Choosing a new personal trainer can be difficult.
It’s a situation Amy found herself in recently.
“Hey Russ! I recently relocated for work and joined a brand new gym. How do I know which of the many personal trainers in there are any good?”
– Amy
I get it.
We live in an era where every fucker seems to be a personal trainer (most likely because it’s now possible to achieve a paper qualification in less time than it takes to binge a Netflix series!), so walking into a new gym can feel a bit like entering a furniture store or a car salesroom where all the staff run towards you with hopes of earning a commission!
So when in doubt, please refer back to Uncle Russ’ list of “10 Signs Your Personal Trainer Fucking Sucks”.
1. They Look Like Shit
I’m sorry, I can hear my fellow PT’s in my ear right now:
“It doesn’t matter what a personal trainer looks like, it matters what they know!”
And they’re right, but they’re also wrong.
You see, I’ll never understand why so many personal trainers allow themselves to get out of shape.
A PTs body is a walking advertisement for the methods they preach, and I can 100% guarantee tou that prospective customers are looking you up and down and making decisions without saying a word, so it’s insane that this happens as often as it does.
Most personal trainers know that their own appearance is the #1 marketing tool in the world (heck, that’s how so many unqualified fuckers are able to get away with it!), so if someone neglects this simple fact it always raises a red flag for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a PT should look like a bodybuilder (to be honest, if they did it usually means they’re taking drugs and/or they don’t have enough clients to fill up their day!), but I am saying they need to show some of the physical signs of the knowledge they have.
2. They’re On Their Phone During Sessions
This one really grinds my gears.
Did I ever tell you the story of when I was asked to speak on stage at Google’s headquarters in London?
(Sorry, I had to get it in!)
Anyway, I visited a local gym earlier that morning to do some cardio and I saw a lady working with a personal trainer who barely looked up from his mobile phone throughout the entire fucking workout.
And as I glared with an expression that could probably boil coffee, the client seemed to catch my line of sight and we shared a brief moment where her eyes told me everything I needed to know: she was angry, she felt ripped off, and she didn’t know how to say it.
Simply put, get your fucking lazy brain out of your fucking phone and give your customers the courtesy of your attention, you fucking lazy fucking fucker!
3. They Don’t Have Any Qualifications
Would you visit an unqualified dentist?
No.
What if they had really nice teeth?
Still no.
Yet all over the world I see people making the mistake of hiring unqualified fitness professionals who base their entire business around the fact that they themselves are in shape!
I know this is a looks-based industry, but it is your job to make sure that the person you hire is sufficiently qualified to do the job, and you wouldn’t believe how few people actually do this.
Heck, during my 22 years as a personal trainer I can count on one hand the people who took the time to ask me about my fitness credentials before we started working together. Luckily for them I’m qualified as a motherfucker, but you gotta be careful out there.
It’s a worrying trend which has grown at an alarming rate in the last few years (fuck you Instagram), and a handful of gyms have even gotten into trouble for hiring staff who lack even the most basic qualifications.
So make no mistake, an unqualified personal trainer puts you at risk – not just because of their limited field of knowledge, but also because they’re offering a service without any of the necessary health and safety precautions or insurance which you may need if something were to ever go wrong.
4. They Try To Destroy You
My brother once took a friend to the gym and put him through his usual leg workout, delighting in the fact that his pal threw up.
It’s a man thing.
It makes us feel hard as nails, and it’s hardwired in to our psyche.
Lots of personal trainers get caught up in this kind of nonsense and believe that fucking up their client is a sign of a good workout.
That’s really not true.
Your workout program should be designed to help you reach your fitness goals, and if that’s to lose weight and look great then you definitely don’t need to be getting destroyed in every workout. Unfortunately many personal trainers make their workouts less about the clients needs and more about trying to look “brutal” to onlookers.
“They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
– Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)
5. They Join In Your Sessions
Imagine finishing a hard day at work and going to the gym for your PT session, only for fucking Todd to hit you with:
“Hey brah, I was busy this morning so I’m just gonna get my workout in with you,. We’ll train chest, okay?”
Of course it’s fucking not.
Your personal trainer is at work, and just like you they must use their personal time to fit their own workouts into their schedule. I really understand how these people find the audacity to cut into their client’s time to train themselves, but it happens more frequently than you’d expect.
For example, last year I saw a female trainer at my old gym charge a lady £70 for a one hour PT session where she trained herself for more than half of it.
How much of the time her client had paid for was wasted? Any answer is too much.
Remember you have paid your hard earned cash for you time, and if your trainer is unable to make you the primary focus during the session there are plenty of other trainers who absolutely will.
6. They Put Their Hands On You
There’s a creepy trainer in every gym.
One of the gyms I worked at several years ago had this bloke who was notorious for it. One day he was teaching a lady how to perform a stiff-leg deadlift, and because he didn’t feel like she was “grasping the concept of the movement” he decided to stand right behind her, place his hands on her lower back, and literally bend her over.
It created a gym moment I still remember to this very day as instructors, receptionists, and customers all locked eyes with each other in disbelief.
Make no mistake, the unwritten rule of being a PT is “never touch the client”.
All PT’s are aware of this, because it’s drilled into you prior to starting the role.
Heck, I was put through my first PT qualification course by former Team GB Olympic athlete Doug Hunter some 23 years ago and I can still hear the words “You should never touch the client!” ringing around my ears because he told us every fucking day.
