I went back to my homeland briefly this weekend to do a little personal training work, catch up with a few friends and see my godson. On the Saturday I had a coffee with an old friend from my time as a PT at Fitness First in Solihull. I can't believe that it's been nine years since I've worked there, it seems like yesterday that I used to start my working day at 6:00am with a run with Nicolette. She used to meet me in the club car park as the gym didn't open til 6:30, we could then get about four miles in and be back in time for here to have a shower and get to her busy job as a lawyer. I'd then proceed to see around ten to fifteen clients across the day until 10pm when I'd go home and start writing session plans for the following day. I certainly learnt a lot about my trade in those years, and more importantly, a lot about people.
Anyway, I met with Jack who had been a member and good friend who I've kept in touch with but not seen for years. We talked about his family and of his trips back home to Kenya and India where he had family. He told me that he'd recently spent a few months in Dubai and of all the wealthy individuals out there hiring their PT's to keep themselves in shape.
He also told me of a craze in India where the wealthiest members of society were spending vast amounts of time, money and effort on looking more white. From make-up to skin bleaching, face powder to staying out of the sun, they wanted to be pale because lighter skin was fashionable and denoted wealth and power. This struck me as rather sad, firstly that skin colour should be connected with success in any way even today, but also because I found it saddening that people will spend so much of their time wanting to be something different.
Then I thought, isn't that why people hire personal trainers? To be something different? And the answer is yes of course, but whilst we have a job to do in terms of helping people to achieve the weight loss they desire, helping them to tone up and look good for the beach, giving them more energy to play sports with their children and grandchildren and keeping them healthy for the years to come, we also have an obligation I feel to help people to feel comfortable in their own skin. As a PT I am never more satisfied than when a client tells me that they feel better about themselves, and even though they've only lost a couple of pounds, or sometimes nothing at all, they feel more energised, less stressed and better able to cope with the challenges of life.
The problem is of course, the whole world these days is obsessed with selling the idea of the 'body beautiful'. Magazines, newspapers, television, adverts, billboards, the Internet, you cannot escape the endless images of gorgeous, lean individuals wearing tight fitting clothing, or hardly any clothing, selling you everything from cars to cereal bars. Celebrities often endorse products and you think, 'there's no way that guy eats that and looks like he does or does what he does', Chris Hoy and a certain range of breakfast cereals or Mo Farah and a vegetarian alternative to meat being good examples.
As an industry, those of us that work in health and fitness have a responsibility to people to help them achieve their goals and dreams, but also to recognise that it's OK to feel good about yourself and to accept that you may never have the physique of Angelina Jolie, and that's OK. But do we? I don't think we do, not even close. The images you see on gym walls are rarely of an older couple going for a walk are they? And they're not of a man pleased to fit back into his size 34 trousers, even though he had to jump around a bit and breathe in to do up the button. No, they're of Barbie and Ken smiling after their latest teeth whitening procedure, bright enough to blind you if the sun bounces off them at the wrong angle.
I myself have spent the last three years developing learning materials for a fitness training provider, and the stock images I have to choose from to put on the front covers of the manuals are often hilarious. There's more fake tan than TOWIE, more enhancements than a Pamela Anderson lookalike convention. Maybe I'm foolish, but I've often pushed to turn down the image of the man who's arms are bigger than my body and looks like he's been Tango'd in favour of a normal, middle-aged woman doing step aerobics, or an older couple doing a power walk along the beach. It might not sell but surely the aim is to be realistic and to attract those to our way of life who so far have failed to join us?
We can all take some responsibility for making this happen, for making people feel like it's OK to be normal. We can start by removing all of the pictures of Personal Trainers advertising their services whilst posing with their tops off. Unless it's a bodybuilding gym, there's just no place for this. It serves only to make the majority of gym members feel self conscious and unworthy of their membership. We can also stop encouraging people to buy every supplement under the sun to achieve their dreams. The majority of our clients don't need protein shakes, BCAA's, green tea supplements or any type of 'fat burners', they need a healthy balanced diet and a good mix of resistance training, cardio and flexibility a few times each week.
This week I posted my weekly shop on my balance weight loss Facebook page. I did this not to show off, but to show people that in amongst my healthy food, I had in fact bought some treats including a pizza, and I was going to eat it and enjoy it. I did by the way, and I didn't feel the slightest bit guilty as I've trained hard this week and won't be having one every day. If I can help to make normal people a little bit healthier whilst still being normal, I'll be a happy man.
It is absolutely OK to want to look and feel different, everybody needs a goal to strive towards and many people in today's society need to be more active, eat more healthily and lose some weight. It's not however OK to have people feel like they are pressured into being something that they are not. A lecturer of mine at university used to say 'you can turn a Shire Horse into a faster Shire Horse, but you can't make it a Racehorse.' When I was younger I always wanted to be a little but taller than I am. I peaked quite early at around 5 feet 11 inches, and that extra inch or so always eluded me.These days I don't worry so much that I never made it to 6 feet, I just spike my hair up the front and use that to give the illusion that I'm taller. And when my hair disappears, which is highly likely given the genetic predisposition in my family tree, I'll either accept being 5 feet 11, or I'll buy a hat!
If you're a PT, I challenge you to go and inspire people to be a better version of themselves, not an imitation version of somebody that they're not.
Kind regards,
Paul
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