The Confrontation

Believe me, I have never intentionally confronted a certified Personal Trainer before… & especially not one who goes to the same California Fitness gym as I do regularly. But I did that today for a reason… a reason that crowned me as a ‘Protector’ this afternoon. Well, at least that’s what Rebecca called me.

Today was Rebecca’s turn to go for her free 1 hour health & fitness assessment at California Fitness. Contrary to how depressing that she perceived her results to be, I didn’t think it was that bad. In fact, her main problem was her high body fat percentage… which of course means a state that requires improvement. Yet understanding that it took 23 years to get her to this state, I didn’t feel that it was exactly reasonable to suddenly lump all this together & see it as an utterly outrageous problem & mountainous task which was truly all-out valid to become all downcast & disappointed.

To me, the fact that she has taken a bold step of going to the gym as regularly as she could, at least twice a week, for the past 2 – 3 months, shows that she is willing to attempt something new & beneficial, as well as having picked up a good habit… & that is what is most important to me, first & foremost.

I had been in training & competitions for almost a decade throughout my early school years. And one BIG problem with most people is that we tend to get lazy & not disciplined enough to pick up a good habit of healthy eating & exercise. I’m not saying that going to a gym is the only positive habit (course there are also other forms of varied exercises & sports), but it’s a very good start.

I commend her for the time, effort & commitment that she has taken to make time for regular exercise, in the midst of her grueling in-school & out-of-school working hours. To me, getting used to a good habit is most important, then followed by working towards good results. In fact, no training program works once & always. If one doesn’t work, we need to revise & improve on its weak areas. But most important, it is to get the good habit of committing to regular exercise FIRST. And trust me; in all my years in training & all, this is one of the biggest obstacles of keeping healthy & fit.

Even Sylvester Stallone, after exercising for 40 over years & being world famous for his ripped-up & sculpted muscular body in all his famous movies, still wrote in his book that even after 40 years of exercising, he still needs to rely on his personal motivation to get himself going to the gym.

Some say, well… that’s even more the reason why you need a Personal Trainer! Well, my answer will be yes & no… depending on what you want for yourself. In my opinion, a person who needs to feel the pinch of money spent on a Personal Trainer, which snowballs into an impulse to motivate him to exercise regularly, simply lacks the basic intrinsic motivation that is necessary to push him to excel in what he sets himself to do.

Likewise, if any higher level student or undergraduate always needs to have a personal tuition teacher hired by his parents to always sit down next to him & make him study & do his homework, he will not gain or much less strengthen his will-power to do what’s necessary to achieve his best in his life.

Try this at work. Hire someone to force you out of bed, follow you all around your workplace throughout the day, each & every day, urging you to do your job. How would you see yourself? Of course it is easy to say, course I had my days where I don’t feel like going to work. But the truth is that we can't depend on someone to tag alongside us all the time, so as to make sure that we do something!

The idea is this – your life, health & fitness is your own personal responsibility. If you do not bother or at least try to gradually build up a personal commitment in this, for your own sake, then please tell me who else in this entire human race can do it for you?

I assure you, no individual that has to be kicked, pushed, beaten or punished all through his life, will be able to grow & develop strength in character. And this is one attribute that will carry you through life, through disappointments, through set-backs, through pain, failures, etc. Without that, or least building upon that, a total weakling in this would simply crumble.

Of course, having a Personal Trainer for guidance & planning a customized training program for you is useful. But the problem lies in when it becomes a reliance & dependence on someone to spoon-feed you, all through the many years of your life. The moment you stop or can’t afford to hire a Personal Trainer, what happens? You have to fall back on the most basic & intrinsic aspect within yourself – your own motivation to carry on. Or simply end up going back to joining the human species that fall under the category of ‘couch potato’.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. You see, this particular Personal Trainer was really pushy, sarcastic, proud & simply annoyed Rebecca. While I was doing my cardio workout on the stationary bike, Rebecca walked up to me, looking all worried & tensed, asking me how she should talk to this Personal Trainer who kept trying to push her to sign up for a particular 3 months Personal Training package costing thousand over dollars.

