A wise person once said, “Personal trainers are like surgeons. How they’re educated matters not as much as how they operate.”
Okay, it was me. I said that. I am, on occasion, wise, and I was speaking from experience when I uttered the above sentiment. Sure, it’s the kind of thing you’d read in a Fitness Fortune Cookie, if there were such a thing as Fitness Fortune Cookies. But it’s also true.
My wise thought occurred to me while reading an article about fitness trends in 2008. “Many people have had experiences with bad personal trainers," said Dr. Thompson. But Thompson says more and more gyms are demanding certified instructors, so this presents a win-win for both client and club.
I’d agree that certification is a win-win for all parties involved, but it’s not the only game worth playing. A personal trainer’s bedside manner, if you will, is just as big a factor in his or her professional success as the degrees on the wall.
Brow-beating, red-faced trainers make good television (see: Sgt. Harvey E. Walden IV of Celebrity Fit Club, and the Biggest Loser trainers), but in real life no one wants to pay someone to yell at them. Those people you see on the screen? The ones taking all that abuse? They’re getting money for that, not the other way around.
On the flipside, a lackadaisical, gum-chewing trainer more interested in his hangnail than the sorry state of my abs is not someone I want to pay, either. Nor is the trainer who smirks when I proffer my weekly food log, barely able to conceal her disbelief in my calorie intake estimates.
Certification is definitely the first step toward elevating the status of personal trainers in a fitness facility. But in an industry where technology has an ever-increasing presence, the small moments of interpersonal interaction members get in a club must be more meaningful. Personal trainers are the keys for clubs that want to go high tech with a human touch. Certification in important, but it’s not the only thing that matters.
2 comments:
I like that quote... it does make you sound wise, very zen.
Certification should be the minimum stake to get you into the game but there are many other factors that are required to become great (or even adequate). Not everyone who graduated with Bill Gates went on to become billionaires after all.
I've known many degree qualified health and fitness professionals who have left the industry to pursue careers in a variety of industries such as pharmaceuticals, IT, sales, paramedical etc.
I think that the question is how can the industry retain it's best and brightest and prevent the inevitable brain drain that occurs by the age of 30 or so.
There is a great line in an old Don Henley song entitled "A month of Sundays" that says 'we get the government we deserve.'
It may be that we are getting the personal trainers we deserve?
That's definitely a new spin on the fitness industry's obsession with "retention."
Retaining members is the key to long-term business success, but retaining excellent staff is probably just as important. It's also probable that one affects the other.
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