overweight personal trainer?

Another good point.

Lots of PT knowledge is just about the right position to stand, how to adjust for injuries, the right way to scale up exercise programmes.

That's all in the head, not the body.

This. I know people in this thread have disagreed, but my view is that as a PT you need to be fit to be effective at your job.

I’d love a personal trainer without an intimidating body, who could understand what being utterly unfit might feel like.

With respect - people can be overweight for many reasons. I'm currently recovering from a triple leg fracture that saw me hospitalised - it took me months to be able to walk again far less train.

I've also worked beside personal trainers who were slim - but never trained. I remember a manager of mine saying to me - she doesn't train but she looks like she does

A gym instructor at my gym put weight on because she had two kids in two years. If some people want to gravitate towards a PT that looks extremely fit that's fine - but there could be reasons why some people don't.

My gym classes were always full - people liked what I did. People can be very fit without looking muscly and having a six pack.

People are overweight for a variety of reasons. Honestly, I would likely feel more comfortable with an overweight PT who knew their stuff and could help me. Most overweight people are terrified of the gym and PT’s because they are almost always very fit people who have always been very fit and who haven’t personally struggled with being overweight.

If Usain Bolt offered to be my running coach but was fat now I wouldn't say no just because he is fat. It doesn't negate all the years of knowledge and training that he has. Same applies to PTs for me, if they have knowledge and experience it's all good, where they are in their own personal fitness journey at that moment doesn't matter so much to me.

I wouldn't mind someone who was a bit overweight but fit and strong, and would probably prefer someone who had struggled with their weight at some point so that they might understand how hard it can be to lose weight.

My nutritional therapist is overweight.

She used to be morbidly obese. I value her insight because she’s lived it. She gets the struggle.

It makes her priceless to me.

Personal trainers are there to train you - to help you with your exercise goals. So if you're looking to improve fitness, strength train, improve mobility.

They are not dieticians and very few should be giving advice about weight loss.

Weight loss is not related to exercise. It is almost entirely dietary.

Don't hire a plumber and expect them to wire your electrics.

I'd expect them to be at least not overweight

I think it depends. There is a PT at my gym who is visibly & obviously overweight but actually he has already lost 8.5 stone and is a brilliant PT.

I’ve had midwives who have not given birth to children or breastfed and they were just as competent as those that had, so I’m not sure you have to do the things you teach about. It’s your self discipline that counts surely.

I’m not so sure. I was the thinnest I had ever been when I was drinking a lot (lots of after work events etc.). The French in general (especially the French side of my family) drink much more alcohol than the UK and don’t seem to be a lot bigger, same with Spain. And yes, we ‘binge drink’ too!

My last gym had a high bmi personal trainer. She had lost an incredible amount of weight on her own, along with classes and personal training at gyms, but was still overweight.

She had a fair amount of clients and packed classes - mainly women. She had great cardio stamina and clearly had muscles.
The gym was an independent powerlifting/freeweight type gym and tried really hard to foster a good gym culture. I loved it there!

If a personal trainer was out of shape I would find it difficult to take them seriously.

Some doctors smoke.

I have PT qualifications but don't work in fitness because I'm also BMI 35 and tbh, cannot be asked with assumptions about my diet and or ability to train others. I probably won't come back to this thread either after posting as people saying it's all greed does my MH in and are really unhelpful.

One thing I do know is that my health and ability to do shit is way better than when I was less fit but the same weight as I am now. I'm also a few dress sizes smaller.

My diet is great but I don't process fat or carbs well, so to lose weight I need to live on veg only and life is too short. I'm too busy with looking after other people plus have arthritis/thyroid/menopause/adhd so to me, sleep is more important and not eating impacts that as I wake up starving...

Do inspire my DH tho, who is now late 50s, BMI of 21 and can scale mountains with no issue, so think that's all that really matters as before he didn't do much exercise.

Far more ironic than this was the David Lloyd’s club where (at the time, a couple of years ago, may be different now) the entire sales pitch was based around the risk of diabetes, health risks of being overweight and unfit, how important a healthy lifestyle is etc.

The sales manager was morbidly, morbidly, morbidly obese, and a couple of the sales people were also obese.

It genuinely baffled me how they could deliver these in person speeches and not laugh. Over the phone, you can blag it, but with someone face to face, I can’t imagine how they were ever taken seriously. The sales pitch was intense!

Well, they say that 6 packs are made in the kitchen, not the gym.

i would assume that whilst they have their exercise locked down, they just aren’t feeling as disciplined as they would need to be to be a muscular powerhouse body wise.

and that would be fine with me.

I've just had a PT session with my PT who I have been with for over 8yrs. I can hand on heart say she practices what she preaches and she wouldn't ask me to do anything she wouldn't be prepared to do herself.

People can be overweight for a multitude of reasons