What would it be?
For me, I would snap my fingers and all of the trainers that make money off of keeping clients reliant on them would turn into dung beetles. Then I would step on them.
Josh
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{ 37 comments }
For me, I’d want actual regulation of the credentialing for fitness professionals. Certifications mean virtually nothing, since anyone can make up their own and say they’re a personal trainer. Licensure is certainly a better alternative, making trainers actually accountable to something.
PS, I like the dung beetle wish too.
regulating it will not fix a thing. all that means is a standardized test will be given and trainers will be expected to pay more taxes on shit. the answer is education, not senate style paperpushing
I kind of enjoy all the crappy trainers, it makes us look better by comparison.
I would make it impossible to receive ANY kind of “certification” unless you can reproduce what you have been taught in yourself AND others – repeatedly.
Josh, can’t imagine anything better than getting rid of those trainers. I guess if I had to come up with something else…I’d like to see every machine melted down into scrap metal
Don’t you see, Josh? They ARE dung beetles.
Get stomping.
Only one thing, huh? I’m going to have to think hard on this one.
I’d like to see physical/health education based on teaching life skills that kids can actually use and enjoy.
There’s a whole LOT of things I would like to see, but I think I am going to have to defer to Boris on this one.
If we could get phys ed away from teaching just the major team sports (and grading on skills instead of effort so some kids are doomed to always fail), then a lot of the other stuff would kind of fall by the wayside, doncha think?
I would become a better trainer
yeah but that is already happening
Send the Terminator back in time to stop Arthur Jones from inventing Nautilus thereby preventing the Rise of the Machines (includng Stairmaster and Bowlflex )
awesome Randy!
I trust all of you understand changing these things can be done with your own two hands
I wouldn’t change a thing about the industry, it is fucking amazing. See below videos for more details
Bob flips the fuck out on the biggest loser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YsP7mb5R4c
Rippitude http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAoghonL_U4
The Man, the Myth, the Legend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k61AN4fynDM
It takes feet to stomp, not hands.
That Richard Simmons video is so awesome – I’m going to watch it every morning!
In all fairness, i have far more respect for Richard than i do most PT. Richard really cared about helping people and got a lot of people off their butts. I will take Richard over psycho bob any day of the week in terms of who would i send someone to…naturally that is a silly hypothetical option.
I agree with you Adam, I never met the guy, but Richard Simmons truly seems like he wants to help people and do the best he can. However there is a big distinction between him and a trainer like yourself and that is what I would want out of the industry, clear distinction between styles, philosophies and quality.
That and a ban on men wearing lycra on the outside.
Have everyone reach their goals.
this one is pretty easy, thats why we started here
I’m outside of the industry, I have no idea what I’d want to change in it.
But I would love to see that every child, no matter how un-coordinated, or bookish, be encouraged and mentored through learning many different sports and active skills. To at least learn enough to discover the activity or sport that the child truly loves.
Some of us were not given the time learning to throw, catch, kick or swing a bat, (if you’re a spaz, you’re not asked back a second time) and came to sports and activities like cycling, belly dancing and kickboxing in our 30′s and later. It’s fabulous to discover these things as adults, but there is a struggle every day/week/month, to continue to be active because overall activity was not a habit developed as a child.
Kids need to learn young that there is something they love to do. It could be competitive, it doesn’t need to be, they don’t have to be good at it, they need to enjoy it. Plain and simple.
I wish I had.
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
I really agree with this one. As an “unco” child (do they say that outside of Australia?) I was never interested in sports etc because I was “bad at them”. As Chris B said, most of the assessment was based on skills. Not only that, but looking back now I realise that all the teachers I ever had in primary and high school seemed to have absolutely zero idea of how to build a strong healthy body.
Either that or they just couldn’t be bothered with the “skinny kid who doesn’t seem interested”.
Half the reason I got interested in fitness pursuits is so I know that if/when my children’s teachers fail them, I will be there to pick up the slack.
What Brad and Frankie often point out- after you teach someone foot work they will typically get hip to sports. Mike T Nelson is a great example, he had a really rough starting point and now he does a ton of stuff which no one would have guessed 10 years ago. We can change ladies and gentlemen.
I do believe this is a first to have hugs and butterflies posted on Road Less Traveled, PReveryday on that
My opinion on the topic of kids- Its the parents fault for not getting in sports. People cannot pawn off this stuff to the schools. Anything you put in the governments hands will go to shit. I live on a street where everyone has kids but me it seems, and I never see an adult throwing a ball to their kids in the yard. I understand raising kids is an ass pain in the big picture of watching TV and fooking around on the internet, so i am not going to judge them too harshly…
I’ll keep the H&B coming with each post. Who can have too many of those?
Just for the record, I agree with Adam that it is up to families, not necessarily schools. It would be great if the schools graded on effort, and knowledge of the rules of the game (I had exactly ONE teacher who did this in exactly ONE sport – only A I ever received in a PE segment), rather than talent/skill. It would surely encourage students who otherwise are likely to remain disengaged from activity.
