"Should I correct them?"

Too long ago Teri asked if it was a good idea for her to give people advice on lifting in the gym.  Today - and not for the first time - a gym member I'd given a routine to commented, "So many of the gym instructors just hang around by the desk and never correct anyone." For both general gym members and instructors, the question "Should I correct them?" is a difficult one. For Teri, the short answer is: probably not. The long answer is below. 

There are two considerations for any exercise, its safety and its effectiveness. Let's take for granted that anyone should speak up when something's dangerous. We'll just talk about whether to poke our noses in when something seems less than effective. 

Asked-for advice

Whether you're a trainer or a gym-goer, when someone asks for advice, give it. But bear in mind that just because they ask for advice doesn't mean they actually want it. Some just want a casual chat about life and are trying to find something in common to start the conversation with. "How do you do those lunges?" 

And some want a pat n the back, they want to be told their actions and plans are brilliant. The "sixpack abs by Christmas!" guy is a good example of this. He knew it was ridiculous, and he knew there was no way he was going to come and train six days a week, he just wanted to dream for a little bit - and I popped his happy balloon. Now you know why the gym doesn't have me doing sales. 

In the end, they asked for your comments, so go ahead and give them - but don't be surprised when they're unhappy with your response. 

Unasked-for advice from PTs

Why don't more trainers interrupt people's workouts to tell them they're doing it wrong? There are many reasons. These are the Sunday Drive, the Stubborn Idiot, and the Lazy Trainer.

Sunday Drivers

Many people are working out not training. That is, they have no real goals. They don't want to lose 10kg, to run a marathon, to squat 200kg or whatever. They have some vague notion that it's good to "get fit, lose weight, tone up," even if they have absolutely no definition of what any of those words mean to them. Working out is an escape for them, a chance to stop thinking about their troubles. In the middle ages people would put on sackcloth and go and sit in a cave, nowadays people put on lycra and their iPod and get their sweat on striding along on the cross-trainer. 

Imagine you're going for a Sunday drive. You're cruising along on your way to the countryside or beach, and you stop at the traffic lights. The passenger door opens and a guy gets in. "Hi! I'm a driving instructor, I'm going to help you drive even better!" The guy's advice may be brilliant, he might be able to make you the best driver in the world, but "Damnit, I don't want to drive better, I just want to go for a Sunday drive!" 

That's how many people feel when a trainer interrupts their workout. They don't welcome the PT's advice that cruising along at 4km/hr reading Runner's World is not going to do anything for them, or that half-squats with the pad on the bar are even less useful than standing on an upside-down bosu ball doing medicine ball slams. 

It's not hard to spot the Sunday Drive members. They're the ones with their iPods jammed in their ears, the ones who never speak to a gym instructor except to complain about the music volume or the lack of hand sanitiser, who never make eye contact when you pass right in front of them. Their workout is unproductive but they don't care, they just want to get their sweat on for half an hour or so and then leave.

Stubborn Idiots

Some people actually do want a productive workout, however they're a Stubborn Idiot. This is most gym-goers. As I've noted before, around 2/3 of new gym members refuse the instruction they've actually paid for in their gym fees. Refusing instruction when you join a gym is like buying a car and insisting they empty the fuel tank before you drive it out of the lot.

Of the remaining 1/3 who seek out instruction, only around half follow it past the programme introduction session. Generally speaking, the women flee to the cross-trainer and group classes like cycle and circuit, and the men flee to bench press and curls. So not more than 1 in 6 gym members are following a programme given them by a professional fitness instructor. 

Thus, if a PT approaches a random gym member, there's a 5 in 6 chance that the person has already been offered guidance and rejected it. If they didn't accept it a month, a year or six years ago, why would they start now? They're a stubborn idiot. 

It's possible that they're rejecting instruction since they know so much already. However, consider this: in a single strength-focused gym in my city, the top 5 strongest women have squats of 120-135kg, bench press of 67.5-77.5kg, and deadlifts of 135-142.5kg. They are overall stronger than any adult male training on his own at the three gyms I've worked at, three gyms which between them had some 9,000 members. Plenty of guys benched more than that, a few had bigger squats or deadlifts, but taking all three lifts into consideration, those women were stronger. I would suggest that if 5 women in one gym can be stronger than any of 4,500 or so males in three gyms, then perhaps these males could benefit from some guidance. Like totally, bro. 

The stubborn idiot is quite discouraging in many ways. When I'm working, usually if the person is completely wasting their time then I leave them to it. As the gym opens in the morning people flood in, a guy walks in, grabs the 20kg fixed barbell and starts curling. This bloke is so far gone there's no hope for him. 

Another bloke walks into the power rack, puts the pad on the bar, puts a 20kg plate on each side, and then does some quarter-squats onto his toes with his knees collapsing in. He's doing a productive exercise badly, there's some hope. What I want to say is, "What the fuck are you doing?" but my manager told me there have been some complaints and I must stop. Instead I walk over, "Hi, I'm Kyle, I see you're working pretty hard. I could give you a couple of tips to make it even more effective." They nod and say "sure" and ten minutes later they have a good barbell high bar back squat with 40kg. Two days later I see them again, pad on the bar doing quarter-squats, but with 80kg this time. 

Stubborn idiot. 

Sometimes people will claim, "Well, I would listen to PT advice, but I've met so many useless PTs I don't trust them at all." Maybe. Certainly most PTs are less than useful. But maybe you're just a Stubborn Idiot. Remember that part of incompetence is being sure you're competent - very competent. 

It should be added that some Stubborn Idiots will actually tell you to fuck off. As I'm not the manager, all I can do is leave them to it. Were I the manager, I'd throw them out. See above where I mention that I'm not involved in selling memberships. 

