Get Fit Now!: The Trainer Tells All

“Dude, you’re out of control.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t be doing this.”

“What?”

“Sleeping with clients. Sleeping with married clients.”

“What are you talking about, man?” So I had no choice but to ignore it, which was tough enough in the gym. But then I’d be somewhere and I’d see the client — with her husband — with her kids — and I’d just want to walk up to her and whisper in her ear: “I know you! I know what you’re doing!”

I used to joke with the other trainers that you could teach a chimpanzee to do this job. You could teach a chimpanzee to count, to put people on and off machines. They’d do better because they wouldn’t care; all you’d have to do was feed them. The problem was, we cared.

Sure, after five years, it was getting pretty boring, the same thing all the time, the same people, the same place. But I still held onto this ideal of making people healthier. It’s just that I knew these people now. I knew them too well. And I knew that I cared more about their health than they did.

“I’m not doing that,” they’d say.

“Shut up,” they’d say.

“You’re working me too hard,” they’d say. And I would think, You’re paying me to help you. If you don’t want me to help you, then what am I here for?

I remember a session with one client, not long before I quit and started my own training business. This guy had a back injury. He complained about it over and over and over again. Then he’d tell me he’d played 36 holes of golf the day before.

“You have got to take it easy,” I said. “I’m no doctor. I’m no physical therapist. But I do know that you can’t play 36 holes of golf the day before you come in here to work out.”

“Well, I’m telling you right now,” he said. “I’m not stopping golf.” And I thought to myself, These are the dumbest human beings on the planet. These people don’t listen to themselves. These people don’t listen to their bodies. And these people certainly don’t have any respect for me.

A few days later, another client confirmed it. He canceled five minutes before his session was supposed to start and couldn’t understand why he was going to be charged for it.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“What do you do for a living?” I asked, even though I knew.

“I’m an attorney.”

“What happens if a client makes you waste an hour of your time?”

“That’s not the same thing,” he said. “I’m offering a professional service.”

And this was when I knew it was time for me to go.