overweight personal trainer?

[taylorswift1989]

I recently joined a gym. It's one of a chain and it's great for what I need, but I've noticed that two of the personal trainers who work there are very overweight. All the female staff look fit and healthy, but the male staff look like they are in need of some personal training themselves.

(No one will be able to answer this, but I wonder if the standards are different for men and women. The women look exactly how you would expect fit and strong women to look - a variety of physiques for sure, but clearly they are fit and agile. I wonder if obese women would be employed at this gym, even if they had the qualifications?)

Is it unreasonable to think that personal trainers should look like they have the ability and discipline to achieve the goals that their clients are working towards? I know people come in all shapes and sizes, and a larger person may be very fit and skilled at certain sports, and/or an excellent teacher, so maybe I am being unfair? But we are talking about people who are obese and who do not look fit or healthy. Even if it doesn't affect their skill at training clients, does it make a difference to how much trust you would put in them to be able to help you towards your fitness goals?

YABU - It wouldn't make any difference to me as long as they were qualified and knew their stuff in theory
YANBU - It would make me wonder if they had the discipline or ability that they are trying to teach their clients

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!

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!

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 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'd expect them to be at least not overweight

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.

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.

I think that's where I'm coming from with this, the idea of practising what you preach. I feel that if someone has been very overweight and lost weight and got fit, that's extremely valuable. Likewise someone who understands the discipline involved in staying fit and strong despite whatever challenges. No one has to be perfect, but as someone who wants to lose weight and get strong, I guess I want to be trained by someone who has been able to do that for themselves.

That's really admirable and I would expect most people to find his experience adds a lot of value.

Well I suppose that's what I'm asking, really. Should they be practising what they preach? I'm not sure if your analogy is the best one - to me, it's more like having a driving instructor who hasn't passed their test or who has several points on their license. You might relate to their experience and struggles, but ultimately, you'd prefer someone who was able to walk the walk, not just talk the talk?

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.

That's an interesting perspective. I guess I'm thinking that a PT would be able to help me with my strength and fitness goals (and honestly I would never ask for nutritional advice because we're all so different) but it would give me pause if they looked weak or unfit. The two PTs I'm talking about look very obese, not just a bit overweight, and I suppose I assume that physical training and conditioning is in large part about getting your body into a healthy state. Also, I guess I feel like their bodies are their best reference for potential clients - if they can't get themselves into shape, then can they be trusted to get someone else into shape? Maybe that's not fair, though. As long as they have the knowledge in theory, they don't need to show they can put it into practice?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

It wouldn’t bother me. A lot of the fit looking pts at my gym are too busy staring at themselves in the mirror. It put me off using one of them. As long as they are knowledgeable and can teach well I don’t see the issue?

May be they're rugby players.

BMI is notoriously unreliable as a measure of health for certain sports. I'd take health and fitness advice from Hannah Botterman long before I took it from the waif at the gym who said, "Ooh, you don't eat wheat, do you?"

Eddie Hall is surely obese? but I bet he'd be a bloody brilliant personal trainer especially if your goals are heavy lifting

I wouldn’t say a heavier person couldn’t be a PT because all different people look into PTs for all different reasons. Someone with a low body fat percentage could be a very poor PT. For me personally if I was going to hire a PT I would want someone who has a similar life experience to me I guess so I wouldn’t want a man in his twenties who has lots of free time to work out but also wouldn’t necessarily prefer a person who has struggled with obesity and whose only experience is with that- I’d be more interested in someone whose life experience includes children, menopause, and professional experience includes maintaining at target weight, weight training to complement running and for supporting health in 40s/50s - but the person I have described might not suit other clients. Everyone has different things to bring to the table.

‘slim’ does not equal ‘healthy’ necessarily!! We now know that we are genetically all shapes and sizes and the culture of everyone striving to look a certain size is misinformed and toxic. It’s judgements like those that fuel weight cycling and disordered eating/ exercising culture in some people. In a similar way that social media etc have set the bar of what features are “attractive” leading to young women injecting filler into their lips and cheeks etc so they end up all looking the same!

Actually, I suppose that's the thing, you need someone to inspire you and that's going to be different for everyone.

I'm as strong af and over the years have lost weight in many different ways but if you want someone who can post gorgeous butt shots on IG, then I'm not the one for you.

It's the relationship that counts really, bit like therapy.

I absolutely agree you may have a point on the sex split here, would an overweight female PT be employed? Too small a sample to be sure but social norms would suggest no.

That was my first thought too.