Why personal training doesn’t work.
I hate to be the one to say this, but if you look at the numbers it really doesn’t. This would include diet centers, gyms, boot camps and everything else. If you look at the numbers as a whole, the failure rate is really high. Numbers range from 90% to 95%.
If you look at it as a rate of failure, this can be pretty depressing. So don’t look at it that way. Look at the success rate. You have a 1 in 10 chance of changing your life. Those aren’t bad odds considering that you are in charge of every aspect of this.
Getting back to the failure rate, this seems to be pretty standard in general. How many teams fail to get to the Super Bowl? How many kids are actually going to turn pro playing sports? The small business failure rate is about 90%, and so on. The fitness industry is not trying to scam you. Hold on…of course they are. Who thought a Thighmaster was going to change their life? A lot of people must have because look how many were sold.
I am not going to drag this discussion through the muck and talk about late night infomercials, we are talking about personal training. More specifically, I want to help you stack the odds in your favor if you choose to hire one of us.
When you think of a personal trainer, what do you think of?
A kid at 24 hour Fitness that shows you how to use the machines? I think this is the stereotype. A guy that walks around in tight shorts and a tank top and shows you how to use the machine in the gym.
“This is a chest press. It works your chest.”
“This is a leg press, this works your legs”.
Maybe I am being a little mean here but you get the point. A trainer shows you how to use equipment and how to do the exercises. What else do they really do?
What does a diet center do? The same thing.
“Eat this and swallow these pills and weigh in at the end of the week.”
Is that what you need to reach your goals?
A small percentage of people can take generic advice and run with it. They are self-motivated and just need a little guidance. Whether they step into a gym, Zumba class or yoga studio, these people will succeed because they are 100% committed to it.
Good for them but what about everyone else? There is no reason to think you won’t be successful, you just have to get the right situation. This is where coaching is very different from training. I realized early on that making a change in someone’s life wasn’t showing them how to do a dumbbell curl. This is a mental game and as a coach I needed to provide that edge to my people.
That edge that gives them accountability, motivation and a reason for working out.
As a coach in my fifties, I enjoy training people around my age. Why? Because we understand each other. I have experienced the pressures of raising kids, building a career, paying a mortgage and all the other stuff adults deal with. It has a way of breaking us down and zapping our energy…if we let it.
If you look at my Instagram, Mfactormike, or my facebook page or even my about page here you will see I throw myself into some hairy situations. Like this one at a Spartan Super in Utah.
I am not a badass or some kind of super athlete. I am a guy who figured out that controlling my mind was essential to my success. I end up doing some pretty cool things because I try and make my brain work for me and not against me. This is the missing key for most people. Understand this concept and you will have success.
If you read my blog posts you will find references to the “Chimp” brain and the “Human” brain, reframing situations and a lot more. I am going to include Amazon links below so you can have access to this material. It is a cutting edge way to look at fitness. This is coaching not personal training and it can be life changing.
Hopefully this helps you. A lot of people are spending money on personal trainers who are basically going through the motions. It is a travesty because you can get a lot more for the same investment.
