personal trainers in the past whom I hate and really made things a lot worse.

    Examples:

    - One guy told me to start drinking muscle milk, and when I told him I hate muscle milk, he said I'm never going to lose the weight because I'm being too inflexible. Keep in mind it was that SINGLE product that I didn't want - I wasn't saying I didn't want to eat more protein or even that I was anti supplement - I just didn't like that single bottle of muscle milk.

    - Once I joined a really cheap discount gym. In my consultation the trainer took all my stats and told me that to be at a healthy weight I had to lose at least 160 pounds. I was 183 pounds at the time. I remember replying "But if I lost 160 pounds I would only weigh 23 pounds. I need you to think about this for a second. Does this make sense to you?" and he replied "yeah I know it sounds like a lot, but these are the numbers. You have to lose 160 pounds to be in a healthy weight range. At least. Preferably more."

    - My old job included membership to Equinox, which is a nicer gym. A staffer saw me trying to do weighted squats, and came over to help me with my form. I thanked him, and he told me that he's a trainer there and could help me a lot with a couple of sessions. At our first session, I wasn't strong enough to do anything he wanted me to do. Not a single thing. I even told him I needed a lower weight but he told me I just wasn't trying hard enough. After our session he told me that I required personal training at least twice a week to even start to think about getting in shape. I told him there was no way I'd be able to afford that. Plus, after our session my back was killing me from overuse and I was so nonfunctional I had to go to the doctor for the first and last time I ever had back issues that required a doctor. He kept pestering me and calling me - one day I woke up at 6am and saw that I had two missed phonecalls from him from early in the morning. One of the voicemails he left me said I had no hope of ever losing the weight if I wasn't willing to make the financial investment. I had to change gym locations after that just to avoid him because I felt so harassed.

    - I hired a woman to come to my home once a week a few years ago. She was great at first, but she eventually started getting really nosy. She decided my boyfriend wasn't manly enough or hot enough. It got to the point that all of our sessions included her opinions on me "upgrading" to a better looking guy once I got into better shape. The relationship with him didn't work out in the end, but he was the best boyfriend I had and the only boyfriend I was in love with, so it was super weird. I never understood not only the beef she had with him but why she felt she had to aggressively push this whole thing about me dumping him when I got thinner. Shows a really skewed world view, to say the least.


    Anyway, a bad trainer can really make things really bad and demotivate you. It seems like a great one would be super helpful, so I'm hoping this will work out.

    Share stories!

    Why, with or without this history, would you buy a package without, at least, a trial session or two, (or more) to see if you and the prospective Personal Training are on the same page?
  • kar328
    kar328 Posts: 4,146 Member
    I'm posting just to give kudos to mine after reading the horror stories. She's great. She's in her early 40s, powerlifted before the kids came along and has arms I'd kill for. She was recommended by the dietician I use. I used her a year and a half ago to help me learn the various lifts and proper forms. Did about 9 sessions, then struck out on my own. I missed the sessions and started up again last fall. This time my goals are to work on my core and eventually do a pull up or a chin up (or any kind of up before I die). Both times she's worked with me towards these goals, every session is a different workout geared towards these, not some generic one that she can repeat with each client. She's fun, we chat, she corrects my form when it's needed, and has taught me a lot. I just bought another 12 sessions because it's an investment well worth it
  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
    edited March 2017
    @pondee629


    Why, with or without this history, would you buy a package without, at least, a trial session or two, (or more) to see if you and the prospective Personal Training are on the same page?


    The package is with the gym so if I don't match well with the trainer I can switch to someone else. And it's only a package of 3 sessions anyway.
  • conor937
    conor937 Posts: 40 Member
    When i first joined a gym about 6 years ago they did an offer were you paid for 3 personal training sessions but got a refund if you went to the gym 20 times in the first 8 weeks. It was so badly organised, you booked each session in advance but when i showed up they didnt seem to be expecting me so i got a different trainer each session (basically whoever happened to be free). All three were unhelpful at least. The first one, when he put me on a chest/pecs machine, spent ages talking about how he puffs his chest out on nights out to attract girls then eventually moved on to his various qualifications and just came across really self obsessed. The second one made me try a workout that was far and away above my ability as a total beginner and i had to stop about a quarter of the way through (and screamed at me when i took a drink from my water bottle) and the third one asked me about my diet then laughed at me when i told him. The whole experience was quite deflating. Have avoided pts ever since
  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
    conor937 wrote: »
    When i first joined a gym about 6 years ago they did an offer were you paid for 3 personal training sessions but got a refund if you went to the gym 20 times in the first 8 weeks. It was so badly organised, you booked each session in advance but when i showed up they didnt seem to be expecting me so i got a different trainer each session (basically whoever happened to be free). All three were unhelpful at least. The first one, when he put me on a chest/pecs machine, spent ages talking about how he puffs his chest out on nights out to attract girls then eventually moved on to his various qualifications and just came across really self obsessed. The second one made me try a workout that was far and away above my ability as a total beginner and i had to stop about a quarter of the way through (and screamed at me when i took a drink from my water bottle) and the third one asked me about my diet then laughed at me when i told him. The whole experience was quite deflating. Have avoided pts ever since

    ugh! I'm sorry. A bad trainer can really derail you, can't they?
  • conor937
    conor937 Posts: 40 Member
    Yeah its not good. Im a member of the same gym again now and tho those particular pts arent there anymore they seem to hire posers more than anything
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
    @pondee629


    Why, with or without this history, would you buy a package without, at least, a trial session or two, (or more) to see if you and the prospective Personal Training are on the same page?


    The package is with the gym so if I don't match well with the trainer I can switch to someone else. And it's only a package of 3 sessions anyway.

    "I just bought a package for personal training, and I'm super nervous about it. She's got great reviews and has won these awards, but I've had personal trainers in the past whom I hate and really made things a lot worse."

    What is it you're "super nervous" about? I don't understand your anxiety. You can switch to someone else and it's for only three sessions.
  • augustremulous
    augustremulous Posts: 378 Member
    Hmm, not a good start. There was a scheduling issue and when I got there she was with another client. She apologized profusely and offered me a free session to make up for her error. Which is nice. We're rescheduled for tomorrow, and now I have four sessions instead of 3.

    I'm beginning to think that maybe gyms are just really bad at working with trainer schedules.

    Anyway, I was pissed at first, but then I was relieved because I actually felt a little under the weather and really had to drag myself to the gym yesterday. So when our session was missed I just hopped on the elliptical for ten minutes, did some glutes and arm work, and then retreated to the steam room to chill out and clear my pores. Drank a bunch of water, ate a salad, and went to bed early, and now I feel great today (and released about a pound of water weight overnight and this morning).

    Anyway, she has great reviews, so I'm optimistic. And the fact that she gave me a free session for this makes me hope that this doesn't happen often.