Your trainer is there to help motivate you, support you, guide you, and to help you perform each exercise that you are taught, safely and effectively. They’re
Your trainer is there to help motivate you, support you, guide you, and to help you perform each exercise that you are taught, safely and effectively. They’re good folks who try hard to match or elevate your enthusiasm to be your fittest. They want you to succeed and be your best, but sometimes they wish they could tell you things that you may not always want to hear.
Think about it: your trainer is the one person who can give you the best plan to help you meet your fitness goals. No matter what, your trainer will keep you engaged, answer your questions, and always be positive toward you.
If your trainer lacks any of the above qualities, and you’d really like to tell them so, you might feel bad about it, right? Well trainers feel the same way — if you have certain shortcomings or quirks about you that may get under your trainer’s skin, they would not feel good about telling you, either for fear of hurting your feelings or maybe even losing their jobs!
Luckily, we spoke to a lot of trainers for this story to compile a list of the three major things that they wish they could tell you. You may not love hearing all of this, but maybe it’ll help you get a better workout as well.
Sure, everybody has an excuse here and there as to why they’ve missed a workout or why they’re not quite eating the way they should for their goals. However, when a client if full of nonstop excuses, it can get really tiring for your trainer. One trainer told me that when a client gives them two excuses in as many days, he sets them free and tells them to reconnect when they’re serious about their health.
Let’s get real: telling your trainer you don’t have time to work out is the number one excuse they hear all the time. It’s like saying you don’t have time to eat or use the bathroom. You do have time and you’re paying for their time. Use it wisely.
A trainer sets aside their time specifically for you. When you don’t show up, they can’t just pick up another session with someone else. If you know you have a workout planned on a specific day that you won’t be able to make, let your trainer know ahead of time so that they can fill that spot or make other arrangements. Repeat offenders in this category become a big thorn in the backside of a lot of trainers. One trainer told me that he has a 24-hour cancellation policy; if you don’t tell her you’re not making a session at least a day in advance, you’re going to get charged the full rate.
The same goes for being late. When you show up even 10 minutes after your session was supposed to begin, that can mess up your trainer’s schedule for the rest of the day if they have to push every other session back to accommodate you. If you have a trainer who’s not so tolerant of your tardiness, they will cut your session short as to not mess up the rest of their schedule, so you’re losing out on workout time and not getting all the benefits of your session.
It’s one thing if you’re doing everything by the books and your trainer has you on a plan that is either too easy or not effective at all. But that’s hardly the case as most trainers assess their client’s fitness levels, talk about nutrition, and try to get them on the right plan to meet their specific goals. Blaming your trainer is a little like a bad musician blaming their guitar for a ruined set. You are the reason you fail or succeed. Think of a trainer as a secret weapon. But no weapon wins a war on itself. You need to do the work.
No excuses. If you aren’t following the given plan, skipping workouts, and cheating on your diet, don’t blame the trainer when you don’t get results. One trainer told us that if they start hearing the blame for lacking results, they refer the client to someone else before the relationship becomes toxic.
