Over the years, I've been noticing a trend in the rising number of overweight people working at these places. Gym attendants, managers, sales associates, and - for fuck's sakes - personal trainers.
They're supposed to represent a culture of fitness and health, but their double chins and jelly rolls say otherwise. Their image belies the very philosophies that their companies stand for.
More annoying is the fact that some of these hams have the audacity to give me unsolicited, misleading advice.
For example, I've had chunky personal trainers come up to me to tell me that squatting below parallel (AKA ass to grass) was bad for my knees.
Fuck off, fatties. ATG squats are the bee's knees.
Not to mention, these so-called PTs had underdeveloped chopstick legs that looked comically disproportioned in relation to their fat upper torsos.
Which leads me to another question, why is there such a thing as a fat personal trainer in the first place? And I'm not talking about guys who are in midst of a bulk, but guys who have moobs and flabby rolls jutting out their Under Armour shirts. Have the hiring standards been set lower and lower over the years?
Being greeted by a fat clerk at a nutrition store is like meeting a fat Internet armchair expert/troll IRL.
Do you even lift, bro?
As soon as I walk into the store, they snake their way to me and ask me if they can help me find something. "Yeah, I need some fish oil," I say.
"Is there a specific brand you like? What are your goals? Have you tried this brand? You've gotta try this new stuff. Here's a free sample. You should stack this stuff with this and that and this and that..."
Fucking assholes. I know what you're up to, and it'll never work on me. I've done my research, and I know for a damn fact that you're trying to sell me bullshit that I don't need and don't work. And besides, you're fat; you lack credibility. Why don't you take them yourself and come back with a field report?
Fucking idiots. The lot of them.
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[–] Banterbury 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
Personal trainers aren't exactly a regulated(?) position, you just need a worthless kinesiology degree or something and you are "qualified", it's not like a physiotherapist or something where there are legit mandatory requirements.
[–] Blacklightning [S] 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
It's not a regulated profession, and the qualifications of a personal trainer differ depending on the type of the certification(s) and education level.
There are certain types of weight training certs that require a physical demonstration of the lifts, e.g. USAW and Crossfit. And there's some that don't and only require rote memorization, like ACE, NASM, and NSCA (I have a NSCA CPT myself). And then there's the mack daddy of all certs, the NSCA CSCS, which requires a bachelor degree.
Regardless of whether he's fat or not, having a cert doesn't mean shit if the trainer doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He could be giving his clients terrible instruction on the lifts or put them on a wrong type of regimen which can potentially send them to the hospital. I've seen irresponsible trainers train the novice clients so rigorously to the point that they developed rhabdomylosis or some other injuries.
That said, seeing personal trainers that are both fat and irresponsible is doubly disturbing and abominable. It's a sight that should insult the sensibilities of fit, responsible personal trainers who genuinely care about their clients well-being and progress.
Anyway, I rambled too much.
[–] I_Fart_Rainbows 0 points 4 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago
I've worked with fat trainers before and been baffled to watch them tell a client how to do a push up and show by example only to have their ass way up in the air and barely able to even do one.
When I trained at a gym, we had one guy that competed in figure and a few fat trainers. Fatties would always rather the fat trainers because they make them feel more comfortable, they had maybe 1/5 the knowledge as the body builder but their doughy appearance made them more "relatable".
Its always baffled me that hair stylists have to pass board certified testing and go through more rigorous screening than personal trainers. I mean we literally work in an industry where one wrong lift can cripple someone for the rest of their lives, but someone can take on online, open book test, and suddenly tell people how to get in shape.
As a trainer that busts my ass eating clean, training hard and studying constantly to give my clients the best results and lead by example, I despise fat trainers. Fuck, now I'm ranting.
[–] WhipDisco 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago (edited ago)
Yeah, I have the NASM cert and it is really annoying to see people overwork or irresponsibly train their clients. Especially since in the books that's one of the things they stress NOT to do in almost every chapter( at least in NASMs' book).
edit: Now that I think about it, there is a lot of shit that is annoying about personal trainers who think that just because they have the cert they know everything. Also the ones that talk to other people in the gym while they are training a client and not paying attention to or spotting them.
[–] hulkingmanbeast ago
If by kinesiology degree you mean a two week online course... :)
[–] Banterbury ago
Maybe? Where I'm from Kin degrees are the "majored in push-ups" jokes that couldn't hack it in the real med degrees, like the women's and gender studies of the med world. It's obviously still a degree and takes effort to get, so just some banter.