August 20, 2013

Bridesmaids and a stolen personal training session in Sydney

Did you see the Bridesmaids movie??? I wasn’t a massive fan of it but I am in the minority it seems, however, there was a scene in the movie that made me chuckle big time. It was when the two lead characters were hiding behind a tree and ‘stealing’ a bootcamp session.

I had exactly the same thing happen to me last week during a session!

I was working with a one on one client at my gym in The Rocks, Sydney. It was her second session and thus we are still getting to know each other. I was explaining why posture is so important and I was demonstrating how to mobilize the thoracic spine (in basic terms: improve her posture). I was deep in the demo and enthusiastically selling the benefits of correct posture when I noticed that my client was totally distracted*

[*my personal trainer ego was slightly miffed as I know that I can sell mobilization of the thoracic spine to new clients like some P.T’s sell six pack stomachs…….. FYI good posture is, in my opinion, more important than a six-pack. A hunched over, rounded back is never a good look and def not good for spine health, the way we view the world, the way the world views us etc etc]

Anyway back to the story:

I followed my clients’ eyes and soon realised that a lady was standing uncomfortably close behind me without my knowledge. She was totally engrossed in the information I was delivering. My client was looking at her as if to question her close presence.

I initially ignored her and carried on talking to my client hoping that the lady would move away. I soon realised that this was not going to happen and when I asked her if I could help her, she simply responded with: “ I am just listening’. I carried on with the session but was totally dumbstruck and lost for words when she literally started stealing the personal training session by copying the exact same exercises at an extremely close proximity to us.

When this happened in the Bridesmaids movie, the stereo typical Bootcamp instructor yells:

“HEY! IF YOU WANT TO TAKE THIS CLASS YOU ARE GONNA HAVE TO PAY FOR IT LIKE THE REST OF THESE BI###ES!”

I sorta wanted to say something like this (without the profanity offcourse, the client was only in her second session and I didn’t want to scare her off so soon ☺). I have to confess that I actually had no idea what to do as this had never happened to me before. In the end the lady went over and joined a group exercise class that was going on. This saved our blushes and we were actually able to have a good laugh about it and get on with the business of the session.

You know guys, I would have been totally happy to share the love and had a chat to this lady afterwards and explain how she could improve her posture. I saw her lingering close to another session a couple of days later and this time I said:

“HEY! IF YOU WANT TO TAKE THIS CLASS YOU ARE GONNA HAVE TO PAY FOR IT LIKE THE REST OF THESE BI###ES!”

Just kidding……. I informed her politely that she could ask me questions later but asked her to give us more room for safety reasons as I didn’t want her to get hit by a swinging Kettlebell!

FYI check out the hilarious scene from Bridesmaids (someone has obviously recorded and posted with I Phone but still OK quality and you will get the idea)
http://youtu.be/gBsDb32cdPU

Jibber Jabber over n out.