I had a person from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology ask me why, in my 40’s, I went back to school to do my Ph.D. The simple reason? No one cares about Personal Trainers.
Yup. I said it. No one cares about Personal Trainers.
Do a search in an academic research database and see how many research studies you find on the health and well-being of Personal Trainers….When I started my literature review in late 2019 guess how many I found?
ZERO.
Not a single piece of research looking at how to help Personal Trainers, those people whose career is dedicated to helping others improve their health and well-being. Now, thankfully, a few studies have been published in the last two years….but why so few and why has it taken so long?
I think I know why.
I meet a lot of different people in the work that I do. Some of my work is in the fitness industry and some of it’s in healthcare. And when I meet people and they ask what I do, I share that I’m also a Ph.D. student. Naturally their next question is, “what are you studying?” When I tell them I’m studying how to build resilience in Personal Trainers so we can reduce the rates of burnout, they get the most dumbfounded look on their face.
“Personal Trainers get burned out?” is often the next statement.
There is an assumption that because of the knowledge we have we are somehow immune to the health and wellness challenges everyone else faces. That by virtue of our training we are immune. If anything, the fact that we “know better” adds a whole other layer to the guilt and shame spiral we can find ourselves in when we are in a place of not taking care of ourselves. We. Know. Better.
And…..
We. Are. Human. Just let everyone else.
We need help, support, understanding and compassion sometimes, just like everyone else.
I’ve been in this industry for 26 years and in that time I can’t even count how many Personal Trainers I’ve met who’ve been on the verge of burnout or who were in full blown burnout and left the industry all together. It breaks my heart. These amazing Personal Trainers who got into this field to help others, burning out and leaving the industry. The loss of these experienced trainers who have a wealth of knowledge and lived experience leaves a huge vacuum in our industry.
I believe that our power to impact the lives of others as Personal Trainers lies NOT in the pictures of our “perfect” bodies and our “perfect” food in our Instagram feed, but in our ability to struggle, to persevere and to use that life experience to help others do the same.
It’s time we start to care about Personal Trainers and it’s time that we stop shaming ourselves (and other trainers) for struggling, for being human. If I read one more time that you’ll get hired because of how you look I’m going to lose my shit.
Lose my shit!
I get it, for some clients it’s all about physical appearance, and if those are the clients you want to train, then yeah, they’re gonna judge you. But those clients are a small fraction of the people out there who need your help. And the rest of the people out there really don’t give a shit about your abs.
So enough with making yourself (and other trainers) feel like a failure or feel like a hypocrite because you don’t look the way the fitness industry tells you you should look. ENOUGH.
It’s time for us to come together, to support each other and to have this conversation. And it’s time for academia to look specifically at the health and wellness of Personal Trainers.
If you are a Personal Trainer, Kinesiologist, Strength Coach, Health Coach (or whatever you call yourself), come and join us in the free group Personal Trainers with Passion and let’s start to change how we operate within this industry.