Form Phobia

If there is ONE thing that will totally discredit a personal trainer in my eyes, it's LACK of reinforcing form. I don't care how long you have been training people, or how many letters you have next to your name; if you stand there and your client is performing a DB row or Romanian Deadlift with a rounded back, you just lost all credibility, and you enter "you suck" territory.

FYI: this picture is a perfect example of someone sucking.

Case in point, I was training at another facility the other day, and out of habit I observed the trainers there. I saw one of the "master" trainers having his client perform RDL's, and the guy looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Knee's shooting forward, no hip extension, and a completely rounded back. And the trainer just stood there watching, counting reps as if everything was perfectly fine. Matter of fact, the client finished his set, and the trainer said, "good...perfect."

Wow, if that was what he considered "perfect," I'd love to see what he considered "bad."

It's frustrating to be in a field where mediocrity is rampant. Worse yet, the consumer has NO clue. Part of me feels like a jerk that I tend to judge other trainers so often. I mean, I can deal with the fact that some trainers feel that giving someone a great workout is to put them on a machine circuit for 30 minutes and follow that with some BOSU ball crunches (although they should still be drop kicked for being so lame). But the other part of me feels like it's my obligation to call these trainers out. I mean, if I can have a 60 year old woman who has never lifted weights before in her life performing rack pulls with perfect form within 15 minutes, you should be able to have your 35 year old male who has been "training" for the past 5 years peform seated rows without looking like he's having a seizure.