Two women in their late twenties came into the personal training studio the other day and initially they seemed to be impressed with the resistance training area, changing rooms and facilities in general. Looking a bit confused they worked up the confidence to ask:

‘That’s great, now where is the cardio room and the rest of the machines?…upstairs?’

They actually attempted to walk up the stairs, which to their disappointment was a dance hall…

When I explained that we dont have a single piece of cardio equipment they were a little perplexed.

‘But we want to lose weight, not bulk up…we dont know if this is for us…’

Even after I explained that cardio workouts were, for the most part, not only useless but actually counterproductive in some cases they looked at me like I was a complete moron.

It was at that moment I realised:

1. They didnt want ‘personal’ training.

2. They obviously knew more than me about weight loss.

3. They made up their mind that they were going to pay a glorified fitness instructor in a fitness club to carry out a predetermined programme. One they already had in mind which involved the gym instructor pressing buttons on a treadmill for them…

Sure what do I know… right? Clients of mine have lost up to 80lbs in 3 months…No cardio…

To be honest I can confidently say that I could get better results from somebody using their bodyweight and the floor than any amount of machines or contraptions could possibly get. Machines are fine to an extent but they are useless when compared to bodyweight exercise, free weights and circuit training – training athletically.

99% of the gym population performs the following;

30 minutes on the treadmill

20 minutes on the xtrainer

15 minutes doing ‘a few machine weights

Maybe some tricep kickbacks and curls with some flourescent dumbbell at the end. Maybe even a leg press…

99% of the gym population are getting nowhere…

To be honest this is what I call a ‘healthy’ workout…or somebody who goes to the gym to be ‘Healthy’. Thats fine but it never lasts. Why?

Lets cut the crap…Nobody goes and seeks out a personal trainer to get ‘healthier’ there is something much deeper than that motivating them.

Do you really think anyone sits down at their computer, googles ‘personal trainer’ or ‘Curves’ and goes to the bother of browsing 10 different personal training websites and contacts several fitness clubs because they are worried about their ‘health’…not likely.

Okay there are a few who have been referred from a GP or specialist to go and get a fitness programme or personal training but it is rare. The majority of case are people who have a burning desire to achieve a goal and it is broken down like this.

50% weight loss

30% muscle gain

10% sport specific

10% other

It really is a case of good programming, hard work and dedication…key word being good programming. Truth be told if all I had was a pen, paper and nice handwriting I know for a fact I could do more for someones body transformation goals than 200 stupid commercial machines by writing them a training programme that actually worked. Well I would write them an online training programme and illustrate it but you get the idea.

Click here for –>> Online training programmes <<

Click here for a training system that cant fail…

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Tags: Bryan Kavanagh, club, curves, fitness clubs, personal trainer dublin, personal training

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Training, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.