A theoretical coaching question

[Steve in ATL]

Mark,

As you may remember, I coach folks in a different sport than weightlifting. Anyway, an interesting conundrum has come up, that leads to a question: If you had a trainee that told you he was willing to do anything he had to to be a very, very strong man, was willing to spend any amount of money on any bit of exercise equipment, but then regularly skipped workouts (for various reasons: too tired, unusually tired, felt a cold / flu "coming on," too cold outside, cats and dogs were sleeping together, etc), what would you do?

Assume that this person has already been told that his demonstrated work ethic was not in alignment with his lofty goals.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Depends on what he was paying me.

[RobertFontaine]

If he was paying you more would you be more honest with him or less?

[Bleve]

Mark,

As you may remember, I coach folks in a different sport than weightlifting. Anyway, an interesting conundrum has come up, that leads to a question: If you had a trainee that told you he was willing to do anything he had to to be a very, very strong man, was willing to spend any amount of money on any bit of exercise equipment, but then regularly skipped workouts (for various reasons: too tired, unusually tired, felt a cold / flu "coming on," too cold outside, cats and dogs were sleeping together, etc), what would you do?

Assume that this person has already been told that his demonstrated work ethic was not in alignment with his lofty goals.

I'm a cycling coach first, a S&C coach second so I know a little of where you're coming from. I'd tell the kid to move on, he's wasting your time. Unless you just want his money and don't care if he shows up or not, but that's an ethical decision you get to make!

[nisora33]

I've actually had this conundrum a time or two now.

Several things to consider. What Rip said is one of them. How much do you need the money (maybe your clientele is low at the moment, or maybe the sum your getting paid by this person and others like him will get you by until you can afford to be more picky about whom you train later)?

Another thing to consider, if you work in a big commercial gym like I do, where word-of-mouth rushes like a wildfire, is that if you continue to train this guy, and he continues to bail on you, weeks or months from now he may blame you for his lack of success, even though you did your job and provided him with the best of all opportunities for success, and he'll run his mouth.

I've had the latter thing happen. People are lazy, really fucking lazy, will blame anyone and anything but themselves for their lack of progress. And in a gym like mine, where the average gym-goer isn't discerning or knowledgeable enough to judge the quality of the product that I'm putting out there against the average snot-nosed eighteen year-old who gets his info from Muscle and Fiction magazine, word of mouth is HYOOGE. To an extent, I'm competing against the other trainers at my gym, whose talents run the gamut.

I don't know, I'd be tempted to cut him loose. Unless you're not going to be able to afford your GOMAD from now on, of course.

-Stacey

[Mark Rippetoe]

If he was paying you more would you be more honest with him or less?

You've already been honest with him. The question is, do you fire him as a client?

[KSC]

I get this shit all the time from clients. We all do if we train enough of them.

Me personally, I don't really give a fuck. If they skip a session, they get charged for it, and I sit around and get paid for drinking coffee for an hour.

I will do this as long as no one is knocking on my door wanting their time slot. If I have a lazy client and someone else comes around and wants to train in their time slot then I will fire them in a heart beat.

I don't get alot of these types of clients anymore however, as I have gotten better at pre-screening potential clients.

My $.02 - the older the client the better. Older clients generally see the value of your product better than younger people. My most long term and loyal clients are between 45 and 65 years of age.

[Steve in ATL]

Thanks for all the input, guys.

[tnumrych]

I'm a trainer (first job out of college) at the Harvard Business School in Boston and periodically I deal with similar stuff. The clients (usually students) talk a big game about what they want to accomplish, at which point I kindly explain to them that running on a treadmill won't really get them any closer to said goals and they need to lift big and actually eat like a human. They're all about it at first but the moment they don't feel their "abs and bis" after a workout their motivation goes to shit and the complaining starts (usually week 3). This type of shit has singlehandedly made up my mind about getting out of the "fitness" business. The average gym-goer is not willing to put work in to accomplish his goals, working with said population is too frustrating.

I concur with Coach Rip, if money isn't a problem, I'd consider firing the client.

Just my $.02.