Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1622: Nine Signs Your Trainer Sucks

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover nine red flags to watch out for when hiring a personal trainer. The NINE red flags to watch out for when hiring a personal trainer. (1:46) #1 – FAILING to do an assessment. (3:16) #2 – ZERO focuses on correctional exercise. (7:13) #3 – FEELING worse after your workout. (12:30) #4 – Gauging the success of your workout based on soreness. (18:00) #5 – Showing up late. (20:08) #6 – NOT helping you perfect your technique or form. (24:57) #7 – EVERYTHING is about motivation. (30:25) #8 - Being the ‘entertainment’ trainer. (35:46) #9 – OVERSELLING supplements. (42:37) Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Strong and MAPS Powerlift 50% off!  **Promo code “AUGUSTSPECIAL” at checkout** Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout What's the Best Way to Choose a Fitness Trainer? - Mind Pump Blog Why All Personal Trainers Need to Understand Mobility and Correctional Exercises – Mind Pump Blog Sore muscles…what does it mean? - Mind Pump Blog Is There Proper Etiquette for Being a Personal Trainer? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1082: The Truth About Beachbody® Top 3 Things You Need to do to be a Successful Personal Trainer – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about nine signs that your trainer sucks. So these are things to look out for. These are red flags.

So if you wanna know if you have a good trainer or you wanna know how to find a good trainer or you are a trainer and you wanna be successful, listen to this episode. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, for Sigmatic. For Sigmatic has mushroom-based supplements that are extremely effective at doing things

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Just use the code August special with no space for that discount. You know, before we get into this, I do want to say this, being a trainer, especially if you're training for a long time, it's a very commendable but also very challenging career and job. It's a lot harder than I think people realize because of the different personalities that you deal with, how challenging it is to get people to actually change their lifestyle to become healthy and fit long term. And it's also, it's

also one of those jobs where, you know, if you train eight clients in a day, which most jobs eight hours is a full day, you're on for all eight hours. I don't know, almost any other job I can think of where for the whole time you're on, you don't get any opportunities to be off where you're kind of dilly downing a little bit. I mean, with the client, they're in front of you, you're on the entire time. You see Justin what he did there.

He's preparing the shit sandwich right now. So for your... Oh yeah, that don't know. We just learned it right now. So for all your trainers, they're listening right now, you just got served your first loaf of, that tastes good, that first slice of chicken. It's true though, right?

What did you guys agree though, when I'm saying, is as far as it being true? I mean, it's one of those things. Now, the other part is this, all the stuff that we're gonna go through, all of us will probably guilty of at one point or another, especially as early trainers. So, probably more so Justin than.

Yeah. Hey man. Yeah, there were 50. I tried really hard for Justin. But here's the first one. In this one's an obvious one, and I can't believe how many times I would see trainers fail to do an assessment. Anytime they're gonna work with a new client

or a potential new client, this one's, doesn't make sense to me. How can you possibly train someone without first assessing their movement and their body, without first determining what exercises are safe for them, which ones are not safe for them, how to train them. I've seen trainers do this, right? Well, they'll get a new client and they go right into the workout without ever really,

it's like without looking under the hood and not knowing what the what the problem is. Yeah, oh, let's work out. No problem. Here's some exercises. Let's do it. You think it's lazy? I think it's lazy. You think it's lazy?

I think it's lazy, yeah. Or do you think it's more like some of the other points that we're gonna get to here in a minute where it's putting more emphasis on the workout and just getting to the, because sometimes I feel like, I think they're not putting a value on it personally. And so they think that they're gonna win their client over with these elaborate workouts

and the razzle dazzle side of training. That's, I feel like it's more of that, right? Cause I feel like every trainer that I coached, once I taught them the value of the assessment and how to do it to a client, I think once they make that connection, I don't know too many that get away from doing it. It becomes the staple or the foundation

of your training program, as it should. But it seemed to be more of these trainers that wanted to get right into the workout. And let me show you how hard of a workout I can give you versus assessing you and kind of seeing where your starting point is and what we should or shouldn't be doing. Yeah, they should ask a lot of questions, especially when you first get started with them. They should do a movement assessment, just to give them an idea of where to start and what direction to move. And by the way, assessments never stop.

As you're training clients, you're constantly assessing them by watching their form and how they move and their energy. This is all super important stuff. I'll give you an example. This is a silly example, but this is happening to be more the ones where I had this one lady who came to hire me and I had asked her before we got started. I said, you know, have you talked to any of the trainers or worked with anybody else before? And she said, yeah, actually, I was at the local gym and I interviewed a trainer

and I decided to not hire them. And I said, well, how come? Now, this woman I had known because I had actually asked questions. Her goal was to improve her bone density. She wanted to strengthen her bones. She was, had osteopenia, older woman, and her doctor said, listen, we need to figure something out because you're getting close to osteoporosis. Now, what the trainer didn't do is ask any of those questions.

