A while back, my scribblings upset an unemployed strength and conditioning coach.
For reasons that I am sure have nothing whatsoever to do with his inability to find paid work in his field, he got very angry about the fact I only sell straightforward solutions to the various fitness problems plaguing ordinary people.
It makes me “another Herbalife bro”, apparently. (A jibe that amuses me greatly, given how I am unequivocally against anyone who isn’t an appropriately qualified and registered medical professional giving any advice on nutritional supplements.)
Poor fellow just couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that someone might not be interested in working with elite athletes.
Strange.
What’s my point?
Only that there are a lot of people in the fitness industry with delusions of grandeur, and your results, health, and general well being depend upon you giving them a wide berth.
Why?
The market for elite S&C coaches is tiny, yet the supply of personal trainers who believe themselves qualified to work with the best of the best is enormous and growing year-on-year.
Obviously this means that most of those people are going to either end up among the ranks of the long-term unemployed like Our Hero or settling for plying their trade online or in ordinary gyms.
The latter group are rather dangerous.
This is because they live out their dream by forcing wildly inappropriate advanced training methods on their unsuspecting clients. The end result of this is always some combination of confusion (due to the complexity of the programming), frustration (because despite best efforts it doesn’t produce results), and pain (from exhaustion and injury).
Yet these nuggets continue to ply their poison because their egos are too large and fragile to cope with showing James the accountant how to get stronger so he can effortlessly carry his daughter atop his shoulders for many miles and Sophie the businesswoman how to lose a little weight without obsessing over calories.
I am the first to admit this boils my urine more than it probably should.
But that is why I am always around to pick up the pieces or, ideally, steer people in a different direction before they come to harm.
On that note:
If you want results you can keep for more than a fleeting moment and you are happy for them to come slowly, please email me (my address is phil at phil tyreman dot co dot uk) with your number one fitness goal, and I’ll respond personally and promptly to see if I can help you out.
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman