Rants

As the title suggests...I have 2 things to really get off my chest. Nothing major in either case. Just things lately that have irritated me enough to warrent a blog post.

1. Personal training in apartment gyms. I'm not really sure how this comes about in the first place, but lately there have been two people (one girl, one guy) who train clients in the gym at our apartment complex. Again, I'm not sure which party actually lives there, the trainer or the client, but why would it occur to you that this would be an acceptable place for personal training sessions? First of all, the gym is so tiny...they have 2 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, 2 bikes, weight machines for the major muscle groups, a set of dumbbells and ONE weight bench. Yes, one. So, the other night this woman was there training a client, having her do rounds of strength exercises and then intervals on the treadmill--meanwhile, Chad and I wanted to use the treadmills for an actual 30-minute cardio workout and had to wait until she finally let us take over. Then, there has to be some legality issue here. Guarantee if the apartment staff knew that people were paying for personal training on their grounds, there would be some liability concerns.

The other thing that aggravates me the most, is that the male trainer who works in the apartment gym is a BAD trainer!! He only has his clients do the weight machines, which I'm pretty sure my grandma could figure out if she had to. He waits forever in between sets before he has his client repeat them, and worst of all, he has this bored to death expression on his face the entire time. Never cracks a smile, doesn't really even talk much, and he often watches the TV instead of his client DURING a set. You really have to wonder how much these people are paying for his "service." The starting rate for personal trainers at Life Time Fitness was $60 per hour, so it's scary that someone could be paying him that much to stand and point at what machine they are supposed to do. I'm half tempted to catch his clients when he's not around and tell them they deserve much better.

2. P90X Craze. Before I start ranting about this one, understand that I am NOT saying that this is a bad exercise program. I have seen people transform their bodies with the help of P90X--using the science of muscle confusion is the best way to ensure that someone keeps seeing results 3 months into their routine. (I will say it cracks me up that people at work seem to just now be getting into P90X when the program was out in fitness centers my senior year of college, which was 4 years ago.) Now. What I can't stand is when anyone and everyone jumps on the bandwagon of P90X (or any similar program) when they aren't already doing strength training or before they even consider if the program is a good fit for their individual body. What happens is people hear about so-and-so who did the program and saw great results, so they go out and buy the materials or join a group who's doing it, and then get discouraged because they can't keep up. Or get injured. P90X is not a beginner's program.

The other part that really makes my co-worker Lucy and I chuckle is that people think this is some kind of miracle routine. All it consists of is alternating high intensity strength and cardio exercises, and keeping up with a strict schedule of working out most days of the week---i.e. the same format of workout programs we would recommend that anyone follow for really making changes to their body. P90X is infamous for taking normal everyday exercises and re-naming them to make people think they are something new. For example, a couple months ago, a member at work asked me if I knew what a swimmer's press was. He had forgotten his instruction manual and couldn't remember what that exercise looked like. I wasn't immediately familiar with the term, so I found a youtube video of it...only to discvoer it was a bicep curl to shoulder press. A totally standard combo that I do all the time. I see the benefit in having a set routine and pre-written plan and/or video for the day so you don't have to think much about what you have to do. And if you need a popular program to give you the discipline to workout 6 days per week, then go for it. I'm just so over people thinking that this specific program is going to change their lives when the fact is, it's no better than making your own mix of challenging exercises that keep your heart rate up and work your muscles to their point of fatigue.

Man, I wish I would have thought of some crazy number/letter combination for a name of a program and marketed my own personal training routines. Genius.