Last year, I wrote an article on the five biggest fitness mistakes that personal trainers make.
It was a big hit, especially among personal trainers, so a couple months later, I followed that up with a “part 2”. Here, I will outline more fitness mistakes that the professionals make.
You might be wondering “how many mistakes can professionals in a field make?” I’ll answer that with a quote from Einstein: “there are two things that are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity. And I’m not so sure about the former.” Smart man.
At the risk of sounding arrogant, what qualifies me to comment on the mistakes of my colleagues and prospective students? A couple of things:
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I’ve been hired to speak, multiple times at personal training conferences, where my audience consists of other personal trainers. One of which is one of the world’s largest personal training conferences, the Can-Fit-Pro conference.
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I hire other personal trainers to work for my company, so over the last 4-5 years, I’ve probably done a good 200 interviews. And they’re not easy interviews (for the candidates). I’ve written about my hiring process in extensive detail, in this article: A Behind-The-Scenes, All-Access Look At My Hiring Process.
So I’d like to think I have a fairly solid grasp of how other personal trainers are training their clients.
So without further ado, let’s outline more mistakes that personal trainers make with their clients.
Personal Trainers Stretching Clients
One mistake I frequently see personal trainers make is stretching all clients, indiscriminately, using the exact same stretches for every client, without even assessing whether stretching is necessary in the first place (remember, if you’re not assessing, you are guessing).
Their rationale: “that’s what I learned in school.” Even though school might have been 5-30 years ago. But if you dig a little deeper, and ask them why they stretch their clients, they’ll come up with reasons like:
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To increase their range of motion (ROM)
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To reduce soreness the next day
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To reduce muscle tension
All logical-sounding reasons. Too bad they’re all wrong. Does stretching increase range of motion? Yes, the right kind of stretching can increase range of motion. But an even more important question needs to be asked: does range of motion need to be increased in the first place? Would additional range of motion result in either a lower chance of injury, or better performance at anything? If the answer to both questions is “no”, then there’s no point in stretching that particular muscle. Unfortunately, those questions don’t get asked to begin with. It’s an automatic, mindless, robotic response that “more range of motion = decreased risk of injury.” And while that’s true when you go from deficient ROM to sufficient ROM, it’s not true when you go from sufficient to excessive.
Original source: here.
So this brings us to the question of “how much range of motion is too much?” This, and other question are elaborated in much more detail in my article “stretching exercises: you’re doing them wrong”, as well as “stretching exercises: myths and misconceptions.”
And as for the reasons that stretching reduces soreness and muscle tension? Not true, either. Old myths. It’s logical. But sometimes, what’s logical isn’t always correct when you go from theory to practice. That’s why we do studies. To either prove or disprove theories. And those theories have been disproven in study after study after study.
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Meal Plans
For a lot of trainers, a major “selling point” to try and get their clients to see them as added value is designing meal plans. And while it looks impressive to the prospective client, it doesn’t work. Not long-term, anyway. Yes, the trainers offering meal plans for the most part are well-meaning. But, they are misguided.
So what’s so wrong with meal plans?
For one thing, they are rigid. They give you exact guidelines of what foods you should be eating, and in what quantities. Sounds good, right? After all, it gives you a lot of precision, and takes the guess work out of what to eat. The only thing it doesn’t take into account is a little thing called “real life.”
What if you’re at a restaurant, or a friend’s house, and the exact ingredient from your trainer’s meal plan isn’t there? Most people will totally blow that perfect meal plan, and “cheat.” One cheat meal turns into two, and so on.
Another problem with some (not all) meal plans is that they don’t take taste into account. Sure, they may be healthy. But for long-term adherence, they need to be healthy AND tasty. Not just healthy. You can be on the world’s healthiest diet, but if you don’t like those foods, you won’t stick with it. And you’ll go back to the see-food diet: what you see, you eat.
So if meal plans don’t make sense, what does? We (me, and my team) prefer meal templates. What’s a meal template? A meal template is a much more flexible form of meal planning. Rather than saying exact foods to eat, we recommend categories.
Here’s an example: half of your plate should be non-starchy vegetables. A quarter of your plate should be meat, fish or seafood, and the remaining quarter should be starches. And it’s totally up to you, your preferences, your tastes, and your mood to customize that however you please. Don’t like spinach, and prefer to have broccoli? Go ahead. It fits the category. Don’t like salmon, and prefer to have chicken? Go ahead. It fits. And the best part is it’s tailored to your preferences. It’s also very flexible. So if a particular ingredient isn’t there (at a restaurant, at your friend’s house, etc.), you can substitute it for another one without necessarily “cheating.”
Having said that, there are certain times when meal plans do make sense, over something more flexible, like meal templates. Those times are when you don’t expect to eat that way forever. In other words, if you have a short-term goal, or a specific deadline, and you need to more carefully control what you eat, with no regard for taste or preferences, meal plans make sense. For example:
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If you’re a bodybuilder, or some other athlete. You only plan to eat this strictly until the date of your next competition. After the competition is over, you’re pretty much back to flexible eating. Not rigid meal plans. And then, when you have another competition in your calendar, it’s back to strict dieting. And again, the competition ends, and it’s back to flexible eating.
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If you’re treating a certain condition. Use specific meal plans (or more like specific foods to avoid, or foods to include) until that condition is resolved, and then go back to more or less normal eating.
Other than those two exceptions, I don’t really see a time when meal plans are a long-term solution.
Corrective Training
Corrective training is the idea of assessing for muscular imbalances, and correcting them. All good so far. The problem happens when trainers become so “into” corrective training that that’s all they do, completely disregarding what the client came to them for. Most clients will come for weight loss, and toning. So when a trainer starts assessing the function of the serratus anterior, and scapulohumeral rhythm, there’s a disconnect between what the client wants, and what the trainer is giving. Now, if the client did come for help with certain injuries, then a musculoskeletal assessment is totally called for, because it matches what the client is asking for.
But if someone asked you for a wrench, and you gave them a hammer, don’t you think they’d look at you a little funny? Would you feel like your needs and desires were heard? No? Didn’t think so.
There are two major problems with corrective training:
Problem #1: a trainer is not a physical therapist. S/he shouldn’t try to make every client who walks in into a patient. If a client wants fat loss and toning, give them fat loss and toning.
A good trainer will be able to identify your imbalances with every repetition of every movement that you do, and stealthily modify the exercise so that on the one hand, you’re getting what you want, but on the other hand, you’re also getting what you need, but don’t know you need.
Problem #2: doing corrective exercise forever.
It might sound obvious, but corrective training is supposed to well… correct something. If you’re doing the same corrective exercise forever and ever, then whatever you’re trying to correct isn’t getting corrected. A corrective exercise should be used only until the imbalance is corrected, and then, it should be dropped when no longer necessary. It’s not intended to be part of the program forever and ever.
For example, when you hammer a nail into the wall, once it’s already in the wall, you don’t need to keep hammering it. Same with corrective training. Once the imbalance is corrected, you can drop that particular corrective exercise. If the imbalance isn’t getting corrected, then you’re not doing corrective training. Simple as that.
