Choose A Personal Trainer...Wisely!

Hey guys!

I just received an e-mail from Craig Ballantyne (creator of the popular at-home fitness program, , and it reminded me of something I wanted to share with you guys....carefully choosing a personal trainer! This is of course if you need one.

A little while back I mentioned in a post that I was going to be getting personal training to help me strengthen my lower body so that I can heal my patella tendinitis in my knees. The training and the advice I received was very questionable. My knees felt unbelievably bad....even worse than what they felt beforehand!

Because my knees were hurting worse, I decided to go back to my doctor to see if there is something that can be done. My doctor prescribed me a stronger pain medicine and gave me a referral to a physical therapist (which I had seen before about a year ago).

When I told the physical therapist what the personal trainer said and had me do.....he had some very censored words of choice I'm pretty sure that personal trainer wouldn't want to hear. Apparently, the personal trainers comment of "your knees are going to hurt before they feel better" was a bunch of bologna! Boy did I feel like a gullible fool after the physical therapist explained to me what it is I SHOULD be doing to get me knees better and how wrong that trainer was!

Listen, not all personal trainers are questionable, and is the reason why I said choose wisely. I highly recommend that you ask a ton of questions and see if you can get referrals first. Learn from my mistake! This is your most precious possession we're talking about here.

Check out the e-mail from Craig talking about when he ran into a personal training session at a gym:

"So this morning I hit a great workout in the gym. 2nd best hotel gym I've ever used. Heavy dumbbells, bench press, pull-ups, awesome.

But...even though there were 25 people in the gym at 6:00am, I was the only one lifting. They were all on the elliptical...you know what I think about that...

However, that wasn't the worst thing I saw in the gym...Instead, it was another classic case of the well-meaning, but incompetent trainer. He was working with a beginner, overweight woman and they went through a round of machines first. That's fine. I won't grumble too much about that. But then he had her do lunges.

Why, why, why do trainers insist on making unqualified folks do lunges?

My favorite line was when he told his overweight, beginner, un-coordinated client that, "it's okay to fall over doing lunges, it means your muscles are doing more work"

Right, just like its okay to get in a car crash, because now you get to use your bumper!

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh."


Have you had any positive or negative experiences with personal trainers? Share with everyone by commenting below....