Douchebag.
-Matching Energy
This oft-overlooked rule-of-thumb is just as important as making sure personalities mesh:
If you walk in for your four pm session, exhausted after a day of driving the kids to school/dealing with your asshole boss at work/ picking up the kids at school/ dropping off the kids at whatever-after-school-activities-they-need-dropping-off-at
AND THEN
showing up to be tortured (--in a good way!) then, yes, you want your trainer to be uplifting and refreshing and motivating. Not bouncing off the walls like they’ve ingested an eightball of cocaine.
The trainer is there to allow you to push hard and release some endorphins and feel great-but-a-little-nauseous and forget about the burdens of the worldresting-on-your-shoulders:
GIVE ME TEN MORE, YOU SNIVELING-MUELLING-DISGUSTING-SHELL-OF-A-MAN won’t inspire.
Not one.
Certainly not ten, of anything.
Conversely, if you’re ramped up to hit the weights hard (--like your workday--) and you catch your trainer falling asleep between sets, or texting, or snorting a line of the cocaine you now kinda wish he’d snorted ten minutes before you came in to workout, then, no, that’s not indicative of matching energies, either.
A ‘harmonious union of ideals, goals, and energies—synchronized and ever-progressing to said-goal’s completion’ is the ‘scientific’ term:
All you need to remember is that it is important you’re on the same page.
How to tell if you’re a Douchebag Client
Fair is fair.
I’ve spent years on both sides of the Personal Training desk . . . I’ve been the dewey-eyed, farm-fresh iron virgin, and I’ve been the seasoned veteran who eats said virgins for breakfast (and cash.) So, as hard as I’ve been on my Personal Training Certified brethren, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the shortcomings of some of our clients.
Hence, I present the following examples of who not to be when you invest in the expertise of a workout professional. I warn you in advance—as verbose and outlandish as some of the following stories may seem—they are (in fact and sadly) all true.
The Relentless Flirt
This one goes out to the ladies. Now, before you’re quick to judge, please understand one thing—I adore each and every one of you. In fact, pretty much the entirety of Book 2: Meditations on Girls, and stuff details the fact that every problem, in every relationship situation, is the guy’s fault.
Now, partly because I’m speaking from experience—and partly because you’ll see why this just doesn’t work the other way around—you girls are going to have to bear with me on this.
For God’s sake, stop flirting with your trainer.
I get it. Unfortunately, in some situations, a woman will have absolutely no support system in her goals to feel, look and live better. There’s the asshole husband who tells her she’s too fat, and will always be; there’s the control freak who chastises her for investing her money in a vision of her better self—there’s even the guy who is so insecure, so petty and jealous that he secretly dreads the thought of his woman becoming ‘more attractive’ or ‘more self-confident.’
A woman so used to these psychological, emotional and verbal beatings steps onto the gym floor, scared and hesitant and unsure, and she hires a Personal Trainer. All of a sudden she’s realizing there’s an innerstrength she forgot she had, and she’s feeling better and she’s looking better and
--and I’m all for, up until the point—
She realizes there’s this young, ripped, gorgeous guy (--it’s my book, I’m allowed to build myself up a little bit) cheering her on and complimenting her and believing in her in a way that no one else in her life is.
And then she’s doing weighted back extensions one day, and she feels her trainer’s sinewy (--because he’s so jacked even his Goddamned hand is sinewy) on the small of her back (--because he’s illustrating how she needs to break parallel on the concentric phase of the motion, in order to fully extend the muscles of the rectus Abdominis) and she feels a certain way about it.
And it’s all downhill from there.
Now she swears it’s “because nothing fits right anymore,” but she’s showing up with more ass showing and she’s specifically mentioning where she’s meeting the girls Friday night right after asking where you’re going when you mention you’re going out Friday night also.
And she’s making comments about her flexibility, and maybe she’s making a few too many noises while she’s straddling the abductor machine and she’s asking for a cell phone number and when she gets it she veers from professional to unprofessional very fast and
--you get the point.
Don’t be that girl.
The Over-Texter
Again, I have to clarify—the Over-Texter is a different animal than the Relentless Flirt. Whereas the latter has a clear, concise and calculated plan of attack, the former really, truly, has no idea what they’re doing . . .and they’re going to tell their trainer All. About. It.
They text before they cheat on their diet.
Standing across from ice cream freezer for last ten mins.
Weak.
Help.
They text after they cheat on their diet.
I texted you when I was in line but you didn’t answer and there was a two-for-one and I was so hungry and why didn’t you answer me I’m so fat
They text late at night.
Really late.
When they shouldn’t.
When
Are you up I need you
Looks like
Are you up I need you
To whomever you’re lying beside.
God forbid they start sending Selfies (*see all about it, On Selfies & Sexting, earlier) under the guise of
Look at your hard work
Or
Just a progress report
Or
This is what I look like naked.
You see how the Over-Texter can turn, very easily, into the Relentless Flirt? The gradient here is so steep, once the proverbial ball starts rolling, the classification between Douchebag A and Douchebag B is almost non-existent.
As trainers, we need to limit and enforce the amount of communication with clients outside of their designated sessions, thus limiting the dangers—and quantities—of bombardment. That hour per session, however, does little to save us from . . .
The Over-Sharer
Again, the Over-Sharer is a different animal—albeit with similar lack of respect for the professional boundaries between client and trainer—than the Over-Texter.
Whereas the latter is comfortable spreading the dump of uncomfortable personal information into any and all areas outside of their allotted training time, the former (while respectful of boundaries post-session) has a hell of a lot to talk about during that hour.