I wish to address this early – I’m not against Personal Training or the types of packages being offered. Each gym has their way of generating sales & valid reason for meeting sales targets. But what I’m against is being PUSHY. Top it off with being rude to the customer, what more my girlfriend & that’s enough to piss me off. Of course, that doesn’t render me to be rude towards that Personal Trainer. But the situation, in my opinion, called for someone to step in to assess & assert the customer’s position, if deemed valid & reasonable. Afterall, it is the customer’s money.

I understand that a Personal Trainer is required to meet sales targets. That’s his job & his part. But Rebecca came to me so flustered up, as if she had met with this hideously aggressive & nasty ‘monster’… & that’s not the way it is supposed to be. Personal Trainers do get commission from each customer’s paid training session. It adds to their basic salary. But it does not permit them to indirectly ‘extort’ through aggressive words.

After talking to Rebecca for a few minutes, I left her to talk it out with this Personal Trainer because I thought she needed to face this situation on her own, if not, she would not be able to gather enough courage & assertiveness in the case of future similar scenarios.

So I carried on with my next cardio workout on the treadmill. Every few minutes, I turned to look at the area where she’s sitting & looked to see if she has come out. After about 4 – 5 minutes of running, I decided to stop my workout & look for her. After going through that barrage of intense ‘persuading’ by that Personal Trainer, talking to me, then going back to talk it out with him, she’s still not out. Something isn’t right. It must be that fella trying to be pushy again.

It started to get on my nerves & I walked into the room to look for Rebecca. When I saw her, I walked over calmly, diplomatically introduced myself to that Personal Trainer & sat down next to Rebecca, asking to understand this situation that is going on.

And that was when the confrontation began, between the Personal Trainer & I. I looked him straight in his eyes, very intensely & listened to him. I made sure that my eyes showed no sign of retreat or fear, before I would begin speaking next.

After hearing his explanation of what he was trying to explain to Rebecca, I tried to counter his aggressive approach by coming forth in a strong assertive manner. I explained to him that Rebecca has a tight budget & she’s not willing to spend this amount of money on Personal Training, well at least not at this point of time.

The atmosphere was tensed as both of us spoke & countered each other’s statements. He dived into Rebecca’s assessment results, saying that she is not working correctly on the gym machines & need a few sessions with a Personal Trainer to correct her techniques. I countered by saying, “Isn’t that why the Fit Pros are around?” Then he said that Fit Pros will not be around to assist for the entire workout duration. So I told him that she cannot afford the training fees now & we do have a business card from one of the Personal Trainers at California Fitness, so we will give him a call, if we do require such training in future.

Of course, these are just two of the intense exchange between me & that Personal Trainer. I think he really gave California Fitness a very bad impression.

So in the end, I thanked him for his time & he walked off. Rebecca tried to reassure the nice Fit Pro named Mohd Danil that his time wasn’t wasted & she might consider him in future, if she needed the training.

In fact, Rebecca told me earlier that she didn’t like him because he’s quite gay (we were not sure if he’s really gay) & was totally turned out by his aggressiveness to close the customer sale. In fact, after this conversation ended, she even told me that she saw ‘money signs’ in his eyes & was convinced that he was just trying to persuade her because of the money. He didn’t seem that he wanted to help at all. He just wanted the money.

In any case, I’m equipped to teach Rebecca how to use these gym machines. Afterall, I’m trained in the BEC that I had taken, which is the actual learning objectives of this course.

I mean, seriously… why has training got to be time specific? Why do we purposely need to set ourselves a deadline that I must lose my excess body fat in 3 or 6 months? Even if a person cannot afford it now, still ‘die-die’ must go for it now? NOW? Of course, body image is important, but it isn’t a life & death issue.

In fact, after thinking it through, that’s why I signed up for the BEC, then later on follow up with the FIC… so that I will be equipped with the necessary knowledge to design my own training programs, along with the knowledge of how to perform gym exercises & workout machines. Then I can help other people like Rebecca & my friends who may ask for my advice.

I believe in learning to fish… not just waiting to be fed fish.

And through it all, I will become more knowledgeable & able to assist others. Not because of money, but because I can help. Either way, being pushy is all wrong. You get a bad reputation & people end up not liking you. How beneficial is that in the long run?