And at the end of their meeting, the trainer said something like, of those questions and at the end of their, you know, meeting The trainer said something like don't worry at the end of the summer. I'll have you in a bikini in no time Yeah, so she let she like said I left right then and there and then I came you know One of my friends recommended you and this is very different. So yeah an Assessment is integral if a trainer doesn't do a good assessment Then they they have no idea what they're doing. It's essential, man. To me, honestly, is where we get a bad rap.

This is what categorizes us into, when you tell somebody that you're a personal trainer, oh, OK, OK, like it's like some kind of in between job, it's not a real profession. It's because there's a lot of trainers that don't take it seriously, they don't do these things that are quintessential in really evaluating the needs of the client and how to properly basically create an entire program around what's gonna get them to their goal the most effective way.

Right, along those lines, the next one is zero focus on correctional exercise. Correctional exercise looks very different than exercises designed to just build a lot of muscle or make you burn a lot of calories. They tend to be slower, very deliberate. They're very specific to you as an individual. It's like what you might see a physical therapist do, for example, with people. And this should be, especially in the beginning, parts of your training with a trainer.

There should be a lot of the focus of your training. In fact, when clients would hire me, especially when they were new, almost the entire workouts were focused around correctional exercise. Yeah, I think part of this has to do with just the lack of education. So I think that was my third or fourth national cert was the corrective exercise specialist.

And I do remember of all the certifications that I went through in my career as a trainer, that one probably impacted the way I train clients, maybe more than any other certification that I did. Maybe that, and maybe the very first one I did, just as giving me, foundational training principles. Learning how to assess somebody and look and find an imbalance and then know how to correct that

applies to all levels of fitness. And you find out once you go through a certification like that and you learn to assess everybody, you start to see like, oh wow, I don't care if they're 20 years old and young and fit or they're 70 advanced age and aches and chronic pain. Everybody has in balances and everybody has correctional exercise that should be included in their routine. And so once I piece that together, I then began to kind of build everything around that. But up into that point, I probably fell in the category

of being a relatively poor trainer as far as putting a lot of emphasis just on how much I could make a client sweat or how creative I can make a workout versus actually trying to fix in balances in their body. Totally. And you know what the irony of it is, is that correctional exercise done properly as a trainer, will actually make you so valuable to your clients.

Yeah. In fact, everything that we're talking, we're gonna talk about today, if you do the opposite of them or do the positive of them, it'll make you much more successful as a trainer. Not just with your clients getting goals, but a successful business wise. And I think sometimes trainers think correctional exercise is boring,

or well, my client just wants to burn calories and lose weight. Why would I waste time doing prone cobra? Why would I waste time doing handcuffs with rotation? Why would I waste time doing combat stretch? We need to be doing jump boxes and doing going through circuits. Like, let me tell you something, correctional exercise is a tremendous selling point

because when you do them on people, they feel great immediately. And there's almost nothing that'll do that like correctional exercise. Yeah, to that point, I mean, what I found in my career as I was going through were addressing clients' pain and being able to do corrective

exercises really helped them feel better, keep them coming back, be more consistent, so you have a more consistent, more dedicated client. And that just keeps paying the bills. And you find out later that really what the client wants is what they don't understand they need. And that's something that's where your real value lies. And so to be able to address pain and see a foresee problems in the future and how to address them ahead of time is, you know, it sets you apart from everybody else.

That's the real point, Justin, because I remember clients not realizing that it was something they needed to address. In other words, like I'd get a client and many times the chronic pain that they were going through, they had just accepted. So they would sit down with me and they would give me the surface goals. Like, oh, I wanna lose 30 pounds out of them

or I wanna get stronger or here's a look I wanna achieve. And most people come in with somewhat of an aesthetic goal for the most part except for exceptions to the rule like the one you talked about. But many times they didn't realize that oh that chronic knee pain or elbow pain or low back pain was something that we could actually fix. They just assumed that oh because they're 50 something years old and they've been dealing with low back pain for 20 of those 50 years That they are just going to have it forever. So it's not even on their list of goals a lot of times Yeah, and it's not until I did an assessment see a major in balance which was probably alluding to their chronic pain and Then could tell them that hey, this is something that we can work on and maybe even get rid of completely for you

