Best and Worst

Within the past week I've experienced two great examples of the highs and lows of my job.  For the most part being a personal trainer is fantastic.  Everyone knows they need to exercise so I'll always have clientele, and the environment where I work is relaxed and everyone likes each other. 

First I'll share the uninspiring client.  He probably needed to lose about 60 pounds when he first came in.  I made it clear that training with me twice a week for a half hour is great but not going to come close to getting the job done.  He would need to change his eating habits and find time to exercise outside of our appointments.  He agreed.

Over the course of the next five weeks he had lost two pounds and then gained it right back.  He only had one session left when I got the dreaded e-mail "we spoke with our financial adviser and he told us to get rid of some luxury spending, blah blah blah."

This is a lame-duck excuse and usually when this comes out it's not financial, it's simply that they don't see the value in having a personal trainer anymore.  Most people who come to us can fork out a few hundred dollars every once in a while.  This fact can be tough to swallow but we can choose to take it personally and attempt to blame the individual or we can use it as a learning experience to figure out how to avoid this happening again.

On the other hand I had a guy come in exactly eight days ago.  He told me he wanted to lose 10 pounds in a month to look good for a wedding.  At this point my warning signals were going off because we see this person all the time.  They want their check to clear and the weight to magically fall off without putting in any work.  But I took a deep breath and went through the usual stuff. 

"It's doable but you're going to have to change your diet drastically.  The easiest thing to do is to go on our cleanse which will last you 21 days and everything you put in your mouth will already be planned.  I'm going to recommend you come see me three times a week for an hour from now until the wedding and during that time I'm going to bust your butt.  Outside of here I'll need you exercising on your own but I'll help you program that."

I told him to come in for the first session the next day ready to do an initial assessment and get down to business.  Standard procedure dictates that we ask if there are any medical concerns we need to know about before starting.  At this point I found out he had been in a coma for about two months and really doesn't remember much for several months after he woke up.  This happened about eight years ago but he had to undergo physical therapy, occupational therapy, and all kinds of other stuff.  His body was pretty wrecked from the whole thing and he told me his balance and coordination wasn't great.  I knew I had my work cut out for me but his attitude suggested that he was ready for a change.

After he left I alerted our nutritionist who got him started on our cleanse that same day.  The workouts have been an interesting game of tic-tac-toe.  Basically I've been trying to find ways to strengthen his body to work on the coordination while also keeping his heart rate up, which is the important way to facilitate weight loss.  He followed the nutrition program 100% for the next seven days.

Today, a week after our first session, we weighed him in and he had lost 6.5 pounds.  He told me he's felt great the whole week and his clothes are fitting better.  While he was warming up I was asking the standard questions about is he staying with the diet, how that's been, is he getting enough water, etc.  We talked for a bit and then he threw this at me:

"I wanted to tell you two other things.  Today, for the first time since I left the hospital eight years ago, I was able to put on my pants without using a bedpost or something else for stability.  I just slipped them right on.  Also since the accident it's been very uncomfortable when I go the grocery store and need to see an item on the bottom shelf.  In the past I've had to awkwardly bend over and it can be quite painful.  But today I had to get something from the bottom shelf and just squatted right down there.  It was no problem and felt great."

Need I remind you that I've only worked with this dude for a week?  He finished by saying "between those two things alone this whole experience has already paid off."

I recounted this story for another trainer later and he said "that's the stuff that makes being a personal trainer awesome."  I agreed.