Are trainers expensive baby-sitters or cheap therapists?  Or neither?

The two (sadly) predominant stereotypes of trainers are The Baby-Sitter (AKA The Rep Counter) and The Therapist.  Go into any New York Sports Club (or, *insert name of your gym here*) and I’ll bet dimes to donuts you’ll find several examples of both.

The Rep Counter does just that - count reps.  No feedback, no coaching, no educating.

The Therapist may make you feel better, but they distract you from your immediate goal - optimal workout performance.

Of course, I’m not saying a trainer can’t provide clerical or emotional support for their client.  But the ultimate goal always has to be kept at the forefront: Guide the client towards their (fitness) goal(s).

Certainly, it’s important that you like and click with your trainer.  But is your trainer up to task?

Trainers, it’s also easy to fall into the opposite trap and overcompensate.  It’s ok if your client isn’t doing 100 different exercises in their routine.  It doesn’t make you a bad trainer if your client doesn’t perform kettlebell snatches, moves weights at a 10/10 rep tempo, or can’t flex and isolate their tensor fascia latae muscle.  It’s just as easy to talk a client to death (to over-instruct) as it is to offer too little (or no) guidance.

I think trainers should be helpful and conscientious, and I think it be done without acting (and looking) like a complete tool (nothing personal, guys and gals).

Thanks to Chris Gethard for sending me this (just how many Chris’s do I know, anyway?) - for some odd reason, I somehow snuck onto some of the footage the NY Post shot on their feature on Mixed Martial Arts at Renzo Gracie’s Brazilian Jiujitsu Academy.

I’m the confused-looking fellow (about 1:29) sitting back to put an Achilles lock on a fully-suspecting teammate. I hope I transitioned to X-guard and swept him after the defense.

…or too small to start weight training. Just follow Aditya Dev’s example (courtesy Daily Mail UK):

Too bad his trainer has him lifting no more than 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) dumbbells, but I suppose it’s warranted as his total body weight is a mere 9kg (just under 20 lbs).

Let’s perform some calculations to see how you measure up:

If you weigh 135 lbs, that would be equivalent to two 22.25 lb dumbbells overhead.

If you weigh 165 lbs, that would be equivalent to two 30 lb dumbbells overhead.

If you weigh 200 lbs, that would be equivalent to two 33 lb dumbbells overhead.

Not bad, but not great for two years of strength training under his belt. I can’t help but think of how his gains would skyrocket with some well-loaded squats and deadlifts.

Today, one of my clients mentioned to me during our workout that she had received a catalog in the mail “that contained those kettleball things (sic) and other interesting Russian things.”

And I thought, “Why is Dragon Door Publications sending her a catalog?”

Of course, the answer is that her name is probably on a master mailing list of Upper Westsiders who have ordered or purchased a fitness-related product, and that John Du Cane or somebody else from Dragon Door bought that list from Melissa Data or some other similar service and sent her a catalog. That’s how it works.

But I had to admit, the thought of a 65 year old female attorney with serious joint maladies and osteopenia doing Pistols with a 2 pood kettlebell struck me as theater of the absurd of the highest order.

I wonder how Pavel’s doing these days…

From the annals of my celebrated gym-face picture vault comes another county fair prizewinner:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Michael Chinchilla.

Above: This is exactly how Chinchilla looks right before he’s about to deliver a spinning elbow to your noggin. Exactly.

Who knew seated biceps curls could inspire such concentration and focus?