Good job, Kyle. I encouraged him last year in his Quest for Separation from the Y. You'll do much better on your own.
Member
Culture change
Four years ago I was called into the manager's office at the YMCA and cautioned for getting healthy adults to barbell back squat below parallel.
Perhaps even more important than the changes this stuff works in an individual, is the cultural change wrought by barbells being more generally accepted. A lot of things have contributed to this, Crossfit, individual trainers and coaches working hard rowing upstream against the flow of bullshit in the fitness industry.
But the teaching method and thorough analysis of the basic barbell movements provided by the Starting Strength books, videos and coaches, this has also been a major contributor to cultural change. Once this stuff was strange and different, and people were afraid of it. Now it seems normal.
It's true that still only 2 of 15 trainers at the Y where I work can coach a below-parallel back squat, but at least half of them are at least trying to do it, and I don't get called into the office for this anymore.
I've had nearly 100 personal training clients, and all of them squatted and deadlifted. Every single day I've worked at the Y - after the first year, anyway - I've taught at least one random gym member to squat, deadlift, clean or snatch, so that's about 600 (some people learned more than one movement). And then there's another couple of hundred I've given this stuff to in their gym programmes. Altogether it's fair to say I've taught almost a thousand people at least one of the basic barbell movements.
I don't pretend to have coached them all really well, but they're still doing the movements where they wouldn't have done them at all, and doing them better than if they'd tried on their own. And a second trainer there is coaching as well as I do, while others are giving it a go with varying degrees of competence and success. The weird now seems normal.
As I said, four years ago I was called into the manager's office at the YMCA and cautioned for getting healthy adults to barbell back squat below parallel.
Today Ironedge is here installing a double rack, platforms and a matrix.
My work here is done.
Thankyou to Rip, all the SS coaches here, and the forum members who've given me knowledge and encouragement over the years. I know there are other trainers and coaches on these forums struggling to effect cultural change, I hope this encourages you, and I'm happy to answer questions about how it all happened.
TMPHBITEU
Good job, Kyle. I encouraged him last year in his Quest for Separation from the Y. You'll do much better on your own.
DRLVEGAS
You must realize this puts you two ahead of most gyms...Originally Posted by Kyle Schuant
Member
My own gym transformed over the summer. We had a maximum of three squat racks, but one of them had limited hours. A couple weeks ago they got rid of the smith machines, a few of the bench press stations and most of the single-use nautilus-type machines and filled the gym with stations where you can do squats or bench press or whatever. They also put in some platforms but they still haven't let go of their idea of "precious" equipment that nobody can use, so the platforms are cordoned off and nobody's allowed to use them. So you have to deadlift in the squat rack now. *Sigh* The net result is more squat racks AND more waiting because everybody does everything under the sun in the squat racks for lack of anywhere else to do anything. But it is a shift away from machines toward barbells.
Member
The personal trainers at my gym have their clients squatting way high, adding a fair amount of weight. I've talked to them all before about other stuff; they seemed like nice guys, and knowledgeable and enthusiastic about fitness. They do all free weight exercises; no machines or exercise balls. That style of training seems to be over. The gym recently replaced a bunch of old machines with racks. Not real racks with safety pins and all, but still an improvement. I'm trying to figure out a way to ask them why they squat so high without challenging their expertise.
Member
Well done Kyle.
Really, I found a lot of the problem is with the owners.
The owner of the gym I go to (A Fitness 19) told me that my deadlifts were making too much noise and I wasn't allowed to do them anymore. This was in front of one of their personal trainers, who verified later that I was doing them correctly and in control. Didn't matter, he said I was distracting the other gym members and "we're not that type of gym". Guess that serves me right for going for a convenient gym instead of a real gym.
The personal trainer told me later that the owner also yelled at him to be quieter with his deadlifts. It could be the PT was in the wrong as well as myself, but I never had an issue in my previous gym.
