Poliquin - Healthy. Lean. Strong.

Travelling the World over, I get to see a lot of gyms and of course, lots of personal trainers, the quality is horrendous to say the least.

The best personal trainers are usually found in the province of Quebec, the Dominican Republic, and Ireland. The worse are to be found in France, Italy, and New York City.

Here are ten easy ways to spot a useless personal trainer:



1.  He never records anything.

Unless he has a way to show your average load used, your relative strength index on each exercise, progress curves etc…, your trainer is a big dweeb. He cannot produce any data on how you have made progress outside of weight on scale.
 When you hire one, ask him/her if he can show the software he uses, and show you a sample progression he has done with a client.

2.  He is more into entertaining you than training you.

Jumping laterally from a Bosu ball to a bench while pressing overhead a dumbbell with the opposite arm won’t get you lean or strong. It may very well injure you though. A fun 10 minutes is okay to motivate the weak minded, to make it the core of the workout design is sheer dweebness.

3.  Program design is a function of the equipment closest to the person he is interested looking at.
That one always make me laugh, the guy has a crush  on some nymph in microspandex so he selects the station nearest her. He should select equipment based on your goals.

4.  He talks to you about random stuff while you are doing your set…while being seated. 

He should be monitoring your rep count, tempo pace, and exercise technique instead. I have fired staff for sitting down while coaching. The coach should stand.

5.  He tells you about his personal problems.

Hey, you pay him to get you in shape, not to be his personal counselor. Outside of greetings and goodbyes, talk should be centered around your exercise performance and the whys of what you are doing.


6.  He uses his cell phone to take calls, make call, or text while you are working out.



You certainly don’t need the radiation..

7.  His video does not match the audio.

In other words, he either is a skinny fat bastard with the calf development of parrot, or could consider a career in Sumo wrestling. He tells you that carnitine does not work while he finishes his Triple Fudge Sundae in front of you. He drinks coffee while coaching.  "Hey asshole, you need to be awake before you coach me!"

He talks the walk, but cant walk the talk. Would you go see a dentist who sports a dentition that looks like a piano?

8.  He does not associate with a functional medicine practitioner to make sure your health is not limiting your progress in the gym.
 


A great trainer has a team of health professionals he can refer you to  in order to maximize your progress,

9.  He has not learned anything new since Jimmy Carter was President.
He has never taken a class to expand his horizons and his knowledge on the basics of training: such as anatomy, program design, stretching, etc..
 
The most successful trainers learn…every day.

10.  He cannot sell his business.
Why? It is worth nothing.
 


The sad truth is that 99.99% of personal trainers could not sell their business tomorrow. Why? They have no records, no results to show for. They work for their business, not on their business. Look at any of my top students like Nick Mitchell, Michael Pellegrino or Juan Carlos Simo, they can sell their business tomorrow - and for a hefty price.