Douchebag Trainers and Bad Advice

I was reading a post on the gram the other day from this gorgeous, stunning, beautiful, lean fitness model-type.

I won't actually put her real picture here, but she looked a bit like this:

(So, you know, a bit like me...)

She was saying how she really didn’t want to train today, or yesterday. That sometimes, she just has no motivation.

BUT… drum roll… she’s going to train anyway. Because that’s just what you have to do. You can’t wait for the motivation to strike. You just need to crack on and do it even though you have no desire to whatsoever.

This was her, what I imagine she thought to be, inspiring solution to the problem that oh-so-many of us face.

Well, I think this is shit advice.

Why?

Because most people haven’t reached their health, fitness and aesthetic goals. Exercise and movement haven’t become routine. It’s not a habit. They also have never experienced much success (especially not lasting success), and they’ve never found anything that works for them, that they can maintain in the long term.

So this message of “just suck it up and workout you fatty” doesn’t really inspire.

Nor does some picture-perfect skinny, toned model telling the unfit masses “If I can motivate myself when I don’t feel like it, so should you” really, actually inspire anyone.

It probably makes quite a few people feel bad about themselves. Some of them might get themselves to the gym, like a schoolgirl that’s had a good telling off. But I doubt it makes them feel inspired from a place of self-worth and hope.

This is the problem with lots of coaches and fitness freaks. They think “well, I’m doing it, so they should be able to do exactly the same”… “it’s just excuses”.

As one gets fitter, and exercise gets easier and less scary, one gets further and further away from the mindset of someone who doesn’t know how, or doesn’t have the confidence or motivation, to eat well and keep (or get) fit.

Most coaches are like this, they forget what it was like to be that person who so desperately wants to change, but doesn’t know how. (Or perhaps they never were that person).

It’s not as easy as just telling them, “just do it”, because there are other obstacles in the way.

• Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with exercise in the past, and are traumatized

• Maybe they’ve done exercise in the past, but never got any results, so don’t truly believe that it will do anything this time.

• Maybe they are self-conscious

• Maybe they have a deep distrust of douchebag fitness professionals who make them feel like a piece of shit and set ridiculously high standards and berate them for not being able to keep up

• Maybe they don’t want to be horribly sore, like the last trainer made them, or like they were after that bootcamp because they wanted to at least look like they could keep up with everyone else

• Maybe they have been made to believe th