And then when you show them that, that you talk about building value for business for you, I mean, even when that's not their main goal, the lot of times it's just because they didn't realize that it can be done and then you become like this miracle worker because they just thought they're gonna be riddled with this chronic pain for the rest of their lives. Oh, you take away someone's chronic pain

and that you are so valuable to them. It's more than almost anything else that I can think of. 100%. Yeah. Here's another one. And this one is a great gauge. And I think a lot of people don't realize

that you should not feel worse after your workout than you went into. I think a lot of people think you're supposed to feel worse. You should not, after you're done with your training session with your trainer, you should not feel like you survived. I think a lot of people think that that's a good feeling. Oh man, and you'll hear them talk like this to their friends, like, oh my trainer, Monday kicked my ass,

and I barely made it out. Like I got to the car, my legs were shaking. I had to lay on the couch for a couple hours. Wow, that was really good. Like not realizing that that's a bad sign. You should feel, after your workout, you should feel better than you did when you first went in. Now, is there a time and a place for the kind of workouts

that you have to survive? Yes, sometimes, rarely. I think really to kind of train your, maybe your tolerance, maybe train the mental aspect. But when it comes to your physical body, when it comes to burning body fat, building muscle, especially when you're thinking long term, no, that's not true at all. And I used to tell my trainers this, if your clients call you to cancel because they're feeling a little stiff and sore or their energy's a little low, you know you're not doing a good job. I used to have clients, this is when I really started to turn a corner as a trainer, I would have clients that would call me and they'd say things like, hey, Sal, I know today I don't have a session with you,

but my back's a little tight. You mind it? Do you have any time today? I'd love to train with you, because they felt better after working out with me. I mean, that is so tremendously valid. You should not feel worse after your workout. You should feel much better.

Do you think though that's, there's like a psychological phenomenon that's happening there that there's this subconscious pursuit of punishing yourself. Totally. I mean, I think that's where this comes from, right? This idea, I've been bad, I've been eating bad, I'm a bad person, I don't exercise,

I eat like a slob when nobody's paying attention. Absolutely. And then now I have this trainer who's going to punish, help me punish myself, I think. With me in the shape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to that point with their friends where they're all commiserating about their experiences together like you like you said like they've been surviving You know this torture. Yeah, and it's so good for them But they and it's sad though because they don't really know the difference.

So they don't know that they can feel great and energized and come back with more strength and really, you know, the joints feel, you know, most mobile and everything's working and great instead of feeling like you've just been trashed. So you don't have to get to that level. Well, that's, and this is where I fault the trainer here. So as the client, I don't think they know better. I think they, again, there's this psychological phenomenon that's happening where they think they need to punish themselves. Then this is the sign of a bad trainer because the bad trainer reinforces that.

The bad trainer feeds into that and is like, I'm gonna kick your ass today or and I'm guilty of this by the way, too, of telling clients, like, I'm gonna get you today and talking shit to them, right? Because they, they, they, because it is fun. It's fun to talk trash and, you know, get after it, but you always have to ask yourself,

are you progressing or are you just surviving? Well, and a good trainer sees this and then knows how to communicate to the client that this is not what we're looking for. We're not, we don't want to get into this cycle of punishing yourself for not doing well and there's a much better process. But yeah, so there's another step that you know you've got a trainer. That probably a green trainer, right? I think this happens a lot to trainers when they first start is because the client,

you're in a service business, the client tells you they want that, you think you're giving them what you're supposed to, you think that's part of your job because they're paying you, but part of your job is to get them to overcome. Overcome. No, this was a big one, I used to teach my trainers because it is part

of educating clients as well. By the way, when a client experiences feeling better and good and energized at the end of a workout, they'll love you more. Trust me. At the end of that workout, they're gonna be like, oh my God, I came in here. My energy was kind of low.

You know, I felt a little stiff in my hips. And my God, I'm moving so good. I feel so good. I'm so energized. That's it. Like once they experience that, never again, are they going to want to feel beat up? It takes a little bit of that, you know, that education, that punishment that, you know, that some people think they, and I've actually seen this in gyms.

I've seen clients say, ooh, that trainer, I want that trainer. How come? Well, I see their clients just like, sweating and they can't move afterwards, I bet they're super effective. America's toughest trainer. Yeah, it is. This is difficult. And in fact, I mean, look at like popular media trainers,

like on the biggest loser, they perpetuate this myth that you gotta be this person that beats the crap out of someone and that's the only way to get in shape. It's actually the wrong way to get in shape. It's a terrible long term way of doing it. I promise you, higher trainer, that makes you feel like this after your workouts, you're not going to stay very long. I promise you won't last very long doing it that way.

Well, you know if a trainer is stuck in this mindset too, is if that's how they're gauging success of a workout, is workout, is they're asking questions like that. How sore were you? Did your legs get sore? And then the client says, oh no, I wasn't really sore. So we got to ramp it up. We got to do more than we got to do more next time. So you know that, I mean, these go hand in hand.

