I don’t think they pay people to know what to do either.
Of the people that work there, i have seen maybe one that actually works out there.
And, of the personal training sessions I’ve seen them give, they sometimes make people do exercises that will probably result in pain or injury. The rest of the time they aren’t doing training sessions they just stand around.
I applied to work there last summer, considering i was familiar with the FitLinx system and that I’d been working out there for two years. They didn’t call back. Go figure.
I definitely read more into it then the situation required. And I don’t have a deep and burning resentment, even though I do remember the conversation every time I see him at the gym.
I figured this was the problem. This guy is probably a college student, working part time. Heck, maybe he even mis-spoke. Maybe in a world of college students (I live in Boston near about 75 major university campuses) he found my size 10 jiggling to require a warning about eating too much. Fair enough.
It probably sucks in his world anyway.
Isn’t it fair to say that if I’m not at least a little hungry around meal time, I probably ate too much at the last meal? Or moved too little?
And what’s the deal with lunges? Every gym I’ve been to and have seen a trainer with some newbie out-of-shape beginner, they have the walking around doing lunges everywhere for the majority of their session.
Is it supposed to be some ultimate calorie burner or something?
Working your leg muscles is of the most immediate benefit for exercise. That’s where the biggest muscles in your body are, and so by working your legs and building up the muscles there you can burn the most calories and increase your need for calories for the least time spent exercising. Besides which, almost everyone uses their legs more than their other muscles. Get your legs in shape and you’re helping yourself get closer to the time you can start running, cycling, or doing other more strenuous exercise.
Most beginners can’t do squats safely, and a second-best leg exercise would be lunges. I do weighted lunges as an alternative for squats when I’m changing up my exercise routine. Much better than leg extensions or pretty much any of the other leg exercises if you can’t or don’t want to do squats. I’d absolutely get people doing lunges and core training (stomach and back exercises) the first day if I were a trainer.
If you only had a few exercises to do, squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and shoulder presses, along with core training would probably work the most muscles and provide the best overall benefits for minimal time investment. Problem is that beginners can’t do most of those without close supervision at first, and they need to be in some semblance of shape to do them without risking injury even if they’re only using a bare bar for weight and form training. That’s probably why trainers start people on lunges, because it’s something the client can do right away and it’s a good exercise to learn anyway.
With my current gym membership, I get 2 training sessions every 12 weeks. The first time I met my trainer, he had me do a bunch of lunges (and some other stuff) basically to just see my form & balance. He didn’t actually have me do them as part of my routine, though.
And I don’t have a deep and burning resentment, even though I do remember the conversation every time I see him at the gym.