What did you get your trainer for Christmas?!

“Why would I get my trainer anything for Christmas? I PAY him to torture me. Isn’t that enough?”

Sure it is. I’m sure your barber, waiter, and postman are right now nodding their head in agreement.

Chances are however, that they’re not. All service-based professions (i.e. those which revolve around catering to humans, their needs and moods) are hard.

Being a trainer is hard. Being an exceptional trainer is harder still. Many would scoff and retort “but it isn’t rocket science.” And… That most definitely is true. I’ve never built a rocket.

img: “Building a Rocket” ~ Mateo Dineen

I have, however, built amazing, functionally-strong, posture-improving buttocks and abs. Less cosmetically, I and my peers have helped rebuild lives… Through the building of self-esteem; through the return of control, once  thought lost, in a person’s life; through the provision of support long-absent from a person’s life.

Personal training is NOT rocket science. However, it does require that one be able to both retain and relay a vast store of applicable, up-to-date, and relevant knowledge.

It isn’t brain surgery. No… I have never taken a scapel to someone’s scalp (and, I’m pretty sure that butting my head against a wall, or face-palming in frustration don’t count either). The personal trainer’s relationship with a client is ‘psycho-surgical’ however. This is to say that it involves dissecting the psyche, being able to analyse behavioural biopses, as well as being able to nurture positive patterns of change.

Personal training isn’t psychiatry. I cannot, legally, prescribe drugs. The personal trainer’s relationship does include elements of counselling however. Being a trainer means being a listener; one who consoles: holding hands…making all kinds of plans…while the juke box plays our favourite song.

*cues “Me and Mrs. Jones*

*music trails off*

Being a great trainer is a myriad of things.

So, to reiterate: Personal training is not rocket science. What it is, is a life science. And your trainer? While he may not wear a lab coat, he IS a scientist… And scientists like cookies.

There are two days left in Christmas. Give your trainer a cookie! 🙂

Better yet —> link <

Yours in fitness,
-C. Narkissos Springer

http://www.getnarked.net
www.facebook.com/NarkSide