I carried those words with me throughout my whole PT career – in fact, if any of my current clients from Powerhouse Gym have stumbled across this article they’re probably realizing right now that they’ve never had so much as a little finger placed upon them in the countless hours we’ve spent together.
Anyway, the reason why you’re not supposed to touch the client is because it’s a sure-fire way to make somebody feel super uncomfortable, but some PTs (e.g. bad ones) will argue that “I need to have physical contact in order to show a client which muscles should be working during certain exercise”.
Not true matey, because a competent coach would just learn how to communicate more effectively.
7. They Encourage Drug Use
Yes, I’m going there.
I mean, are we supposed to pretend this doesn’t happen?
Is it “taboo”?
Kinda like when Flex Magazine tells you all about Mr. Olympia’s supplement stack but fails to mention the truck-load of “Vitamin S” he’s also taking?
Well, shit.
There are several PTs out there who actively encourage (and in many cases even sell) their clients to use drugs like anabolic steroids, fat burner capsules, pro hormones, SARMS, and other not-so-great things.
While I’m on this topic, it’s worth mentioning that I believe the personal trainer has a duty to inform his/her clients if THEY are taking drugs, too. If they are not open about this, then they are using their own physique to market the benefits of working with them without making the customer aware that those results are unattainable without drugs.
“Almost immediately after hiring my trainer she recommended I take something called “T3 fat burner”. I had no idea what they were, but they looked suspicious. She said that I’d see much faster results and that I’d have a better chance at being featured on her Instagram page if I got fast results. Suddenly it all seemed fake, like all the before and after pics I’d seen which made it seem as though she’d be a great PT, but now I was being told to buy drugs.”
– Rachel
Anyway, the worst part about these situations always comes at the end, when those who got pressured into taking the aforementioned drugs finally see their “transformation pic” posted on the holy grail that is the PTs social media page, because they see that the trainer is merely using them to draw in new clients, just like they were sucked in, and there’s no mention of the drugs, and barely even any mention of the work the client has put it. Instead it’s all about the PT’s “magical fat loss system”.
Fuck that with a capital fist.
8. They’re All About The Money
This one kept on popping up when I was doing research for this article.
Website member Lola explains:
“The change in her attitude when I handed over my money was surreal. I used to get frequent texts and encouragement on my social media posts but after paying for a few months of sessions she became very difficult to reach and sessions would be cancelled at short notice. I felt very ripped off. Eventually I hired a new PT and started over, even though I still had thirteen unused workouts with the old one, because I felt as if my old trainer had no interest in doing work which she had already been paid for, for money she had probably already spent.”
– Lola
This email from Alice also caught my eye:
“Hi Russ! I’ve got a great one for this article. I used to pay my old trainer every week, but out of the blue he asked for four months upfront. It was $2950, which I obviously didn’t have just laying around. The worst part is I paid him (I know, right?!). His request caught off guard and I felt like I had to say yes, even though I knew I couldn’t afford to. I moved things around and got the money for him, but we had a rough Christmas that year, and what’s worse is that he became a nightmare with cancelling sessions after getting that much cash in one go. Never again!”
– Alice
Holy flaps! I’m raging at these!
The fitness industry sometimes attracts the worst type of people to it. I believe a lot of people underestimate the work that’s involved in building a successful business, they get draw into the fitness industry under the illusion that it being a PT is “easy”, and when it comes time to actually do the work they run away.
If your PT is like that I suggest you run away first!
NOTE: I’ve provided Lola and Alice free lifetime memberships to russhowepti.com after reading their stories, so they won’t have to deal with that kind of shit in future.
9. They Give Every Client The Same Workout
If you scope out the PTs at your gym the next time you’re doing your morning cardio session you’ll notice that certain trainers only have one routine.
Every single client gets this exact same thing.
Sometimes this is down to sheer laziness on the trainer’s part, and other times it’s due to a lack of knowledge; many PTs put their clients through the workouts they themselves do in the gym because it’s all they know and they aren’t qualified.
One size definitely doesn’t fit all when you’re training members of the public, because people have very different goals and preferences, as well as different injury histories and movement issues.
The whole idea of personal trainer is that it’ll be personal.
8. They Become A Moaning Little Bitch
It’s okay to vent at your personal trainer, but it’s not okay the othe way around.
To give perspective; a PT often feels like a therapist because clients will discuss personal problems with them in the gym and vent their rage at situations which have occurred in their everyday life (work, family, etc).
There are benefits to having an “outsider” listen because it often results in you training harder, and you leave the gym feeling like there’s a weight off your shoulders.
It’s part of the job. I’ve seen people cry, punch walls, kick medicine balls (and then immediately regret it), and a whole lot more throughout the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.
But check this one out from Lisa:
“My old personal trainer would moan non-stop throughout our sessions about arguments with his girlfriend, not having enough money for the holiday he wanted, struggling to get enough clients, and how much rent the gym wanted him to pay every month. It drained the life out of me and I eventually just quit.”
– Lisa
Russ’ Take-Home Advice
Well, there you have it. My list of “10 Signs Your Personal Trainer Fucking Sucks” is complete.
I was trying to figure out a way to include PTs who attempt to poach other PTs’ clients (not a fan of those guys!), but ten is a nice number so I’ll leave it there. I hope you enjoyed the read and that you laughed at some of my stories.
Further Reading:
If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.
>> 6 Things I Wish My PT Course Taught Me
>> 5 Fitness Myths You’ll Hear In Every Gym
>> How To Use RussHowePTI.com