The Trainer's Role

Last week I mentioned that we shot some seriously impressive videos. Given that I’d like to give each one its due justice I’m going to break them down into a series rather than hit you with them all at once.

On a seemingly unrelated note, another one of “those” conversations seemed to come up often enough recently that I think it would help if I expanded on it somewhat. I’ve realized recently that many people have a somewhat misguided view of what a trainer’s role is – and isn’t.

So I’ve decide to clarify the trainer’s role for you, and use these bad ass videos as a visual.

What I’ve noticed quite often recently is that many people view the job of a personal trainer as a tool to provide intensity to a session. Although a level of intensity and difficulty in a workout may be a residual side effect of having a trainer, it should NOT be the goal of either the exerciser or the trainer.

It’s been said before and it needs to be said again:

Any moron can make you feel discomfort and sweat a lot – you don’t need a trainer for that. Why an exerciser would pay for that service is beyond my comprehension.

The question is: Is that pain and sweat improving your performance, and along with it, how you feel and how you look?

Quite often, unfortunately, the answer is “no”.

The trainer’s role is to improve your levels of movement, stability, strength and power. Along with it, if those missions are accomplished, it will be accompanied by improvements in how you feel and how you look.

If a trainer or an exerciser has anything else in mind, one of two things will occur:

1st, the likelihood of injury, either acute or chronic, skyrockets.

Or, the level of results attained will certainly halt due to the fact the exerciser isn’t getting stronger, more stable, more powerful, etc. All the exerciser is doing is sweating…

Moving furniture around is hard work, will make you sweat and probably have you sore the next day, but I wouldn’t have my clients do it because it’s not good for them.

Having a trainer yell at you that you need to do “FIVE MORE!!!” might make you hurt, but it’s probably not good for you, especially when your form dictates you probably should have stopped a few reps ago.

Just the fact an exerciser would pay to have someone count for them is funny in itself to me.

Sure, if I wanted to be a jackass simpleton, I could have my clients walk in, grab the 70lb kettlebell and swing it until they dropped. But would that help them improve, or would it be more likely to hurt them?

Probably the latter.

At The Training Rim we systematically program workouts for both the short term and long term that will elicit actual long term improvements, as opposed to simple short term discomfort.

Along those lines, here’s video #1 as an example:

This is video #1 of 4 videos that illustrate how we utilize appropriate exercise selection within a small group session to elicit positive results. In this case, we’re looking to develop core power.

The exercises:

Rope waves, kettlebell swings, elevated plank, stability ball bridge.

Goal: To improve core power. This is accomplished by having 1 anterior core explosive movement (ropes) one anterior core stabilization move (plank) one posterior core explosive move (swing) and one posterior core stabilization move (bridge).

Notes on the exercises:

These are advanced versions of these exercises. The women in the video all have trained with us for awhile and have progressed to this level. Please don’t think you can do this without mastering the appropriate pre-requisites. (And no – you can’t do what they’re doing. I’ve seen your bridge and plank. You bridge looks like it collapsed and your plank looks like bad yoga…)

Kettlebell swing: Everybody in the video is performing the “hand to hand” swing. Keeping a flat back while exploding with the hips is NOT easy. Most knuckleheads just hyper-extend their lower backs.

Rope waves: Alternating between little waves, medium waves and big waves from a staggered stance.

Elevated plank: plank with feet on a 12” box, and not one person in the video has protracted shoulders, extended spines or externally rotated lower bodies.

SB bridge: 20 seconds of hip extension without involvement of the hamstrings and/or lower back like these women do it only means one thing: they have a FIRE in the BIG HOUSE!!!

And incidentally, for the unconvinced macho readers out there: the women in this video all had something in common when this circuit was over:

Sore glutes, sore abs, and a lot of sweat. But it was done the right way – yeah, baby…

Email me with any questions or comments and stay tuned for video #2 next week!