We Keep You Honest

There are many reasons someone might choose to work with a personal trainer. Heck, if it was free, I would too just for the variety and the convenience of having someone else plan my workouts. One of my clients said the most fascinating thing the other day. It was nothing profound. He had been telling a story while simultaneously struggling through the last few reps, and I reminded him that he had 4 reps left. He said, "Ughh. You keep me honest." Is that not often the sole job of a trainer? Sure, I work with many clients who are brand new to strength training and need major help with form or even knowing what to do with a dumbbell. There are others who are working towards specific goals who need a breakdown of what specifically they should be doing to maximize results. Most of my clients by now know generally what exercises work which muscle groups, so if they had to put together their own strength workouts, they could.

So why do our clients sign up for session after session? Because we keep them honest. If they don't complete the last two reps when the going gets really tough, someone knows. If they don't use a weight that challenges themselves as much as it should, I ask them directly if they could have done 5 more reps, and therefore we bump the weight up. If they feel like skipping out on that third (what I call bonus) set, I'm there to remind them we have time left in our session for a third go-round. Even if I'm feeling particularly nice and don't insist that my client finish out that set that he or she quit early on, it's the fact that I know. When we strength train on our own, nobody knows if we cheat out of those last few reps. Nobody knows if we lower the weight just because it was uncomfortable or starting to get hard. I catch myself doing the same thing during my own workouts, and I AM the trainer.

We could go into the whole psychology of the power of someone telling you what to do, but for any of you other personal trainers, let it suffice to say that often your skills and knowledge of exercise physiology is not why your client is there.