The Cutest Personal Trainer in Washington, DC: How I got my pet PUG certified as an “expert level” personal trainer
To become a personal trainer in Washington, DC you do NOT need to be competent, you do not need experience, you do not need to be able to produce results, AND you do NOT even need to be human!
One weekend I borrowed my sister’s pet pug, Calhoun, and I asked myself, “Could I get little Calhoun certified as a personal trainer? Could I get him ‘nationally’ certified today?”
So, I hopped on my computer and Googled “personal trainer certification” and struck gold on my 3rd click on the first page. My first click required you to show up in person, so the pug was out for that. The second one would have worked, but it was too expensive – I love Cal, but I am not spending $200 on his cert!
The third click met my budget of $50 and allowed me to get him certified without leaving my house.
Step one – giving the pug a last name! I decided on something regal – Calhoun J. Pigglesworth III. (Also pugs sound a lot like pigs.)
Step two – taking the test. I breezed through Cal’s test in about 30min. “Hold on!” you say, “that’s fraud. You took the pugs’ test for him.”
Yes, I did take his test, but #1. The test was ridiculously easy and did not prepare anyone, man or pug to help anyone accomplish any fitness goal ever. And #2. I should not be able to defraud a CERTIFICATION company in my underpants!
FACT:
It is way more difficult and rigorous to become qualified to cut someone’s hair in Washington, DC than it is to be responsible for someone else’s health and fitness! To get your barber’s or cosmetology license requires 1,500 hours of state regulated and mandated training, plus a board exam. However, to officially become a personal trainer, all that you need to do is print business cards that say “personal trainer,” and you are official in 49 out of 50 states, and Washington, DC.
FACT:
Incompetent advice can be fatal. In the summer of 1998, Anne Marie Capati, made the last mistake of her life – hiring an incompetent personal trainer. Fully aware of her high blood pressure, her trainer prescribed an ephedra based fat-burner and contraindicated exercise programming. A few months into their relationship, Capati showed up not feeling well, but the trainer pushed her through her workout. During which, she fainted and later passed away – she was 37!
I bring all of this up because for most people personal training represents a VERY significant investment of both time and money. However, there are absolutely no standards whatsoever to help consumers separate the masses of woefully incompetent trainers from the few who are truly qualified.
I am angered every single day that I go to work and see clients shelling out $1,000’s and $1,000’s of dollars to inhabit the same obese body year-in and year-out. I know what you’re thinking, “the client is probably lazy.”
A competent trainer can get results in as little as two hours a week. No one a good program will still be obese two years later. You can’t get washboard abs with out total compliance, but you can look a whole lot better with just a little bit of time in the gym on the right program. The perpetually obese clients that I talking about exercise 4 to 6 HOURS per week under the direct instruction of their trainer. The problem is that the advice that they are paying for sucks!
I am angered every single time I see another crappy trainer just “wing” another session – he or she is just making up exercises, making up reps, and making up rest periods, and generally pulling everything they can out of their butt. It’s just not right. There is a real science to fitness and fat-loss, and it has nothing to do with working your client into the ground, aerobics, or bicep curls.
By the way, if you are still falling for the aerobics myth click here to read-up on why you are wasting your time in the gym. I can get you 450% better results in half the time, and I’ll do it for FREE right now.
I want you to be an educated consumer. If you chose to invest in a personal trainer, I want you to actually get what you think you are paying for (if not more). I’ve hired about a dozen different trainers in my life and 11 sucked. That’s not coincidence, that’s statistics – 11 out of 12 are not worth the free session they offer up front.