So if you have a trainer who is gauging the success of the workout based on the feedback that you give them on how sore you are, then you know that you got one of these trainers that are stuck in this place. Yeah, I actually changed, so this is funny. Again, a lot of these I did when I was an early trainer, and when I was an early trainer, I did use soreness as a gauge, and I would ask clients how sore they were, and if they said, oh, I was a little sore, I'd ramp up intensity and ramp up volume to get them even more sore in this next workout. Later on, when I really started to get good, I would ask the same question, but it would use it differently. How sore did you get after your last workout? Oh, I didn't really get that sore. Perfect. That's great. Or, Oh, man, I got really sore. Okay,

we need to scale it down a little bit, we did too much. So it's okay to use soreness as a gauge, but not in the way that a lot of trainers do. Really, it's, you should either not get sore, or you should get maybe a little bit sore post workout. You should not have the kind of soreness that, where it hurts to touch the muscle, or you can't do another workout for a couple days,

because you're so damn sore. That means you went too hard or too long or both. Yeah, using it as a gauge is fine, but the measuring it as success is where it's wrong. So thinking that soreness is a sign of a successful workout is the opposite of the truth. In fact, when we're that sore, it's actually a sign of overreaching that you need to scale back not the other direction. And as a trainer early on, I was using it the opposite way. I was using it as, okay, we're not sore enough. So let me ramp it up versus going like, oh, perfect, we hit that sweet spot. You're not that sore. I know that I programmed well. And I know you're doing enough volume for your body to see change.

And the fact that you work crippling sore afterwards is actually a beautiful side. Yeah, now the next one is a big, used to be a huge pet peeve for me when I managed gyms. In very, very short period of time, my trainers learned that if they showed up late for clients, that was no longer their client. I used to do this, like, have a client. I'd say, I hate this. I'd have a person show up to the gym. I see them standing at the desk or on cardio,

just doing cardio by themselves. And I'm like, wait a minute, aren't they supposed to meet with John? And it was, you know, five past, ten past. No problem. Go find another trainer, walk over to them. Hey, listen, this person is gonna train you right now and we're not gonna charge you.

This is gonna be a free workout. Don't worry about it. And then I would, and then that trainer hopefully would impress them and then boom, other trainer lost the client. If a trainer shows up late to your workouts, if it happens once, ever, that's okay, anything over that, that's a big deal. I mean, you got to, you got to keep in mind, you mind, creating a fit in healthy lifestyle where you're actually changing fundamental behaviors to be fit and healthy, that's really hard. The person guiding you needs to show up.

They need to be there and they need to be there early. I just said, I made it a point to not show up, not even on time. I wanted to be there when my client walked it. Soon as they walked in the door, there I am ready to do this. I feel like this is universal. I think this transcends all professions.

Yeah, all industries. Yeah, I don't really think this one's unique to a personal training. I think this falls more in line with like one of my favorite quotes and that's how you do anything and it's how you do everything. And this show up late to a job. You're probably doing a half ass job at whatever it is you're doing,

and so just, and it's unprofessional. So I think that this has a little less to do with the training profession and more to do with character. And if you are, if you're not giving that person who's paying for that time, that respect to show up on time or early before it starts, the likelihood that you're giving them the respect's paying for that time, that respect to show up on time or early before it starts, the likelihood that you're giving them the respect of giving them their all,

and everything that you should be doing as a trainer, I think is less likely. You know why I put this one up there though? Because this was quite common where it became a behavior among trainers with their clients that they've had. They take for granted. Like, oh, I've had this client now for a year.

Next thing you know, they train or shows up 10 minutes. Like, oh, I know John, I've been training him for a year, or whatever. I wouldn't see this with my sales people. Like, they had an appointment show up to try and, you know, get a tour of the gym, maybe buy a membership. Sales guy was there right on time, ready to sell the same thing with an assessment for a trainer.

Oh, am I getting a new client? I'm gonna be there on time. This used to the same thing with an assessment for a trainer. Oh, I might get a new client, I'm gonna be there on time. This used to happen when they would have a client and they kind of took for granted that the client was theirs and it may be resigned a couple times. Next thing you know, they'd get kind of lacks with it. I mean, I agree.

I think it's a common behavior that you see, but I also think that it falls right in line with the statistics around the success of a trainer. 80% of them suck. 20% of them are really good. Yeah. Part of the 80% that suck, this is one of the characteristics of them is that as soon as they build somewhat of a relationship with a client, they ride away.

I think it's okay for them to show up late or tell the client, hey, when you first get to your training session, just go get on the warm up equipment, go warm up for 10 minutes and then I'll come get you. That's what I want to do at Dress, okay? the warm up equipment, go warm up for 10 minutes and then I'll come get you. That's what I wanna do, address, okay? The warm up thing. So, something I did, because I didn't notice that was a pattern with a lot of trainers.

I mean, even fell into that myself in terms of, you know, the client kind of warming up on the cardio machine. And then it just got into this sort of rapport. And then, like after you know it, you're wasting like 20, 30 minutes of valuable workout time. So I just cut that out. And then we just focused on priming right on the dot. And then we just moved into the workout.

But I see that all the time is sort of taking advantage of the fact that they're already there. They're on the cardio equipment. So it feels like they're already there, they're on the cardio equipment, so it feels like they're already doing some kind of exercising, but really they're paying you for specificity and to be able to take control of their programming. And so to kind of eliminate, I think, is a good move. Yeah. I think this same trainer, back to what I was saying, this is a characteristic.

I think this same trainer is the same one I was saying, this is a characteristic. I think this same trainer is the same one who's not paying attention when this client is being trained. Also, I think this is the trainer who's leaning on the machine, sipping on their Starbucks coffee, or nowadays, because on their phone. On their phone. It's the Grammy. Yeah, doing stuff like that while their client is training.

So I feel like this trait goes hand in hand, or you don't see it as to be professional to show up on time. You're also the same trainer who is either dress sloppy or drinking your coffee and on your phone at the same time you're training your client. Yeah, while you're working out, because one of the most valuable things that your trainer will provide you,

there's a lot of things that a good trainer will provide you. But one of those valuable things is that they can see movement patterns, they can see intricacies and changes in how you move when you're doing an exercise. They should be able to really help you perfect your technique and form or change directions or change exercises. And this has to be something that they're paying attention to

the entire time because I could have a client do a bench press and the first five reps could be totally perfect. But it could be the sixth or seventh one where I see a change in elbow position or I notice that your shoulders hiking a little bit or we're losing stability at the bottom of the lift. So let's try these other exercises.

If the trainer's not watching your form, like what I would look for in my trainers was when a client was doing an exercise that the trainer would walk around the client. Constantly. As the client was doing the exercise. Checking from the front, from the side, from the back, never standing still. I used to tell trainers this to that. You know, when you're training a client,

you're kind of on stage for other potential clients. Oh, totally. Because they say the average client shops a trainer for three months before they make a purchase. And so when I'm over in the weight room floor, and I'm watching Susie do a dumbbell lunge, and she's my client, I'm also aware that the 30 people that are on the treadmill are watching what I'm doing. And so even if I can assess pretty well from one position, I'm aware of the other people that are paying attention

to me, and I want them to know what I'm doing. I'm not just, you know, kind of assessing, I'm assessing this person. And so I'm constantly moving and kneeling and looking from all different angles, not just for my client who's in front of me, but also because I'm aware that I'm probably being shot by somebody who potentially who I want to hire me and I want them to know that I'm paying attention. And it's clear you're given them your undivided attention by always being active with them and moving with them. And I think that's a vital part of it.

It's like you need to consider that this is also a critique I have with a group training in partner training, which I was very hesitant to do. I did have to do that at one point, because there's ways that you have to kind of scale your business to try and find other sources of income. But this was always a very hard thing to be able to keep the purity and integrity of what the client's actually

paying you for, and that's your attention. And to be able to point the purity and integrity of what the client's actually paying you for. That's your attention. And to be able to point out all those little nuances that's going out their body to stay on top of it. So that's a tough thing, but some trainers can pull it off, but you're going to compromise that on some level every time once you add more people into the mix. Yeah. When I work out in gyms, this one's what I'm really,

this is one that I pay attention to a lot. If I see other trainers training their clients, are they watching them the entire time and monitoring their technique and their form and their tempo? Are they making changes to the exercises? I mean, oftentimes when I train a client, I would have an idea of the exercises that we're going to do, but then I would have to take a left turn because I'm noticing

Suzy is moving in a particular way. And I said, oh, you know what? Let's stop this. I used to do this all the time. I would stop a set halfway. Let's stop right now. Well, I got five more. No, no, let's stop for a second. I'm going to work on your left ankle. What do you mean? I could see that your left ankle was moving it away that, or what I'd explain it to the client and then we would do some mobility and get back into position. This is one of the most valuable things

that a trainer can provide. Now, it's even, with the worst thing is when a trainer leaves you to do the exercise on your own. I have seen this many times, where the trainer will literally be like, okay, you got to do 12 reps, I'm going to go to the bathroom. What do you do? And the clients do in the exercise by themselves.

