Gym memberships are not cheap but they’re an investment. Invest well and you don’t die a horrible drawn out death and enjoy a longer time walking, running and climbing around this great planet of ours. But it’s the only damn investment that is almost completely lawless and unregulated.
We recently welcomed a new member athlete to Pinnacle. While we were completing their onboarding test (we call it the Pinnacle Global Rating), he was quick to say that he’s been training for 3 years with their previous trainer and was getting stronger. He simply had to change trainer because he left town (we call this a single fitness relationship).
Fast forward to the Bench Press, we asked what weights they had previously been lifting and said, “I don’t know, my trainer looked after that.” Odd but OK. So then we moved to the Squat, same reply. And by the time we got to the Rower and found out that their previous trainer never told them what distance or speed they had been rowing, but simply got them to complete 12 minutes at the end of every session “to lose more weight”, we had to take a deep breath and reflect.
To me, it looked like our newest member just spent 3 years with 3 sessions per week (in excess of HKD300,000 in total) to not only have zero tangible results to speak of, but most worryingly of all, no idea even what a weight, rep, or session aim looked like. Well, if I was to look at it as a landlord, it is as if I wasn’t even offering my tenants a floor to put their furniture on. I doubt I could lease the house. How is it that the very foundation of fitness, results, can be so blatantly, and unethically abused?
As a coaching team, we then discussed the way forward without undermining the huge time and financial investment by this person, no one wants to think they have wasted that much. And to be fair, maybe he didn’t agree that he had because the remit they gave their ‘trainer’ may have simply been to keep me company and entertain me. Fair’s fair, you achieved your goal. However, if like most of us, your goal had been to be the best version of yourself at a reasonable and agreed speed, then not knowing your own capabilities or learning how far you have come from a starting number to now is both naive and wasteful.
The clear and straight point here is YOU are responsible for your success. Try blaming your primary school teacher that you can’t spell correctly today, or your financial advisor in 20 years when you are still spending too much on takeaway coffees. You won’t have much sympathy. That said, the least you deserve from a ‘professional’ is tangible, recorded, evidenced success of your journey. If you don’t want to achieve your goal and prefer blind optimism for tomorrow, then do nothing. However, if you are committed to your number and your outcome, then start demanding more transparency for your hard work and never settle for an opinion, learn by facts. Learn through numbers.
