Do I need a personal trainer? Part 1

A personal trainer in Toronto goes public

I spent much of the pandemic and the first few months post lockdown in relatively small, semi-private gyms around Toronto. In those kinds of spaces most people were either personal trainers themselves, or they were with clients, or folks were in there on their own but their strength and and fitness game were pretty on point. So, it was a bit of a Toronto fitness and lifting bubble you might say. As I began moving back into more public gyms it was a real wake-up call for me.

Yes, as a personal trainer I am watching you. I can’t help it

I am fascinated by movement and how people move. I am equally fascinated by how people think they should move. What makes sense to them. So yes, on the whole when I am in the gym doing my workouts I am in my workout and not really focused on much else. But I just can’t help myself. I love watching people move. Anyone doing a squat around me I’m checking it all out. A deadlift? Pull-up? Same. Same. Same. I don’t even do it intentionally. It just happens. It is literally what I am trained to do it is my life. As a personal trainer I watch in minute detail how basic (and complex) exercises are performed all day. That is a big part of what people pay me for as a personal trainer and I love the laser focus that I can bring to that. I have had incidents where I have broken down movement issues in someone climbing a flight of stairs in front of me before I even recognized what was happening. It’s fun. And kinda weird.

Toronto area personal trainer sees strange and wonderous sights

It kind of blew my mind when I began looking around the gyms I found myself in. It was at times inspiring, sad and horrifying. It was also incredibly valuable. Trying to figure out what a person was trying to do for instance was a great mental exercise for me. It also made me feel like my work was more valuable than I had ever before imagined.

You are working really hard

This is what I saw: people working really, really hard. Grafting. You could tell how serious people were and how much effort they were putting into what to them was kind of clearly a cornerstone of their lives. These people, you people are in gyms and busting your ass to an admirable degree. Of that there is no question.

But

I would frequently see people doing something…squatting for instance. And there would be something about it that would be off. And I could see them thinking about it or battling with it and as a personal trainer I literally I could have fixed what was happening in a couple of minutes.

Another thing I saw frequently was someone trying to work on some specific element of their game. I can remember this one person in particular. Let’s call them Bee. We were across from each other at the racks so they were right there in front of me for a long time. At first they were doing these certain warm-ups and although I couldn’t quite figure out what they were trying to do I had my suspicions but their technique was such that if I was right, there were some key components that they were missing. I imagined they were warming up for squats and I could not wait to see them squat. Like I was dying to see where they were at and what they were trying to work on with their warm-up.

A personal trainer watches Bee squat at a gym in Toronto

Once Bee started squatting I could see what they were working on. They had it the wrong way around though. They thought they needed to open up their hip capsule for more external rotation. What they needed was more glute engagement but their foot positioning and other technique issues were not allowing for that. Now is this the end of the world? Not really. Done repeatedly for years it’s not great, possibly dangerous and they’ll lose some strength gains and progress significantly more slowly. What did truly frighten me though was how they were pitching forward. They had an unstable base and was hinging too far forward in their squat which also meant that as they were trying to come out of the bottom of the squat Bee was engaging their back first. This is where we get into very serious injury territory.

I later saw them doing an exercise that would address their lack of glute engagement and general lower body instability but again, there were two pieces that were missing that would radically undercut the purpose of the exercise and if I was right in my assessment of their goal, it would have been much more effective to program that particular exercise before the squats, not after.

Pretentious personal trainer creeps on people at local Toronto gym

To be really clear I think the world of Bee and everyone in the gym going that hard and trying to be that effective and I in no way shape or form want to disempower or take anything away from all of the diligence so many of you show and just getting out there and moving, whatever that looks like (as long as it’s not dangerous please don’t be dangerous) is awesome and I applaud you, full stop.

It also needs to be noted that Bee and I never had a conversation and there could easily be things that I simply do not know about her body or what she’s after. I am an educated eye, but not an x-ray machine, or psychic.

Personal trainer leaves them hanging

Having said all of that, stay tuned for part two where I get into the meat of what I think this all means and I finally answer the question of whether or not you need a personal trainer.