Like, why would you hire a trainer in the first place? You know, doesn't make any sense to me. And it's crazy. I've seen that multiple times. I think just leave them high and dry to go get a coffee or you know go check somebody else in at the front desk and I'm like, what are you doing? You got to you got to manage your time wisely or what makes it makes a world of a difference when you are trying to do a technical exercise say like a squat which is loaded full of all kinds of different cues and there's all kinds of potential breakdowns in the movement. And you've got a coach and you,

and he's telling you, you know, chest up, shoulders back, slower on your way down, keep your foreshare knees out, and he's giving all these random cues, and then also letting them know when they hit it, right? Like how many times have you been with somebody and you have like this client as a perfect form, and you know that's, they hit the perfect, do that again. That's perfect.

Yes, perfect, just like that. you know, so they felt it, they were working on all those things, they hit it and you're letting them know that they hit it so they can try and emulate that again. And so you're that consistent mirror that's given them that feedback when they don't know exactly what they're looking for or what they should feel.

And then when they hit it just right, being able to tell them that, hey, that was perfect right there. Let's do that again. Yeah. Now, this next one is a tough one because the clients love this at first. So telling them that this particular trait

is a trait of a bad trainer, oftentimes it's hard for them to understand. And that's this, that everything is about motivation. This is the super inspirational boot camp, yell at you, get you hyped, excited, all the time, 24 hours a day, we can do this, trainer. Now, why is this a bad, why is this a trait of a bad trainer?

Because the benefit of this is it's impossible to last forever. And if you get sold on this, if this becomes how you stay consistent, is by relying on this extreme motivation and excitement, you will eventually stop. You will eventually lose that motivation because it's a state of mind, it's not with you all the time, it's impossible.

And if you didn't build any of the other skills, like the skill of discipline, to carry you, when eventually your body gets tired or broken down or you have a week where you're not feeling it, that motivational trainer, you're like, I don't wanna go see John, I know he's gonna hype me in whatever, but I'm just not feeling it right now.

This is a hard one to address, and mainly because of the point that you brought up that, people like it. Of course. And I know anytime I ever talk about this to people that are potentially hiring a trainer or talking about somebody they see on social media who's so inspiring,

is they always point out the motivational part. Oh, they're so inspiring, they're so motivational, and trying to tell that person that, oh, that's not a good trait of a good trainer, it's really hard to combat because it's like, it feels good. It feels good and they would tell you that, well, I want somebody to motivate me.

I want somebody to get me hyped up. So I don't think that the motivation part is necessarily bad. It's only bad if the trainer leans heavily on that. This is them. This is all they do. Right. This is what I do well. I motivate, I inspire people really well. And if they lean heavily on that and not their education, their knowledge, their ability to coach you up and their shining, you know, attribute as a trainer is that they're

just so inspiring and they're so motivational. That trainer is that they're just so inspiring and they're so motivational. That's where this becomes a red flag because I don't think it's necessary. It's okay for you to say that your trainer inspires you or it's okay to say that your trainer is very motivational. Like it's not a bad thing necessarily, but if they lean on that as their main thing

to keep you going inside the gym, that's fleeting. And so even if it's working right now for you, eventually that will wear out. Yeah, totally. This is every mainstream media trainer is this, especially right now. Yeah, when you think of the trainers that everybody knows, right, or the trainers that sell the workout programs, the P90Xs and the insanities and the, you know, the trainer on TV that's on the, you know, the biggest loser or whatever, this is what they are. It's all hype, motivation, inspiration, yelling.

You can, I remember there's this one trainer at one of the gyms that I used to work out at and I'll never forget, you could hear him across the gym training his clients. You'd hear him yell, two more, three more, you could do it. And I worked out at this gym for, I think over two years, and I would go at the same time, because I used to go in the mornings right before we do in our podcast, and I noticed this turnover. I would see at the same time, because I used to go in the mornings, right, right before we do in our podcast.

And I noticed this turnover. I would see these clients would last approximately three months. They'd come in consistently for three months, and then they're gone. And this is exactly the pattern that I would see with these kinds of trainer. I had a trainer once in my facility when I had my studio who was very much like this.

And I actually took her aside and I say, hey, look, if you're ever interested in really figuring out how to maintain your client base and not have such a high turnover, let me know because I think I have some ideas for you. And she said, yeah, I'm very interested. I said, okay, I said, you're the inspiration motivation thing. It's fun, it's great, but that's what you're

leaning so heavily on. And the reason why people aren't sticking with you is because at some point, their state of mind is going to change, which is normal, and then they're not going to want to come see you. You're not going to want to go to your bootcamp trainer who's going to yell at you to get you all hyped when you're not feeling it. Oh man, I don't wanna see so and so. I'm just gonna ghost them.

