I have worked with 4 personal trainers over the past year, due to living in 3 different cities over that time. One of them pretty much knew her stuff, although she was of the old school mindset of "fat makes you fat, no fat allowed". With everything else though she pretty much knew her stuff so I'll forgive her that.
But they seem to be getting progressively worse in terms of, helpful and motivating enough, know the proper form and how to avoid injury during strength training but in terms of the big picture, they really don't seem to get it
For instance, my current trainer. First "OMG did she really just say that" thing she said to me was: "A woman should not have more than 20 pounds of body fat" followed by "You should put on 10 pounds of muscle through training". She's also talked previously about the fact that getting much below 20% body fat "wouldn't really be realistic for someone your age" (I'm 38).
Fortunately I'm one of those dorks who carries a calculator everywhere so I said "Are you sure that's accurate information? Check this out." Her eyes googled in her head as I showed her the calculations that she basically just told me that I should be at 14% bodyfat.
She says "Oh nooooo - that's way too low". So I said yes, I agree. But you can't say I should be at 122 LBM and 20 pounds of fat and 20% bodyfat - it just doesn't add up. I tried to teach her the simple formula to calculate this on her own so she could stop providing misinformation to other less dorky clients without calculators and she said "Oh god I havent done math like that since high school, don't even show me, I can't do it."
Okay then!
Then today she says Wow, I can really see the cuts in your arms. As I was saying "Yay!" she says under her breath "Now if we could just get you doing some CARDIO to burn off the FAT you could see them even more"
She KNOWS I have lost 40 pounds since February. That's 7 pounds average per month. How much faster do I need to be burning off the FAT to be successful?
I know, this is just the opinion of someone who obviously hasn't done too much reading or learning since she first started her fitness career 20 years ago. But what scares me is that from my experience over the past year, this ignorance seems to be the norm. I guess I should have known better when she dismissed my questions about her opinion on HIIT with "Oh GOD no, you need to stay in the CARDIO zone or else you're not burning any FAT if !"
your heart rate gets above 120!"
Honey my heart rate gets above 120 getting out of bed in the morning LOL
And then the Physicians Weight Loss center trip today. I had signed up for program last March, stopped going because I had to go up north for the summer, so when I came home I stopped in there figuring I'd paid for the program, I may as well make use of their body composition scale, since mine at home is very slow to move due to the weight training. Today I went in and I had put on 1 pound of fat since last Monday. I said to the cute skinny girl whose husband owns the place and she works there weighing the clients and selling them protein shakes and what not, "Wow that's odd. I have been eating no more than 1500 calories a day and working out 4 times a week, it seems it would be impossible that I'd put on a pound of fat." She said but what are you eating? I said yogurt, fish, chicken, vegetables, bran cereal with 0 sugar...She said yes, but what KIND of yogurt? I said NON fat, of course. She says and you say you eat fish, how do you make the fish? I say NO I dont put butter on the fish, or breadcrumbs, and 1500 calories is 1500 calories, you're missing the point. She says right....Are you eating late at night? And drinking your water?
AAaaaaaah! I'll buy my own body composition scale! I dont mind greater or lesser levels of knowledge about nutrition and fat loss but people that you PAY to know more about these things than you do - should know more than you do! Or at least not be so silly as to suggest that it's possible that you could put on a pound of fat eating 1500 calories a day with a BMR or 1500 calories and 4 strenuous workouts a week because you put BUTTER on your fish!
I know the simple answer is, if I dont like these people, dont work with them. Im just venting. I just think it's scary that there are people out there who actually trust what these people are saying
Because, we SHOULD be able to trust them.
Vent RE: "Professionals" and Misinformation
given the amount we pay we have to get the good stuff! 