But, really it is primarily up to families – parents, siblings, extended family. I learned more about throwing and catching a ball after I became a parent to a dog, then I did as a child. It was an intense struggle to learn how to mountain bike. After years of not getting involved in team sports, etc, because I wasn’t any good at them, when I found something I really liked, I really worked to get good at it. And it seriously felt like work because I had never been through that process of learning to get good at something.
My point was primarily that our habits and inclinations are formed in our youth. If our youth is spent in active pass-times, if we go through that learning process to develop new skills, if we accept the challenges of sport and continue to work on our personal best – not giving up just because we don’t always reach a podium, if all of those things were part of your youngest years, they are part of our DNA, part of our natural way of being.
While change is possible as adults, it always seems to be a struggle: for awhile, when the going is good and the efforts are showing results, and we’re having fun, are well and are not injured, it almost gets easy. But any little thing – a head cold, a busy schedule, a stress-trigger, a minor injury – that throws me off the rails, takes a huge effort of will to get over and move myself back to being active.
There’s lots of things I would change about my childhood, if I had a chance, and that’s just one of them.
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
Destroy all cardio equipment…muscle mags…bodybuilding supplements…crunches…bench press and curls (not that those can’t be good exercises but it’d be funny to see how many people’s entire workouts were crushed in one fell swoop).
And I could keep going but I already listed five.
-Logan
Aw I like curls they build massive gunz! !!
Logan, you have just listed my Rules.
I do, however, like to laugh at the dudes in the gym with giant chests and tiny little stick legs who hobble around from lateral raises to bench press and back. Oh, and I’d like to add:
No Ipods.. If you hate your workout that much, just stop kidding yourself and do nothing. It’ll be more honest that way.
I don’t listen to music because I hate my workout- I find it enhances it. Back in my swimming days (B/C time levels- I practiced because I loved it), I’d have loved some kind of ear buds. Past the 500m mark, if I could mentally keep a intense tune in my head, it did wonders for keeping pace and pushing through the getting tired and finding that groove.
I agree with PicsieChick and Piers, as my PE experiences through grade 9 followed what they would have wanted. Graded on participation and knowledge of rules, not ability, and the idea was to stay active and have fun. This was in a little town in Arkansas, so I didn’t think it was unique?
Following on the topic of kids…it’s weird to think that my age group (born mid to late 70s) was just before the cultural transition from kids being ‘yard apes’ and playing ball, climbing trees, just generally being active in creative ‘mom’s getting that look so let’s go outside’ ways, to the generally not seeing kids out in their yards because their on the video games, etc.
Teach more people how to lead themselves….
thank you guys
We are working on this one, world domination takes time LOL
use propaganda its worked great in the past
Since you know what you would change about the fitness industry….
go do it….
now.
more people being able to apply what they are trying to teach you. This doesn’t mean you have to be the strongest person out there, or the slimmest or what ever. It just means you walk the walk, and not just read a magazine while screaming one more rep, you got it.
I would like to see REAL Food Education as part of a “personal trainer” certification & offered at all fitness or training facilities. Also, educate ANY trainer on supplements. What they really are, how they are made, what they are made out of & what their potential is. Most of what’s out there is crap & dangerous. I am not sure how specific I can get on this post/response so I will leave it at that.
Oh man, only 1 thing?
While many things pop to mind, I would bridge the freaking chasm between “research land” and “experience land” Knowledge should NOT be separated from action.
And yes, I am working on it.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
Keeping clients ‘reliant’ is an unwanted side-effect of ALL ‘industry’ …
What business doesn’t drool over the prospect of becoming ‘indispensable’ to their customers? What entrepreneur doesn’t lay awake at night thinking about the next ‘must have’ product or service?
The problem is—of course—much of what we’re sold as ‘must have’, is in reality, a ‘probably don’t need’ (at best). And this becomes a serious ethical issue when it’s applied to the fitness industry.
The fact is, many in the fitness (and dietary-related) industries ARTIFICIALLY induce a sense of inner-helplessness and reliance on others vis a vis the activities WE WERE BORN TO DO—MOVE & EAT.
There’s no other way of saying it … That’s pretty FUCKED UP!
As I’ve mentioned before, I believe EMPOWERMENT is the key change that needs to take place within the fitness industry.
Are we merely fitness PIMPS who treat our ‘products and services’ as some kind of heroin or crack that we use to addict our clientele and keep them in a state of ‘chronic helplessness’ in order to fund our own dreams and desires?
Or will we chose to be fitness EMPOWERERS who use our products and services to bring healing to the broken, so they can toss away their ‘walking canes’ of dependency and start making vibrant, strong and healthy lives FOR THEMSELVES?
It’s a no-brainer from where I’m standing …
*Sigh! I know I can get a overly ‘dramatic’ sometimes (this is one of those times) … but this stuff is really important to me.
Kira,
I couldn’t agree more.
The primary thing we should we be doing is making the client more aware of their own biofeedback.
fF