Rather than being like, you know what? I'm not feeling it, but I know that when I go see Justin, he's gonna modify my workout. And then I'm gonna feel good afterwards. There's no other gear, you know? Like, that's the thing. It ebb and flows. You need a trainer that can also address other things going on with your body at the time too and be able to take time out to do more restorative type of workout and not just

hype you up as much as you can regardless of what signs and signals your body is telling you. Totally. Now, this next one I was super guilty of, especially as an early trainer, and that's if your trainer's workouts are always full of new and creative and weird exercises. And I know it sounds funny.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with... There's halitrainers guilty this, right? Oh, yeah. There's nothing necessarily wrong with creative There's halitrainers guilty of this, right? Oh yeah. There's nothing necessarily wrong with creative exercise. Let's just calm the entertainment trainer. Totally, and I did this. I did this when I first started. I thought that in order to be a good trainer, I had to razzle and dazzle my clients every time

they came into the gym. So, oh, we already did that exercise. Let's try a different one. Oh, we've already done all those leg exercises. Here's another one. Go backwards on the haxquat. Here's another one. A sissy leg press. Here's another one. I know we've done a backstep lunge, but we haven't done a backstep lunge with an overhead press. And you know, you start with your eyes closed. Yeah. And you just, just every time you work out, it's like a different exercise. And you're not practicing

the basics often. This is a big one. Now, here's the thing with exercise and this is a problem. When it comes to working out, we don't view working out like a bunch of skills, right? We don't look at exercises like skills to learn, like you do with a sport, right? You go to learn how to play basketball. You're not gonna do a bunch of weird shit every single time you go practice.

Your coach is gonna have you do a lot of free throws, a lot of dribbling, a lot of layup. Like you're gonna practice the basics over and over to get good at basketball. You're not gonna show up and do something different every single time. This is the same thing with strength training or resistance training or with exercise, is

you want to practice the most valuable exercises often. These are called the basics, right? Your presses and your rows and your squats and your rotation exercises. And why do you want to practice them often? Because the better you get at them, which takes years, the better they work for you, the better you get at squats, the better they work for you. The better you get at squats, the better the results get from squats. You can't get good at squats if I squat once a month

because every other workout is some weird other exercise. I think this has to do with insecurity as a trainer. Like when you don't feel confident in your knowledge and your ability to get somebody great results and your experience. You lean heavily on just being able to teach them something they don't know and so what do most trainers have a plethora of and that is exercise? They've they've seen enough unique exercises in their train as their time as a trainer or their time inside the gym that,

okay, I know I can at least show them something they've never seen before. At least that's what when I think back to why did I do that, I think it was to impress the client. It was to impress. You've never seen this before. Yeah. You've never seen this exercise before. I can teach it to you.

Therefore I'm bringing some sort of value to you. Versus. Yeah. I have enough knowledge to get you to your goal and then educate you on why you may or may not be able to do it yourself. I'm going to lean heavily on showing you creative exercises every time you come in here.

So you think that that's where their value is. And they may just not be confident enough to really drill out these compound exercises that are skills in themselves. So to be able to point out every nuance that's happening in their technique, in their form, how to improve that, how to supplement that with other exercises that will help to get them

better at these more skillful type exercises that will get them even more progress. That's something that I think a lot of trainers avoid because it's difficult. You have to really educate yourself to be able to get at that level. That's a really good point, Justin. Actually, the more I think about that now, you say that. That's probably a lot of why I stayed away from it, too, because I wasn't very proficient in the squat or the deadlift and all the nuances and all the breakdowns and how to fix them and address them.

So instead of getting hung up on trying to teach that and all the things there are to teach around that, I would just go, oh, I could teach you this easier to leg press. Yeah, stability ball crushers, you know, or doing something like that. That is pretty, pretty basic that I could teach, right? So you're probably right. A lot of that was probably fear around being able to really break down these compound lifts that are highly technical. Because I wasn't skilled in profession in it, I probably avoided it and stuck with just teaching creative exercises, which is probably what's happening with a lot of trainers that you see doing the same. Yeah, you know, it's funny is if you look at, if you were to break up my career, you know,

I'd be telling you it's like a first half of my career and the second half of my career. And the second half, I was far more successful in terms of long-term success for my clients, also monetarily. As a business, I was far more successful towards the back half, right? So compare the two. And here's the funny thing. If I were to list the exercise repertoire that I used for my workouts, the first half, the list would have been five times longer than the list of exercises I used in the back half. I mean, Doug, I met Doug as a client. And when Doug hired me, I mean,

we must have done the same 10 exercises a million different times. And we got really good at them. We got really good at squats. We got really good at squats. We got really good at bench presses and rows and dead lifts. And he got the best results of his life. And he had a lot of experience working out before. I remember him saying it was mind blowing.

