July 22, 2005

Fat Man Frying

Is leaving one’s family and job to walk through America’s heat-scorched deserts the best way for a 400 pound, 39 year old man to lose weight?

Fat Man Walking Steve Vaught has gotten a lot of publicity for that strategy this month, including stories in the Washington Post and on MSNBC, an interview with Katie Couric and a feature on AOL. But asthe Post article points out,

Doctors, certainly, would call it inadvisable. A seriously overweight person who embarks on any kind of strenuous physical activity could place dangerous stresses on his joints and heart, said Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

And such activity is especially worrisome in an area of environmental extremes, without someone to support him, Klein said. Even if he weighed 100 pounds, "walking across a desert without someone standing next to him with an umbrella and a fan and Gatorade might really be a problem."

Vaught’s justification for the long walk is that it is the “hard way,” as opposed to “high dollar fast fixes” like “miracle weight loss drugs or fad diets that never seem to have lasting results or dangerous surgeries that cost about the same as a luxury car.” The problem with this reasoning (as the doctors said), is that his alternative is too hard, and lot riskier than the surgery. There may be health benefits for the first few vultures who spot this walking feast coming their way, but it seems that “worrisome” is an understatement for the fate likely awaiting Mr. Vaught. What point he’s trying to make about the costs I don’t know, since he admits that the walk will bankrupt him: “I am not in the best condition financially to go six months without income and have resigned myself to the fact that I will lose my car and property.”
Wouldn’t an hour or two a day in gym at 5 a.m. be a relatively inexpensive option, and just hard enough to satisfy Mr. Vaught’s taste for suffering?

Vaught also says that he hopes the walk will motivate him to change his behaviors and inspire others. It’s true that setting a concrete goal, even if unrealistic, can encourage a person make genuine progress. Mr. Vaught may be especially motivated now that his goal has been so widely publicized and the eyes of the world are upon him. But if he does succeed, it will probably be because his task will made easier, not harder, by concerned volunteers intervening along the way to motivate him to slow down. But future Fat Men Walking won’t likely get the same level of media and public support, so they’re best off not being inspired to follow in his footsteps. And gyms shouldn’t let themselves be too inspired either -- blasting the heat to 110, setting the treadmill to 3,000 miles and abandoning clients on it for six months won’t do very much for the membership.

Posted by Kristen at 12:06 PM | Comments (2)

July 18, 2005

Bad Trainer

Last week I pointed out a misleading headline about personal training which made matters looks worse than they were. But there’s no getting around the facts of this story: Personal trainer convicted of assault.

Here, it’s actually worse than it sounds: the guy attempted to murder his client by drugging her and then trying to suffocate her with Saran wrap. And take a look at these facts:

Wenskunas [the client] said Kelavos [the trainer] came to her Orange Tree condominium on April 4, 2002, to help her try to sell her treadmill. Wenskunas nine months earlier had hired Kelavos as a personal trainer through 24-Hour Fitness.

When he came to her home, Wenskunas said he offered her a pill to help her lose weight.

She later said during an interview that the pill made her feel as if someone had given her anesthesia, and the next thing she knew she was in her upstairs bedroom with no clothes on and wrapped in a blanket.

She was able to struggle free from Kelavos by jumping off a 12-foot high balcony, she said.

Can you imagine the kind of advice he had been giving her for nine months if he was able to convince her that selling her treadmill and taking diet pills were good fitness moves?

And it gets worse: although the original story said he faced almost five years in jail, this follow-up piece indicates that he served only 120 days. However, one silver lining is that the victim was so outraged by the outcome that she’s founded a victim’s support group, Crime Survivors Inc.

Posted by Kristen at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2005

Misleading

“Unhappy with Fitness Trainer, Woman Demands Money Back.” That’s the headline of this recent Action 9 consumer news report. At first glance, that summary seems accurate:

Kristi Stanfield wanted the expertise of a personal trainer. But after spending more than $1,000 for a trainer, she was unhappy with the results and wanted her money back.

Stanfield is a busy young professional who likes to hit the gym and get the most out of her workout. That's why she plunked down big bucks to hire a professional trainer through Beyond Fitness.

"I paid them approximately $1,200 for the year and began having problems almost right away."

Stanfield said her trainer was not showing up for sessions, didn't know much about workouts on the exercise machines and knew even less about nutrition.

"There was just a great amount of turnover and I felt that a lot of the people who were supposed to be training me knew less about fitness than I did," she said.

So far, so bad. But the headline seems wildly misleading when read in the context of the very last line of the story:

Stanfield has had several sessions with Rosen [a new trainer] and now she's turned down the refund we got for her from Beyond Fitness because she said he is what she's been looking for.

I guess the point of these consumer “Action” reports is to highlight the efforts of the crusading reporters on behalf of wronged consumers. But the real news here is that the new guy was so good that the client even turned down money offered for the missed sessions and bad advice. Why wasn’t the headline “Overjoyed with Fitness Trainer, Woman Refuses Refund”?

Posted by Kristen at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2005

Trainers Gone Wild

We all know that fitness trainers are in high demand these days. But if your personal trainer is obsessed with UFOs and worships the Egyptian Sun God Ra between sets, he might be the Most Wanted of all:

According to the FBI description, “Addis is extremely health conscious, physically fit, and an avid body-builder who has established himself in health clubs as a member or personal trainer.” This account indicates that he killed a woman he met at the gym. Does he train you? If not, how about this guy:

Says www.mugshots.com (not a fitness certifying agency): “John Julian is not as innocent as he looks . . . [a]lso known as "John John", he is a fitness trainer that used to work at "24 hour fitness" club. All things considered, however, I think it’s a credit to our profession that only one fitness trainer is among the approximately 500 fugitives who have made the FBI’s Most Wanted list (Mr. Julian was on a state rather than FBI list).

