Free Personal Training Sessions Are Just. The. Pits. And Here's Why -

I occasionally employ free trials as a sales tactic at work - when a potential client (and everyone is a potential client) is dubious about the quality of my work, there's no more effective way than to jam a foot through a closing door than to offer up a risk-free, complimentary taste of the goods. During the free trial, it's my goal, as a salesperson, to demonstrate a dearth, and to satisfy it so completely, that there's no question that I'm the superior service provider. It's the client's job to defend their soft dollars, and refute the suggestion that a need exists, and scrutinize my performance. And so the dance begins; a series of interactions that's part-performance and certainly full of tension. By its end, both parties will have reached some level of utility; capitalism is achieved markets are efficient, the kingdom is saved. 

If you happen to be a personal trainer by trade, the strategy subsists analogously. "Heather", thirty-three and reeking of Mid-Atlantic strip malls, sat me down to demonstrate the dearth - expose, through some form questions and 'test's, my insecurity, my inexperience, my ignorance about diet and exercise.

H: What are your fitness goals?
H: What's your diet like?
H: What would you like to change about the way you look?

As the client, it was my job to defend my disposable income against her witchcraft, by exhibiting that there was no dearth - that I was perfectly confident, clever and capable:

M: To squat 120, press 100 and deadlift 170 by July. I'd like to increase posterior chain strength to compensate for anterior dominance. I used to be a swimmer.
M: I'm on a macrobiotic diet. I consume approximately 80 grams of protein daily.
M: Nothing.

We advanced to the mat, where she again reapplied the pitch, while I reapplied resistance. I sassed my way through some warm-up exercises; she remarked that my hamstrings were abominably weak. I disagreed on the form she recommended; she cited the American Academy of Sports Medicine. (I met defeat on the push-up mat; I breezed through two sets of fifteen; she countered by assigning two more. Red-faced, puffing, dripping sweat, I had to fumble a nod when she said, triumphantly and didactically: "See? That was hard, wasn't it?" Never get in a land war in Asia, never challenge a Sicilian when death is on the line, never put your push-ups where your personal trainer's mouth is.)

The second reason personal training sucks is that it's so goshdarned dogmatic. Working out is, after all, an endeavor of vanity. Subscribing to an exercise and nutrition regiment - and then making a concerted effort at adhering to it - takes so much devotion that it's impossible not to take different denominations personally. I'm not really combative by nature*, but this woman was getting under my skin with her questionable directives, and I hers, with my arrogance and impeccable form.

I ultimately survived - both the hour with Heather and the ensuing sales pitch - unscathed, save for some upper-arm soreness the morning after.


*Not really