Alica Mckenna Johnson, Kristen Lamb, 40 yard line

Poor personal trainers, this is what they have to deal with.
Photo by Kristen Lamb

A while back some website did a post on The 10 Things Your Personal Trainer is Thinking About You. I went expecting to find something funny, but no they were serious, BOO!

So as someone who has inflicted themselves on a personal trainer, these are the 10 things I think personal trainers are REALLY thinking about you.

1. Do you realize how see through that garment is? Personal trainers have to watch you exercise, frequently in odd contorted positions, while you’re sweating. Make sure your clothes don’t turn embarrassingly see through.

2. If you can still whine, you are not working hard enough. Really, your time with a personal trainer should feel like hell, so if you can still whine, then you can probably work harder.

3. No, I am not feeding off your pain. I once told my personal trainer that I thought he was a half-demon and fed off my pain. Thankfully, he was also a film maker and thought it was funny. (No stealing this idea—I plan to write a book at some point)

4. No, I’m not delusional. Personal trainers have training, they watch you carefully and pick exercises that push you but that you can do, even when you think you can’t.

5. Why do I have to listen to this? Some clients whine a lot. I was shocked when I found out I was on the low end of the whining scale. Don’t make these poor people listen to you bitch and whine, unless you are actually doing the exercises while you complain.

6. Do I really have to yell at you? This goes back to the whining. Apparently some people actually need, or maybe like, to be yelled at and forced/shamed into doing the exercises.

7. Dear god, the smell. Either you haven’t put on enough deodorant, shame on you, or you have overdone the crappy cheap body spray. Either way personal trainers have to stand near you. Try to not make it completely unpleasant.

8. Don’t lie to me, you go home and eat crap. Your personal trainer can tell if you are sticking to your diet or stopping by the store to stock up on ice cream and chips on the way home from the gym. Don’t insult their intelligence, tell the truth.

docguy, weight loss , ice cream

Photo by docguy

9. Drink water! At the end of every session with my personal trainer he would remind me to drink a lot of water the rest of the day. Now I love water so I listened, but obviously other people don’t. They don’t get paid by the word. If your personal trainer says it, it must be important.

10. Yes, I’m going to win this month. After a year of personal training I discovered a dark secret. Every week a weird, twisted, embarrassing exercise is posted on the personal trainer’s Facebook group and the goal is to see how many innocent clients they can get to do the exercise. My personal trainer denied this, but I think he was lying. Some of those exercises were just too weird.

So what do you think personal trainers are really thinking?