The owners tend to know less about weightlifting than even the PT's, and care about the bottom line. Barbell exercises will always be a niche, since 90 percent of people just want to do a few curls and run a treadmill to feel good about themselves. Do the owners oblige to the 10 percent that know how to train, or the 90 percent that rarely shows up when both pay the same dues?
Member
Kyle, have you got one of those indoor astro turf tacks down there?
Member
Well, in fact less than 10% know how to train (more like 0.5%, if that), but around 15-20% want to know. The people who want to know will pay extra, so a training person is worth more money than an exerciser.
For example, the Y's membership is $48.50 a fortnight (that's not just gym, but swimming pool, group fitness classes, and access to 3 other centres in the area). PT sessions are $35 for half an hour on direct debit, most do 2 a week or 4 a fortnight, so they're spending $140 plus their general membership, $188.50 in all.
Over a year, the general member pays some $1,300 (people buy pool goggles, coffee, that sort of thing too) and the PT member pays some $5,000.
The differences are greater than this, too, since you never get 100% of your membership fees from members, as people suspend when they're on holidays, and you have concession rates for unemployed and students and elderly and so on; but the sorts of people who get concessions tend not to do PT. So it's more like $1,000 vs $5,000.
Most gyms manage about 3% of their members doing PT. So if you have 1,000 members, then 970 of them are giving you $970,000 pa and 30 of them are giving you $150,000 pa. Thus, 3% of your membership are giving you 13% of your income.
As well, if someone shows up 8+ times in their first 30 days, they will almost certainly still be a member 12 months from now. 4 or less times, almost certainly not. If they do PT sessions, well they're paying extra and they have an appointment with someone, so they show up. So even if they just do 6-12 weeks of PT and then do stuff on their own, you keep them as members. Better retention means less money needs to be spent on advertising, sales staff and admin.
So when you factor in all that stuff, the 1/6 people who want to train effectively are worth much more than 1/6 of your gym as a whole, more like 1/2.
Question is, do you have the people who know how to train them effectively, who can provide that service? As Rip said in one of his articles, that's the genius of the machines - any idiot can use or coach them. Barbells, kettlebells, running coach or whatever - there's not so many who can coach that stuff. If you need 10-20 trainers for a gym, and there are dozens of gym in a town, it's going to be hard to find enough people.
And this is what I'm seeing this morning with all the gear fully-installed - every trainer has put their clients on it. People who have never pushed a prowler are putting it into programmes. Me, I'm remembering what a fitness blogger once said - you can tell what course trainers went to on the weekend, since every client gets that new exercise Monday morning. The advice of the article was, wait a while, try it out yourself, let it digest. I won't be programming in the prowler for a bit for that reason, I've just not used it much myself.
Culture change in gyms is a process, same as training.
First, the equipment is not available.
Second, the equipment is available but nobody knows how to use it.
Third, the equipment is available and some people know how to use it.
Lastly, the equipment is available and most people know how to use it.
I've stayed long enough to see the place go from the first to the third stages. The last stage won't happen in a mainstream gym, that's why I'm building my own.
Member
You might do better on your own, but you have helped alot of people and that should make you feel good. I have coached sports (volunteer) at the YMCA in my town for many years. During the season, even though I'm not a member they let me use the squat rack. It is never busy there. I find a lot of good people there that can utilize your expertise. You will see alot of older folks and middle age folks that would greatly benefit from Starting Stength. Most of the ones I know are scared to death of the big commercial gyms. I doubt they would just sign up to go for a new gym, but they might. Occasionally, people have asked me about how to squat or deadlift. I always tell them to buy the book and help them. There is one old guy there, he has to be 80. He couldn't even squat the empty bar when he started. Last time I was in, I saw him squatting his own weight below parallel with better form than me. This seems crappy to most guys here, but for that old guy he is way stronger now than he used to be.
TMPHBITEU
Book sales have steadily increased every month for the past several years. We're making a difference, I think.
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