Legal disclaimer... The following views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the creator of No Fat Jokes Please, or that of legitimate blog posters.
"I'm a do as I say, not as I do kinda trainer" Achieving ODJ
Just over two years and over 100 blog posts, and finally the day has come! This is the first, and quite possibly the last time, Ole JT and I are reversing roles. I find myself torn between publishing an outright rant centered around the absurdity of spending up to 10 hours a day in a place most people avoid like the plague, or proffering sage fitness advice (the original direction of the blog). Anyone who believes that last sentence is clearly a first time reader! We all know where this is going.
You see, I arrived in this industry via a very different route than most 20 somethings who've always been fit, and grew up wanting to work in fitness. Deep down, I'm more like the leery potential members in those awesome Planet Fitness commercials. I cringe, daily, at the idiosyncratic gym experience. It's not an unfair stereotype, if it's always true. This was a second career direction for me. I chose to capitalize on the spiraling American obesity trend, knowing it meant job security. Just as it is not in your doctor's best interest for you to be healthy, it is not in a trainer's best interest for you to be fit. The differentiator; sick people will continue to go to the doctor, clients that are not succeeding will stop paying their trainer. If only we could be paid by insurance companies... Depending on which studies you believe, there are about 600 million people in this country considered obese, so don't cry for us, Argentina. We trainers won't go wanting for new clients any time soon.
I honestly believe there needs to be a place like Planet Fitness, that discourages gym guys from being gym guys. There's a large segment of society that needs to be in the gym, but won't go because they are intimidated by the knuckle draggers. That said, they are the gym equivalent of having a Diet Coke with your chocolate cake. Life in a real gym is a whole other animal. Being a cynical person, stuck in this bizarre world, I have seen more than I care to recall. Some things cannot be unseen. Like the sight of a smarmy unkempt eastern European rinsing off in the deck shower of the pool, naked. Like the waist-height hole in the wall between shower stalls in the men's locker room, that, no matter how many times it was filled, kept getting re-bore. Like the septuagenarian female client who insisted on working out in a tacky 80's era G-string leotard with control top pantyhose and heels (yep).