Believe me, clients are, they don't care. I know that you think they care. And they might even think they care. But believe me, when they're practicing these basic compound movements, but believe me, when they're practicing these basic compound movements, these fundamental movements, and they're finding that, wow, I'm getting better at this exercise,

and oh my God, I'm getting stronger, and I feel better, and you're paying attention, and you're walking around the client, and you're bracer core, pull your shoulders back. Okay, it looks like your shoulders are rounding. Let's stop the set. Let's do some prone cobras,

it gets your shoulders go back a little bit. Let's try this set of squats again. I mean, you really blow people away. So I know there's that belief that I need to razzle and dazzle them, but the reality is they just want to get better. They want to get better. They want to get stronger. And they want to feel better. And one of the best ways to do that is to practice the best exercises often. And then you sprinkle in some of those other movements. And you know where you should get creative is with your correctional exercise because that's when it starts to get very, very specific with the individual, but otherwise it's

those basics that are the most important ones. All right, this last one, I know it's going to probably annoy a lot of gym owners that are going to hear this episode because I know a lot of gym owners are telling their trainers that this is what they need to do, but this is definitely a red flag. And that is if your trainer over sells supplements. Like here's a hallmark of that, right? Your trainer gives you a meal plan,

which by the way, that probably belongs up here too, or your trainer gives you meal plans. But here's a hallmark, right? All right, you know, John, here's your meal plan and then in your meal plan is included five different supplements, you know what I mean? All right, so AM, you take four pills of, you know, fat shredder, 4,000,

then you eat your breakfast and then make sure 30 minutes after your breakfast, you take this special product right here, this is good for inflammation. Oh, and then here's your pre-workout, make sure you take that in the workout, this special product right here, this is good for inflammation. Oh, and then here's your pre-workout, make sure you take that in the workout. You have your intro workout shake, and then here's your post-work, and then you're selling you $500 a month worth of supplements.

Don't forget your multivitamins. Yes. I was guilty of this, totally. When I first became a trainer, Oh, they geared our pay this way. Oh, yeah. I mean, that was just as guilty too. I mean, they coached this fit in fact our first certification that we went through and you went through the if you were if you've been in

24 as far back as we were when they had the APEC certification part of the certification process was teaching teaching you how to recommend supplements and that's exactly how you would do it is It would actually be part of the diet, which is the complete opposite of how I talk to people now. Our goal is to not have to take any supplements. I mean, do supplements have some value? Of course they do. If you're lacking in a nutrient that you're not getting in your diet on a regular basis,

supplementing for that nutrient has some value to it, 100%, especially something like protein that is so essential to building muscle. But that's not the goal. The goal is to not, the goal is to not have to take any of that stuff and to try and get it through whole foods. And if and only if we can't do that, do we lean on something like supplementation?

And so I think how the trainer presents it to you is what's really important. It's not so much that supplements are bad or because your trainer recommended a supplement that maybe they're a bad trainer, but how they recommended is everything. And if they're telling you that, hey, our goal is to get it through whole foods,

but if you're still having a hard time here, try this or we can do this and they have you a supplement versus, like you said, so building it into the nutrition plan, that's when you know they're overselling it. Yeah, you know what's funny about this is that, because I know some trainers listening are like, man, but how do I, I have a quota. I have to hit my supplement sales target.

And all that stuff. I'm gonna tell you something right now, the supplements will sell themselves. Clients love taking supplements, and they're gonna ask you, what can I take to help with this? Or what can I take to help with that? And then always be honest, always be honest. I would tell my clients, like here's a deal, supplements

are gonna give you maybe a little bit, maybe not much at all, it's better if you get it from food, but if you have trouble hitting your protein targets, here's a good product, I like this one the best because blah, blah, blah, for whatever reason, it's natural, doesn't have artificial sweeteners, it's got a good amino acid blend, or, hey, Sal, what can I take before my workout to give me energy?

Well, the best thing you could do is get a good night's sleep. So if you have to rely on something to give you energy, then there's probably something else going on. Now that being said, if you like to have fun with stimulants before you work out, like I do, you could try coffee, or here's this other product that's got a couple of other things.

You can give this a shot as well. And the supplements will actually sell themself, but it's the trainer that oversells the supplements. This is gonna make you big, this is gonna make you lean. Here's your supplement stack and they give you 15 different things to take. That's kind of a big red flag that you need to pay attention to. Look

with that, if you found our information valuable, then you got to head over to mindpumpfree.com. We have tons of guides there that can help you build muscle, burn body fat, improve your performance, even become a better personal trainer. Mindpumpfree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram. So you can find Justin at Justin me and mine pump salad at my pump at home. Thank you for listening to mine pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mine pump media dot com.

The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbumble is like having Sal and an adjustment as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at minepumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes

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