You’d better believe a man can reach his goals with a woman personal trainer; one man called me “es muy brutal,” Spanish for brutal!
I was inspired to write this article after a man at the health club where I was a personal trainer commented, “I’ve seen you training the women; you are TOUGH! You can even train the MEN!”
He meant well, but I thought, Wait a minute; first off, I already have male clients.
Secondly…what’s this implication that a woman personal trainer, as a general rule, can’t effectively train a man?
If you believe that a woman cannot be a good personal trainer for a man, this is likely based on what you’ve observed at your gym.
And I’ll admit, I’ve seen female personal trainers who had a “powder puff” approach to their female clients, and weren’t much harder on their male clients.
Personal training is not supposed to be powder puffy or elegant.
It’s supposed to be tough, hardcore, even grueling (save for special populations such as the elderly).
The client is paying a pretty penny for someone to help him do something that he can’t do on his own — and often, the “can’t” element is more about motivation than lack of knowledge.
Freepik.com, rostooleh
Yes, a female personal trainer can kick a man’s butt. But there’s something else special about this arrangement:
When a male client sees that his female personal trainer is stronger, he’s going to be very motivated to build the muscle and strength he wants (which will in turn cause fat loss and a better looking physique, including flatter belly).
If a man has a male trainer who can bench press more, this doesn’t have any shock value.
But if his lady trainer is benching 155 and he can barely do 95, well…he’s going to be stunned and fired up.
Not that the woman trainer should show off, but sooner or later in a session, it’s going to become obvious she can lift more weight.
This revelation comes when the trainer demonstrates something with ease, to teach technique.
The male client takes the same weights and struggles. He now knows she’s a lot stronger.
A good instructor will demonstrate an exercise before handing it over to the client.
Even something as seemingly simple as seated overhead dumbbell presses can be done wrong.
I’ve had to demonstrate this more than once to clients who couldn’t figure out how to raise and position their arms efficiently, despite holding very light dumbbells.
So yes, the revelation of female personal trainer strength is inevitable sooner or later.
But must the female trainer be stronger than the male client to help him reach his goals?
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Absolutely NOT. I had male clients who were stronger than me, but who had unmet goals which included fat loss and cardiovascular conditioning.
Shutterstock/ 9nong
However, I was also able to help them get stronger with compound movements, even though they were stronger than me.
I showed them how to bust past plateaus, improve their form and introduce new exercises or body positioning that they had never thought of before.
When a man sees a buff, strong female personal trainer, he knows that she must know something about achieving a desirable physique.
After all, it’s harder for women to keep a low body fat percentage and put on muscle when compared to men, due to physiological differences.
So if she’s accomplished this for herself, she can certainly help a man do so as well.
