Why is there so many & what are personal trainers meant to actually do?
- Aug 22, 2016
- 5 min read
Recently I had a conversation with a client that they had a real struggle to find a trainer and I had gander into it starting with why, and how many trainers are there, coming from a trainer it seems every kid under the sun is a trainer or WBFF PRO or a IFBB PRO. seems like no one does anything anymore but eat chicken, broccoli, and drinks protein drinks hangs out at the gym everyday checking to see how much you bench or how much body fat are you.
With such a large worldly cultural acceptance of the health and fitness industry now, people are now prepared to spend and spend sometimes big on keeping their health & fitness in check and most likely trying to reverse damage they have done to themselves from poor eating and lifestyle choices in the past 10 - 15 years. just as a fun fact in the U.S. alone personal trainers and fitness instructors is such a growing industry that more and more people are choosing a career in the industry, just over 24% growth for personal trainers in the last 10 years.
The following factors are projected to create sustained job growth for these professionals: Ageing people wanting to remain physically fit, the dangers of childhood obesity, which is HUGE in the GCC, businesses offering employees fitness programs.
For the UAE results of how many trainers can't be conducted yet as because NOT all trainers are registered or qualified trainers at all. So for what we can find is plenty of health surveys. Results from a health survey conducted from 3,298 people of all ages and sex, by Dubai Health Authority (DHA), and Dubai Statistics Centre (DSC), indicated that 50.5% of those who took the survey ate fruits once a day! and 29.9% ate fruits twice daily, while 42.7% ate vegetables once daily and 32.2% ate vegetables twice daily. for me a pretty alarming stat when it comes to what residence and locals from all walks are actually consuming.
The survey also showed:
- 19.6 per cent Emirati men and 18.5 per cent of Emirati women suffer from high cholesterol
-18.9% of the total Emirati citizens are diagnosed with hypertension (high blood-pressure)
- The percentage compared to the total Emirati population number is 19.1%, 3.9% for non-Emirati males and 6.6% for non-Emirati females and in total 4.3% for non-Emirati population
- 36.1% of the population sample was in the pre-obesity stage (or overweight according to the classification of the body mass index)
- While 11.9% of the total sample suffered from obesity (22.5% for Emirati's and 11.5% for non-Emiratis) (according to the medical journal the definition of suffering from obesity is an abnormal accumulation of body fat, usually 20% or more over an individual's ideal body weight which for a male example average height of both females and men in the uae:
#5'9 small frame (58.5kg - 64.4kg) medium frame (63.0kg - 69.4kg) large frame (67.6kg - 77.1kg)
And for Females:
#5'1 small frame (48.0kg - 53,5kg) medium frame (52.1kg - 58.5kg) large frame (56.6kg - 63.5kg)
* As a quick test a definition of medium-frame: Your middle finger and thumb just touch when you hold your wrist. You are large-framed if your fingers do not touch. You are small-framed if your fingers overlap.
- Health state of the elderly, the survey results showed that 14.7% suffer from high cholesterol and lipids in the blood, 24.7% suffer from hypertension
And that was only from a small number off 3,298 people!.
As of 22nd December 2016, the Gulf paper reported "Dubai: Over 30 per cent of deaths occurred due to heart disease and more than 36 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women in Dubai are overweight, with 11.9 per cent people being obese. So from just those statistics alone Dubai is heading in a really bad situation regarding overall health to its residence.
So now we know why there is a demand for fitness professionals alike and why there is so many now in Dubai, yet I feel there are still many more to come, with the industry just so young! Our next subject in short is what are they "actually" meant to do for you as the the industry grows so does the expectations of our fitness and heath professionals.
There is a lot of fitness professionals but are they actually professional at what they do or are they just a cowboy picking on potentially easy jobs, praying on the weak, the self-conscious overweight, or mentally exhausted and riding that train to the bank and extra financial security, people having to sav through all the shit trainers that have no real goal of helping you or don't have the means or training, or actually properly coaching you in proper ways to train, eat healthy, how to manage being the fit and healthy new self you should be. Overall become a better self, which is actually what personal trainers and fitness professionals are meant to be in my mind other than just do these exercise 3 days a week. Of you go...
Iv come across many articles about how to pick the right trainer, especially from said magazines, how to get the best price from a trainer, how to test your trainer, does your trainer do these 3 mistakes, are trainers good for you, etc.
Probably not just a one word answer there is always more to it, but lets just get this out there, every program or training system works! its wether its right for you and your goals, the trainers job is to find that system that works for you and find that program or create that program that works for you, and it is simple but its time and commitment by you the client information from the client as well as it is you who is doing it so if your trying your hardest you get the better results if you just do the minimal effort to get the program done you get minimal results.
There is no simple way to find out what works unless its tried and tested, much like any program is tried and tested by the people who designed them first. To finalise there a many things a pt can do for you from being that spotter guiding your workouts pushing you throw those sets to reach failure safely, to guiding your lifestyle to a more healthy one, nutritional knowledge and tips, helping you eat correctly for your shape and goal, show you what’s good and false in the industry, being that support and wealth of knowledge, and lastly taking data down and showing you your progress and the different ways to progress to higher levels of strength and fitness.
(https://www.personalcapital.com/blog/investing/what-is-a-healthy-body-weight-for-males-and-females/, http://www.averageheight.co/average-male-height-by-country, http://www.averageheight.co/average-female-height-by-country)
Comments