Clients

My clients are all pretty laidback, and I really like them for the most part.

They are typically in their 30's, single, Indian and looking to lose some weight for one reason or another. One is heading to India to meet his fiance, arranged or not, so he figured that he should shape up beforehand. Conversely, one gained a massive amount of weight last time he was in India that he is now trying to shed. There's another bride-to-be, and two skinny guys that are trying to build mass.

Anyway, one of my favorite clients, a guy that was trying to slim down, didn't renew his sessions this time around, so that was a bummer. At the end of 10 weeks with me, he honestly didn't need me anymore as I had gotten him through his plateaus (3 to 11 pullups, 30 to 50 pushups, lost about 3% body fat) and shown him a mess of exercises... but he was extremely intelligent and always a pleasure to talk to. As a trainer you want to be able to teach your clients, but there wasn't much that he didn't already know. Proprioception? Deadlifts work the erector spinae? Nutritional value of greens? Oh... read about those. His legs were actually probably stronger than mine too.. but maybe that's because I stopped squatting for my pants' sake.

On the flip side, he taught me a whole bunch of stuff. He worked at Microsoft in their gaming division so I learned about the technology industry and Microsoft. He talked about politics a lot, so I actually started reading more to be able to keep up with him. Indian culture was also a big part of our conversations... did you know there's a whole state in India that's waterlogged like Venice, Italy? On the occasions that I brought my mp3 player into the gym, he would recognize most of the artists I had, most surprisingly Kraftwerk, which is an early 80's German electro group. So I'll miss him.

Things I've picked up:
1. Perception is everything. My boss told me to "dress like a trainer," which meant to dress in form-fitting clothes and market my own body. Are you going to want a trainer that's overweight themselves?
2. People want their trainers to do all the thinking for them. And they'll take most things trainers say as the gospel.
3. Women have fairly predictable goals (hips, thighs, back of arms, stomach), while guys goals run the gamut.
4. Despite 3, women are a lot more fun to train because they are inherently weaker, so there is a far greater variety of exercises that are effective for them. Similarly, weaker guys are more fun to train. Also, women talk a lot more.
5. If nothing else, facial expressions are a great read on people's exertion levels. Of course I don't tell them that because a couple of them would probably fake it.