Phase Fifteen of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything.”

There is no real do or don’t on this one, it more of a personal inquiry that I felt needed to be thrown out there and established. No matter how I say this it is going to come out wrong so please bear with me. I am having a hard time understanding why personal trainers at various gyms (and even in personal resident gyms) are not in shape themselves. I am by no means talking down to people that are not in shape, unless you are out of shape and are a personal trainer at the gym. This is an anomaly to me. When you are supposed to be teaching others how to become fit and practice a healthy lifestyle, you yourself should be an exemplary model for your pupil to follow suite.

Now, I understand that this trainer might have a degree in physiology, kinesiology, have been through several trainings and/or courses to qulify them as a trainer (or maybe none of the above) and they do in fact know what you are talking about, so their expertise can theoretically be trusted. But things that are theoretically sound do not always apply to real life practice and pursuit. We can lay out an efficiently sound plan to re-build our economy that looks great on the bill but it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily going to work when applied to the economy and its fiscal droughts. It is hard to get motivated by someone and trust them with your personal conditioning and well being when they themselves are not physically fit.

I guess the thing that makes me the most frustrated is that if I am going to choose a profession, I would want to be the best at it or at least at the top of my game. And with a job like personal trainer, where your physical appearance does have quite an impact, I would think that it would be a motivator for you yourself, as a trainer, to get into shape. You are actively trying to change some.

Like I said before I may be completely off basis with this one. I guess I can see two main counter arguments to this. One being: it doesn’t really matter what the person looks like as long as they know what they are talking about and I can trust them with my body’s well being. And I do pretty much agree with that in a logical sense, just not in a practical one – but once again that is just personal preference. The other counter to my argument that I could see as being somewhat relevant is that it might be beneficial to have an out of shape trainer in the sense that it boosts your morale. For example if I am out of shape and so is my trainer, it is going to boost my moral if on a daily, weekly and monthly basis I can see that my overall physical fitness level is exceeding that of my trainer’s. This would boost confidence levels and might increases personal drives and performances.

Both of these counter examples are purely based out of speculation. I have no idea as to what people think on this subject. And seeing how I am noticing this more and more these days I wanted some outside perspective on it. That is why I wrote this specific entry. I want to hear what you all have to say about this. What do you think about personal trainers who are out of shape? You all know my opinion on the matter, do you agree, disagree or put simply you could care less? Once again this is simply my opinion, take it or leave it.