The fitness industry covers a wide variety, there’s fitness instructors, personal trainers, strength coaches, nutritionists and more. With that being said there’s some things that truly annoy me that need to be eradicated from our field.
Every industry has it’s flaws, and ours is no different. This list could be quite long, but I’ve narrowed it down to three specific areas that I feel let us down and dis-illusion the public. This may not be the most fluid post I’ve ever written because they are three separate topics but none the less, here we go.
Poor Coaching
The industry is littered with individuals and companies who tarnish the name and reputation of every honest to good coach out there. If you tried to open up a general practice and pose as a doctor you’d be screwed. However, with enough money anyone can open a gym and train people… but not everyone can coach.
Like medicine, coaching is a science and an art form. You need to understand the body in every facet, down to a cellular level. You need to understand and master exercise techniques while knowing suitable adaptations to make it easier or harder depending on the level of athlete you’re working with. The best way to do this is by understanding biomechanics and joint actions, the exercise doesn’t stimulate change, the joint action does. Good coaching requires inter-personal skills that top nearly any profession and you need to have large amounts of empathy succeed.
I’m fed up of hearing horror stories of people going to PTs who have a large social media following and make everything about them. As coaches we are not God. God made us in his image, or so they say, but we do not try and conform everyone we coach to our image. Here’s your first sign to run. If a coach doesn’t ask you your goals, then I’m sorry to say but they don’t really care about what you want and will try to develop a programme based around what they feel you should look like. A good coach always knows it’s not about them, it’s about the person who has come to you and is trusting you to help.
Secondly, any coach who doesn’t give you their full attention is not a coach worth your time. If someone spends more time on their phone, sitting down, leaning against equipment or talking to other people on the gym floor then give them two fingers and say goodbye. A gym can be a scary and dangerous place, but your coach should be the one re-assuring you and making sure it’s safe. They can’t do that by sitting down or conversing with others. You also shouldn’t have to demand their attention. Obviously, there is a line here between getting too close and being annoying and not being present enough… remember, art form. But I can’t stress this enough, a phone and laptop are not more important than your time.
Lastly on the coaching point, one of my biggest problems is the lack of care and compassion some people have. We, as coaches, have a serious responsibility to give our best possible care to anyone who comes and seeks our help. What comes easy to us will not come easy to the mam of 3 who hasn’t trained in 10 years. Some of us may never understand how that person is actually feeling, perhaps we’ve always been fit and healthy, how am I supposed to relate to that mother? Well, firstly I can actually listen to her and what she’s saying and support her throughout the journey, not just on the day I try and sell a membership. The problem is I see too many people who coach but don’t put any effort in to building a meaningful relationship. What’s the lesson here? A coach should support you every session, the whole way along your journey and not explain what your issue is and leave you to fend for yourself.
Coaching is a highly un-regulated industry which can make it dangerous for the consumer. It’s funny, when buying a new car you put so much research in to what dealer is legit and can offer the best service and help but how much research do you put into choosing your gym and coach? If it’s just the price you consider, think again.
Gender Bias in Exercise
Straight up here, there should be zero pre-determined standards based on gender, ever. My most hated of all exercises isn’t even an exercise and that is ‘girl press-ups’. Shit, that’s not a thing people! Firstly, the variation of a press up that is referred to as a girl press up is a press up on your knees, mostly it’s never coached right. No, instead I prefer the much better hand elevated press up that can be easier for the athlete to progress on.
Gender bias in exercise is degrading and can have psychological impacts on the person training. Firstly, ‘girl’ versions are usually regressed versions from base levels, the struggle to get a proud man to regress to something he considers for a girl is a nightmare. However, that individual might need the regressed version or they’re going to hurt themselves.
Secondly, I train some strong as hell women. A lot of which are stronger than many men who come in first. So, as far as I’m concerned, a girl exercise is the exact same as a boy exercise and hopefully we can leave that shit now.
With good coaching and consistency women can achieve strength they never knew they had.
Fat Reducing and Nutrition Scams
I heard an ad on the radio the other day that claimed you can now freeze fat away… that’s pretty cool right? I’ll just eat in a calorie surplus and not worry because I can book a treatment to freeze my fat away, lucky me!
If only it was that easy. I don’t blame people who try these scams, it’s not your fault. You’re not educated in fat loss and nutrition. You rely on information and if you’re being sold lies, you’re going to believe them.
There are too many nutrition-based scams on the market to count. You’d hope that there would be stricter regulations on these products and what they can say they do for people but there isn’t, where there’s money to be made by big corporations you can guarantee they’ll make it. They make it with zero moral compass, praying on the emotions of unhappy people and that’s hard to witness day in, day out.
There is no tea to make you skinny or juice to burn your fat. There is only exercise and nutrition. If there truly was a quick fix and easy way to get skinny, why would we have an obesity epidemic?
It goes beyond expensive laxatives and juices however, companies such as weight watchers and slimming world are cancers. They are the companies preying on people’s emotions but never actually educate the member around nutrition because guess what, they don’t know either! They create and cultivate a toxic relationship with food, saying you can have this and that, but you can’t eat certain foods and you’re allowed x sins a day. When I was growing up a sin was something that you got sent to hell for. That’s not a very healthy relationship with food if it sends me to hell.
This has been quite the rant but it’s what really pisses me off about our industry which in reality is quite simple. Be kind and responsible as a coach, train hard as an athlete, eat to fuel your body. I might do a part 2 to this in the coming weeks but for now, be careful out there folks.
Rory.