What bad personal trainers will say to you

If you’re trying to get super fit, a professional, no-nonsense personal trainer can be a big help. The best ones teach you, encourage you and help you reach your goals. But there are a lot of lousy personal trainers out there, so you’ve got to be careful. Here are some of the big mistakes bad trainers will make.

1. I Can Help You Lose Your Gut and Only Your Gut - Spot reduction is not possible. It needs to be a total-body reduction. So if you want to reduce the fat around your abs, you need to reduce the fat everywhere. To do that, you should actually work below your waist and target your body’s three biggest muscle groups: glutes, quads and hamstrings. That’ll burn the most calories.

2. You Want a Tight Stomach - “One Word CRUNCHES” On a related note, crunches don’t really work that well. They won’t get you a tight stomach. They’ll just get you a hunchback because most people don't perform this exercise correctly. If you want six-pack abs, you have to cut the bad calories from your diet, because we all know that abs are made in Kitchen not the gym.

3. You Can’t Get a Decent Workout at Home - Yes, you can. Practically everything you can do at the gym and outside, you can do at home. You just won’t have a personal trainer yelling at you while you’re doing it. Which might be a good thing. (And will definitely save you money in the future.)

4. You Can Only Achieve That Body You Want With Me - Not true. You could get the body you want with any number of personal trainers. Or with no personal trainer at all. Your trainer is just saying this because he or she wants you to become totally dependent on them for no other reason other than to you keep coming back week after week. Many psychologists do the same thing, by the way!!

5. Sorry I’m Late Needed to Grab a Coffee - One, a trainer should never be late. And if he or she is, it should be for a very good reason. Two, a trainer should never drink coffee while he or she is with you. (And he or she definitely shouldn’t be downing a protein shake.) Your personal training session is about you, not him or her. If you went to the doctor and they came in with a double bacon cheese burger, you wouldn’t let that slide, would you? No I didn't think so.

6. You’ve Got Shin Splints - A trainer should never diagnose anything, that’s a doctor’s job without the double bacon cheese burger we hope! Which means your trainer also shouldn’t be saying, “Sounds like you’ve got a torn ACL” or “You might have ruptured a bursa sack in your knee” or “Yep, you definitely broke your femur” or anything else along those lines.

7. You Know What You Need “Whey Protein” - Unless he or she happens to be a certified nutritionist, a personal trainer should never recommend or prescribe supplements. Remember, he or she is a personal trainer, not a sales person for Holland & Barrett and any other supplement retailer.