You know what? Every time I check Instagram or Facebook, I’m greeted by a 20 year old fitness influencer flashing their six pack or shaking their ample backside and professing to have the knowledge or the magical secret to give you a body like theirs and it makes me wants to scream.
At 20, I had a six pack and quads like steel and my diet consisted of basically coffee, McDonalds, chicken tikka masala and beer. I just want to say to these influencers ‘come back when you are 50 and then we will talk, because life is just about to eat you up and spit you out’.
It heartens me when I see a fitness guru who isn’t positioning a camera angle to catch the perfect sphere of flesh from the bottom of a squat, or the fabled one foot crossed in front of the other side on glute pic. A real fitpro talking sense is worth a thousand filtered pictures, and in the fitness industry, more than any other industry, to be able to talk sense takes time. Time to gather the experience necessary to understand less about ourselves, but to understand everything about our clients to be able to deliver the correct training advice in the correct way to the correct people.
Some of the best international coaches in the world are in some cases, lets say, not the physical representation of perfection, however in their mind is every scientifically proven technique or training method ready to be applied individually to any person in any situation to achieve the individual results required. Any individual who spends hours working on their own body only becomes a specialist in themselves. To be a trainer involves listening and learning every single day and a desire to work hard to gain even the smallest improvement from even the most difficult client… and then to set the next target and work towards this.
I have been privileged to work with the best, from Paco Gonzalez, ex pro body builder and legendary Keiser trainer, who to this day still imparts his knowledge every day on triathletes and young footballers to make those gains. Rana Reider, the incredible US track and field coach, who has more olympic medals than any other track and field coach on the planet, who year in year out spots new talent and takes them to greatness. These guys make a difference every single day, and these guys are my inspiration, not the Insta influencers we are exposed to every day on our phones and tablets.
My worry is that these platform pirates who profess so much and deliver so little will continue to discredit the fitness industry to such an extent that sooner or later the true knowledge out there will be buried under the avalanche of bullshit.
Moving into the era now of digital virtual training, I urge anyone to choose your content carefully. For years the fitness industry has been promising an incredible amount and delivering very little and yet the essence of keeping fit is relatively simple.
Fitness is science based, not fad based. If it’s easy then it doesn’t work. If it promises quick results then it doesn’t work… to make changes takes commitment and knowledge. If you supply the commitment then a great trainer will certainly supply the knowledge.
