Why Personal Trainers won’t be around in 10 years– Part I

Would you hire a plumber if they weren’t qualified to do the job?

Would you trust your car with a mechanic that couldn’t guarantee his work?

What about a hairdresser who never did an apprenticeship, but has had fantastic hair for the last 18 years?

The answer is probably no to all 3. It’s not worth risking your house, possessions or good looks!

By now you would’ve understood what I’m getting at - an Exercise Physiologist vs Personal Trainer debate, although hopefully this will once and for all, put the discussion to rest.

Firstly – let’s take a look at Personal Trainers.

Qualifications – Ask most PT’s out there and they’ll tell you you get what you pay for with a Certificate IV in fitness (the minimum qualification to perform 1 on 1 fitness training). But not in the fact that you get more of an education by paying a larger sum for ‘tuition’ but that you get it quicker and with less effort the more you pay. Just Google “become a Personal Trainer” and searches will show you the quickest possible way to get into the industry. This is a big problem! How many doctors or dentists do you know tried to ‘Fast Track’ their career and disregard knowledge or experience? Nobody wants to pay someone over $80 an hour to take care of their body when 6 weeks ago they were getting fired from their job at Macca’s or getting told by their parents that they’d be kicked out if they didn’t find a job or start studying soon.

Furthermore, fitness academies and institutes are now actually TARGETING people who didn’t do well at school to become PT’s!! Mind the fact that I’m clearly trying to over-multi-task with my Internet Explorer (below), but does anyone else see anything wrong with businesses sourcing ‘failing students’ to guide you safely through difficult exercise and give you expert advice on your one and only body?

Now you might be saying: “Ok those institutes are just trying to make money like any other business” but let’s take a look beyond them and at Fitness Australia- the Self Regulated head of Fitness in this country.

Let’s run with the so-conveniently bold words above:

• Self Regulated = make as much money as possible at almost any cost. No one to answer to and you can also try to confuse the public by calling your Personal Trainers “Exercise Professionals” (abbreviated to EP’s - as in what people with higher education and qualifications – Exercise Physiologists – call themselves). By the way, self regulation seemed to work very well for the US financial institutions back in 2007 didn’t it? Not sure where I’m going with this – see: Global Financial Crisis-Wikipedia.
• Fitness – not health, not wellbeing, not rehabilitation. So then you think, Fitness… = sporting teams? Sorry wrong again, that’s a strength and conditioning coach or Sports/Exercise Scientist/Physiologist. So fitness really means focusing on healthy individuals and getting them to run further, do more crunches and attempt a chin up or two. The other downside for PT’s -Exercise Physiologists are more than capable of putting someone through a fitness, boot camp, commando or body building style workout too – except due to our knowledge of biomechanics and safe practices, could almost always get the same result with less potential for injuries.

And the last negative before we go out on a positive for Part I; everyone’s heard horror stories about PT’s injuring, creating illness and in some cases killing clients, so I won’t harp on – just have a a quick read of this US article if you’d like to learn more: Dangerous Personal Trainers 

The positive – Most PT’s have good, honest intentions and just like in every industry a few bad seeds can damage the reputation of all, but unfortunately PT’s have had their time and the science is progressing and the need for something more is increasing by the day. This, in combination with the ease for patients to see Exercise Physiologists at almost no cost and the amount of exercise science graduates coming out of universities each year, will in my opinion, be the death of Personal Trainers and the “Fitness Industry”.

Exercise Physiology at almost no cost?… Keep checking back for more on that in Part II!