So why should I save my money?
The clue here is in two words, “PERSONAL TRAINING”, as in 1-1, client and trainer in a room together, face 2 face. Exactly how can it be personal training across the net? Where’s the “personal”? It’s about as personal as buying an insanity DVD and working out alone in your living room. Selling your “12 week fat loss plan” whether it works or not is NOT personal its ONE SIZE FITS ALL It’s “I don’t know or care about you, but thanks for the money you’ve just put in my bank”.
As Paul Chek once said, “If you’re not assessing you’re guessing and if you’re guessing you’re not a professional and you shouldn’t be charging”
Personal training should be what it says on the tin “PERSONAL” you may have gathered I’m NOT a fan of all the online training stuff. Yeah there are plenty of trainers out there doing well online, there are plenty of trainers getting people the aesthetic results they paid for (ok here comes the but bit) BUT!! ‘the amount of before and after’s I see where the client looks slimmer, trimmer, more toned than before, but posturally has a lifetime of pain issues ahead of them, is scary.
We are unfortunately bombarded with images and celeb trainer wannabes on Instagram, telling us we should look “ripped”, But what does looking ripped usually entail? Overly tight chest, Lat’s, biceps, upper abs and hip flexors from doing isolatory exercises designed only to create a false image. See we look at the after photo and think WOW that looks great, and great it may look, but so does a super expensive Ferrari, but when the working parts below are overly stressed it’s going to break, and then it’s just a pretty looking pile of junk. The most important part of a trainers job is actually giving a **** about the client, NOT the trainers ego, NOT the trainers “celeb status”, but that the client feels they are the main focus of the whole process, from start to finish.
The shame of it is, that with the ever increasing advances in what we can do on social media, the whole “personal training” thing is going less and less personal, and more and more about the Trainers online presence, the size of their followers list.
“As an Applied Movement Neurologist, I more than most, understand the hidden things causing clients physical, emotional and movement issues.”
Sometimes I have to go super deep into the nervous system, to find out what the body “Needs” NOT what the duped by all the before and after pictures client “wants”. What a client wants, and what they actually need, are more often than not, a million miles apart. There is NO way any online routine / program can find and treat these symptoms without correct 1-1, face 2 face assessing first.
More and more people are reaching out to these so called “Transformation specialists” for a “quick fix” to cover their own issues. They think that if they look ripped, then everything else in their life will get better, when actually, they’ve just been glossed over.
Whatever route people choose to go down is as always entirely their decision, and it’s not, my right to say they must do otherwise. Personally, I got into this industry to help people feel better about themselves, through leading a pain free healthy life. If what I do helps them feel better about the way they look, then that’s an added bonus.
As always, hopefully the above, may help someone make a more educated decision, and I’ll leave it there.
James Tilley
Mind Body Personal Training, Creating Amazing