Lazy Trainers

Around 1 in 6 gym members are genuinely willing to accept instruction and will more or less follow it. We call them People Who Get Results, or Active Members. An active trainer knows how to spot these people. They talk to other gym members and staff, they may have a workout journal or programme card (pages torn from Muscle & Fitness or Oxygen magazine don't count), they make some effort to progress the resistance on their machines or free weights, or speed on the treadmill or whatever. 

A Lazy Trainer is unable or unwilling to spot these Active Members. The Lazy Trainer unable to spot them is often simply too lazy to learn these basic communication skills or anything else, they don't know how to coach and have never really tried. For example, PTs are required to do continuing education, you can do genuinely useful courses or some cheap and easy multiple-choice online test bullshit just to get the points.

Mostly it's the latter. For example, let's imagine that a PT certified as a kettlebell coach brings their kettlebells to the gym and invites other trainers to use them, offering them free coaching in the lifts. Half the PTs use them regularly in their sessions, none seek coaching from the certified coach. 12 months later, there's still only 1 certified kettlebell coach in the gym. This example is entirely fictional, of course, but if true would be a good example of a bunch of lazy trainers. 

But many Lazy Trainers were previously active (even if not good, at least active) trainers, after ten or more years in the gym dealing with Stubborn Idiots and the like, they've just had enough. Clueless or cynical and jaded, the result is the same: the Active Members are ignored. 

Don't be too quick to assume the trainers are all lazy, though. Probably around 1 in 4 trainers are active, the other 3 are lazy. Being generous, only 1 in 4 are truly lazy, and 2 in 4 are just passive - if someone asks for help they'll get it, but the trainer won't be out on the gym floor trying to find people to help. But let's be less generous and just say that 3 in 4 trainers are lazy.

A typical gym with 2,000-5,000 members will have 6-20 trainers, thus 1-5 active PTs. That's 1-5 active PTs to deal with 2,000-5,000 members. Or 1-5 to deal with the 300-1,000 active members who might actually listen to them. There's simply not enough time to deal with them all. 

Unasked-for advice from gym members

Most of what was said about PTs offering unasked-for advice goes double for gym members. People tend to respect you when you're in uniform, just ask Stanley Milgram. If you show up wearing a polo shirt with your name on it and "personal trainer" on the back, people will at least listen to you for a minute or so, usually. If you're just another chick in lycra or guy in a tank top, if you're hot they'll pretend to listen to you, if not then you're out of luck. 

Sounds depressing...

It often is. For the record, I don't claim to be a great trainer, but I do claim to be an active trainer. I'll be out on the gym floor talking to people, getting told to fuck off, shaking my head sadly at the stubborn idiots ignoring my advice, tuning up barbell squats and so on. 

I take my happiness and fulfillment at work from those 1 in 6 active members who actually listen and act, and those 1 in 30 who become PT clients. Because in a gym with 5,000 members, that's 800 or so lives being changed for the better, and 150 or so lives being radically changed for the better. There are 4,000 people wasting their money and time and spinning their wheels, but that's life. Each year I do around 100 health consultations and do PT with 20-30 different people. That's 70-80 people whose lives I helped be better. Not too shabby, I say. 

So go ahead, correct. But choose your targets carefully, and don't expect them to follow it all to the letter, take it as a bonus when they do. 

"I want sixpack abs by Christmas"

In physical training as in so many other things, it's important to have a long-term view. The short-term view is more popular but less useful.

A guy came into the gym recently, in his 40s, about 10kg of extra fat on him, mostly his belly. He was only half-joking when he said, "I'd like sixpack abs by Christmas." 

"14 months? Sure, you can do that."

"No, this Christmas." 

"It won't happen."

He looked genuinely surprised.

"It took you longer than ten weeks to get the belly, why would it be quicker to get rid of it? But you can have a significant change in your physique in ten weeks, if you eat and work very hard. Keep that up and you could have sixpack abs the Christmas after that." 

I suggested personal training - not with me, I'm full up, but another trainer could take him on. If someone has ambitious goals or big obstacles to their goals - run a marathon in six months, shoulder reconstruction operation, etc - then PT will be useful.

He said he couldn't do PT because of his business, he couldn't commit to a regular time. But he also said he was going to come to the gym and work out six days a week. I was a bit confused by this. "I can't commit... I will come every day." 

After doing a few hundred initial consultations with new gym members, I can say that generally the ones who say they'll come 5-6 days a week won't come at all. They usually don't even show up for their programme introduction the following week. Those who say they'll come 2-3 times, they're much more likely to actually do it. 

If people have the mindset of doing big things in a short time, they usually do nothing at all. If they have a longer view, they usually do big things. Most top athletes have at least ten years' experience at that sport. Most top bodybuilders have been doing it for a decade or more. Someone with a PhD has been studying their topic for at least ten years. Being a parent or buying a home is an even longer commitment. 

This is an age where electricity is available at the flick of a switch, water at the turn of a tap, information at the click of a mouse, and communication with someone on the other side of the planet at the press of a button, and where if those things do not happen as we want them to within FIVE SECONDS we become distressed or angry. It is thus natural for us to be startled to realise that if it took us two years to get a large gut, it'll take us more than two months to lose it.

But there it is. Consistent effort over time gets results. I've previously noted that when I started training I focused on the effort part, going hard, but now I think the consistent part is more important. I've always taken for granted the over time part, but apparently many people need this part pointed out to them. 

You will not get sixpack abs by Christmas, and if you think you will, you will probably never get sixpack abs, since your disappointment in your unrealistic expectations will make you give up and go back to beers and Bathurst. Nor will you rehabilitate your reconstructed knee, squat 200kg, or run a marathon in ten weeks. But maybe you can do it in a few years, if you stick to it. 

Patience, Grasshopper.