Posted by Kristen at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2005

Certifiable

According the American Council on Exercise, there are more than 300 fitness certification programs available to the public. Becoming a Personal Trainer for Dummies has a helpful run-down of the six best known certifying bodies in the personal training industry – ACE, the American College of Sports Medicine, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, the International Sports Sciences Association and the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. Directory.net has a extensive list of fitness certification organizations, as does personaltrainernet.net (together with a convenient comparison chart).

I’m certified by one of the organizations on the Dummies’ “best known” list -- NASM -- and am working on my AFAA credential. I hold a number of others, including one issued by the gym I work at, and I’m considering certification by ASCM.

What’s the advantage to multiple certifications? It’s not just the increased credibility that comes with having a string of acronyms after your name. Although there’s a certain overlap in what’s taught by each certifying organization, there are differences in focus, perspective and principles which make for a more well-rounded personal trainer who can serve varying populations of clients. Furthermore, the overlap itself is important: the process of repetitive learning makes understanding and speaking and the language of fitness second nature. And on the more practical side is greater job mobility -- some employers require particular certifications, or that their trainers hold multiple certifications.

Posted by Kristen at 12:02 AM | Comments (3)

July 05, 2005

Self Defense

Some people feel that asking a future spouse to sign a pre-nuptial agreement takes the romance out of the marriage. But the personal trainer/client relationship is a professional one, and the authors of Becoming a Personal Trainer for Dummies offer some terrific advice on how to start out on the right foot: hire a lawyer and negotiate a waiver of liability! They also suggest presenting the client with a disclaimer and informed consent form containing the following langauge:

I realize that my participation in these activities involves potential risk of injury, including but not limited to bodily injury, heart attack, stroke, or even death. I also recognize that there are other risks associated with exercise and personal training and that it is not possible to list every one.

Dummies, pp. 95-96.

Getting a lawyer is the easy part. What personal trainer doesn’t already have her own attorney? None that I know. In fact, most of the master trainers at my gym have entire law firms on permanent retainer. At $600 an hour, legal counsel is one of the best bargains going.

The tricky part is getting the waiver signed. Once the client apprehends the grave threat you pose to his life – risks so varied they can’t even be enumerated -- he may want a lawyer of his own. But this doesn’t have to put a chill on things. Most health clubs have conference rooms to accommodate waiver negotiations, typically adjoining the pilates studio. Pick the right caterer, and things can be quite civilized as counsel negotiate through the night towards a fair and equitable level of client injury and disability.

Due to the increasing popularity of pre-training legal summits, it’s now common practice for a client to dispatch counsel to your club in advance of the introductory free session. Ideally your own counsel will be advised of the arrangements so you can simply make the necessary introductions and go about your business. If the client appears as well, feel free to put him on a scale or whip out the calipers – but no training until the waiver closing has occurred.

Be aware that if your gym is running special promotions you may be called upon to execute paperwork concerning sweatshirts, mugs, tee shirts and the like early in the evening. Don’t mistake these for the waiver, which generally presents itself in a large black binder.

Leave it to the lawyers to thrash out the details. But don’t lose sight of the big picture. Given what’s at stake, it might be prudent to suggest an updating of the client’s will and health care proxy. Questions over who has the ultimate authority to remove life support – the trainer, the client’s spouse, or the assistant manager – should be fully addressed. Similarly, the agreement should cover whether training sessions are suspended for the duration of the lawsuit or merely on the days of the parties’ depositions.

Finally, some issues will require the participation of the club’s corporate counsel, such as whether the full membership fee or merely the discounted retaining charge is due when the client is in a coma.

Don’t underestimate the power of minimizing your exposure. A strong legal position makes for a stronger client, when the trainer is free from the spectre of litigation. Make sure that pushing your client beyond his physical limits doesn’t push you beyond your financial means!

Posted by Kristen at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2005

Inside and Out

Back from vacation at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Maggie Wang of Caustic Musings says that you’d be a fitness dork . . .

. . . if you had seen the endless masses of flabtastic American physiques on hideous display in tiny scraps of Lycra and Spandex on that beach. Going to a popular tourist beach for vacation is even better than a trip to Wal-Mart for solidifying one’s commitment to eating healthy and exercising regularly. The number of chubby children I saw was just plain wrong. Parents can make their own choices about diet and exercise, but there’s no excuse for letting your kids start out life overweight or even obese. It’s setting them up for all kinds of social cruelty when they get to junior high or high school as far as I’m concerned, not to mention all of the possible health issues that come with being out of shape at such an early age.

Parents get away with hurting their children on the inside in a way they’d never get away with hurting them on the outside. A couple of years ago Madelyne Toogood made national headlines after she was caught on videotape hitting her child in a parking lot; she plead guilty to felony battery. But when 13 year old Christina Corrigan died of congestive heart failure in 1996 weighing 680 pounds, her mother was convicted of only a misdemeanor – and not for nutritional abuse. It was for what they found on the outside of the child’s body – bedsores – not her weight. The prosecutor had brought felony charges, but he stressed that even those were “based on the condition of the child's body, not the size of the child's body," And this is how the the defense attorney summed things up: "This is a case about fat prejudice. It's absolutely about that, a prejudice we don't even know we have.”

Posted by Kristen at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)