Cheap Skate

Many people at the gym ask me for help with certain exercises and I am more than happy to help. Part of the reason I’m a personal trainer is because I find satisfaction in helping people improve themselves. There are those people though who take advantage of my kindness. For example, there is this little guy that has been asking me questions in the gym for months. I take my personal time and show him how to squat properly and so forth. I have no problem with this.

Recently he asked me to sit down with him to discuss his diet. So I put him in my appointment book and we met. I told him what I thought he was doing wrong with his diet and workout--which both sucked and might be why he weighed 130 lbs and 20% body fat. My suggestion was to use carbohydrate cycling and a body split workout. I told him I would give him a basic diet but that for training he would have to buy a few sessions.

The diet took me about an hour to write up. I E-mailed it to him and several days later I saw him at the gym. He said he had been sick and would E-mail me after he had a better chance to look it over.

I then ran into him this past weekend at the gym as I was getting in my car. He stopped me—again asking for me to give him more of my time—and then he proceeds to show me a body split workout he got off the internet and wants me to critique it. Can you believe the audacity of this guy? I was starting to get a little irritated and basically told him the workout sucked, because, well, it did. Obviously he wasn’t going to by any sessions.

Flash forward a few more days and I still haven’t heard back from this guy and it really pisses me off. Personal training is how I make money on the side. Again, I don’t mind helping people out but my good nature has caused people like this to take advantage of me. So, I am going to change the way I deal with people. I will still help people with an exercise or two but I will not give out diets or workouts unless I am paid. The only way you get free workout or diet information is if you are a close friend or family member.

I don’t have some fly by night personal training certification. You have to have a four year degree to even sit for the certification I hold--which is consider the best in the field. I must take continuing education classes and so forth to maintain my certification. This plus my yearly insurance runs around a grand. I also buy books, DVD’s and other training materials. There is also the hour upon hour I spend reading about the best training techniques. To sharpen my own physique and to broaden my base of knowledge I work with a nutritionist and of course this costs me money too. And lets not forget 27 years of workout experience. All those hours in the gym while other people were sitting on their couches eating chips.

I have a suggestion for people who think I should be giving them workout information for free. Why don’t you become certified and accrue all the expenses I do to stay on top of the training world. If you want information search out the best sources and read for hour upon hour.

And I don’t want to hear that this guy doesn’t have money. It is a matter of priority and I have made being the best I can be in this profession a priority. I pay to be in shape and to know what I know. If this guy were a butcher I wouldn’t come to his butcher shop with a side of beef and ask him to cut it for me for free. Can you imagine how incensed the butcher would be if I asked him to cut my side of beef up for free? Well, then maybe you know how much this guy and people like him have pissed me off. Sorry, no more Mr. Nice Guy…