Keep your damn hands off my pull ups…

Dave says:

My apologies for the delay. I’ve been enjoying a three-day weekend, but I figure I’ll respond in between pull sets (yes, I’m bad):

@morat20

You’d think the chain gyms would require education and certification just for butt-covering purposes and/or insurance purposes.

The major gyms definitely do, whether it’s from the NSCA, ASCM or NASM I don’t know, but there are certification requirements and it does time and effort to get them (although nothing like a four year degree).

When you get past the major gyms and go towards facilities that cater towards strength and conditioning (either specific towards something like a form of weightlifting or for training athletes), the people there generally have at least a four-year degree in a related field (exercise science, kinesiology, physiology, perhaps an advanced degree in Athletic Training (as my brother in law does) and have more advanced-level certs (i.e the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the NSCA).

Then there all sorts of private groups as @kazzy mentions, so much so it makes my head spin (for spin, TRX, CrossFit, boot camps, etc. etc.). The issue is that for a lot of people, especially those untrained/lightly trained or uninformed (me included at one point), cert = competency. It is a problem in the fitness industry and one that I don’t think “the market” can necessarily flush out without mitigating the risk issues while it happens. It takes some time to root out the bad trainers, but in the meantime, they’re still exposing people to risk. Personally, I think it’s extraordinarily irresponsible to expect people, especially “newbies” to be competent enough to sit down with a trainer and know whether or not that person is good for them.

One of my biggest concerns about state certification is that some of the strongest proponents come out of the academic school of exercise science and/or strength and conditioning. Given the controversies between the academic and, for lack of a better term “applied” schools, I’m not sure they are the best people to consult, at least without consulting people from a far broader perspective.

Also, recent if not drastic changes in the fitness industry as a whole make me skeptical about trying to impose state-mandated standards for fitness trainers, not only for certification but also what they are or are not allowed to teach. When I was a gym rat in my early 20’s, most of what people were doing were a combination of isolation machines and/or medium-type cardio work. Today, I see more people squatting, doing dead lifts, military press with barbells in addition to all sorts of different kinds of high intensity interval training.

The modern fitness industry as I understand it came about in the 1970’s. It’s a relatively new industry and susceptible to dynamic changes in the way we view fitness, as recent history shows. As such, if there’s any concern I have aside from safety (which I do care about), it’s how a certification process can adjust itself to changing fitness paradigms that could drastically be different than what we know today.

Granted, people can hurt themselves, but they can do that on their own. In fact, looking at most gym videos on YouTube, they are generally unsupervised and doing lifts that most personal trainers wouldn’t begin to know how to teach let alone recommend to most clients, especially newbies.

@road-scholar

I wonder if the proper role for government in this sort of thing might be to certify the certifiers. It’s just something that occurred to me and I don’t really know how that would work

This happens know with the NCCA and ANSI but all those mean is that someone has looked at the organizations and sees them as legitimate enterprises. They know very little about what it is they’re actually certifying. They know nothing about squat mechanics, periodization, etc. etc. I’ll post a quote from the article:

At no point during the process were we asked about full squats – or anything having to do with exercise, training, safety, equipment, science, biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology, physical education, or any other aspect of any activity in which our credentialed professionals are actually engaged. Nothing.

I think we run into the same roadblock though. If a program, say XYZ, doesn’t fall within the “accepted parameters”, then anyone certified to teach it through a private organization doesn’t get the blessing of the accrediting agency and can’t teach it.

@greginak

A PT should be able to teach someone in their own way without hurting them. I’ve certainly heard of trainers who coached people to do things that were really likely to lead to injuries.

Every time I see someone doing exercises on a bosu ball with a trainer supervising them, I want to throw a bumper plate at that trainer. I see bad things happening, but I’m less concerned about the risk of injury (given the very light loads – its low) and more concerned about giving clients a base to build on for something long-term and sustainable. Then again, most trainers want repeat clients so the less the clients know the better.

Yeah, most people if they want a basic workout can learn what they need on their own and will be better off in most ways.

Since when do liberals preach personal responsibility? (kidding) 😉 I have only used a trainer once in 2 1/2 years, and that was for mobility work. I’ve learned way too much on my own.

There aren’t many ways to go wrong on the various machines although it is possible.

The only way is to actually use them. Ok, that’s a bit unfair, but I’ll clarify with when I riff off of this comment from @morat20

— the simple resistance circuit ones are generally worth it in terms of just general health and muscle tone,

Generally, I agree, especially for people that want to get some exercise, lift some weights and focus more on general fitness without the risks associated with barbell or dumb bell work. One can walk a circuit, hit the stations, rest 30-60 seconds, and in 20-30 minutes, hit all the muscle groups and have a good burn. It won’t make people big and strong, but a muscle burn doesn’t hurt anyone. That said, to the extent, there are machines that give weight assistance for exercises such as pull ups and dips, especially if one is standing or kneeling on a platform, those are good for people without the strength to do a lot of unassisted repetitions.

@chris

You may like science, but do you like broscience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzxRhtZLItYReport