Problems Within the Industry from an Expert’s Perspective

In response to my recently posted article, Ten Fatal Flaws of Fitness Professionals, I was called by one of my colleagues, Joe Cannon, MS, CSCS, a Philadelphia-area exercise physiologist and personal trainer who spends most of the year teaching personal trainers, who wanted to share thoughts on a few problematic issues facing the industry today.

Certified ? Qualified

Here, Joe brings attention to the need of clubs training their trainers. “The heath club industry as a whole needs to step up and properly train their personal trainers, before cutting them loose in the gym, states Joe.” Adding, “In this industry we put a lot of emphasis on being certified. But certified does not mean qualified!”

A little while back I remember reading an article featured on Joe’s site, which highlighted a story of a trainer who, just one day after being certified, was forced to train another trainer’s client by her manager. More of the story can be found HERE.

I’d like to add that often the only type of training a personal trainer receives from their gym, especially the newly certified trainers - is sales training! They’re handed a clipboard and as Joe said, ‘cut loose’.

Master Personal Trainers

What exactly is a ‘master personal trainer’? Joe tried his very best to describe what a ‘master personal trainer’ is.

Silence ensued.

“I really don’t know. What makes a ‘master personal trainer’ different from a personal trainer?” posed Joe.

“Passing a certification test means that the person knows only the minimum of what’s required, and that includes those who pass earn a ‘master personal training credential’.

Joe challenges ‘master personal trainers’ and other fitness professionals to correctly answer four questions featured here: HERE

“You’d be surprised because ‘master personal trainers’ can’t come close to answering these” quipped Joe.

Lack of Emergency Plans

No, this doesn’t refer to a personal training manager scrambling to cover a session that one of his trainers failed to show for. And no, this doesn’t have anything to do with a gym sales manager calling everyone in his phone’s contacts list to sign up before the end of the month to meet a quota. This actually pertains to REAL emergencies! Though, having previously worked as a manager in a large commercial club, I can tell you that not meeting quotas is pretty serious and depending on who your boss is – life threatening!

Joe concluded our call by stating that gyms are ill-equipped to handling emergency situations.

“I believe it should be mandatory that health clubs perform regular simulated emergency training so all staff know what to do. I would wager that many personal trainers in big-name health clubs do not know what their clubs emergency procedures are.”

About the Authors

Joe Cannon, MS, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, is an exercise physiologist, personal trainer, educator, and published author of Personal Fitness Training: Beyond the Basics. More of Joe’s content can be found on his website HERE.

Joe Giandonato is a Philadelphia-area healthcare support professional and personal trainer, he holds an M.S. in Exercise Science and has nearly a decade of personal training experience. Presently, he trains clients at Broad Street Fitness in Philadelphia, PA, before and after his day job as an office grunt. He is also pursuing a MBA and is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. He is also certified as a Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES) through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. More of his articles can be found on joshstrength.com, personaltrainersunited.com, and frequency555.com.