Trainerphobia

I told you about how I like to eavesdrop on personal trainers, remember? Well, apparently one trainer noticed because now he insists on giving me unsolicited advice every time I see him at the gym. It’s getting out of control:

· I’m doing tricep exercises wrong.
· I’m doing lat pull-downs incorrectly.
· I’m a complete mess when it comes to abs
· And the best? I walk funny. (He offers imitations free of charge.)

I HATE it when he corrects me. I know, I know. I should WANT to do everything right but when someone tells you that you do everything wrong, you start to wonder if you could possibly be doing everything wrong or if he just likes to criticize. Or maybe he just likes to show off in front of his clients. Yes, he’s usually working with a client when he does this. Sometimes he even has them demonstrate the right way to do it for me. Oh, and this was the worst: He told one client to show me how to do it wrong and then how to do it right. After one attempt to do crunches as poorly as me she shrieked, “I just can’t do it wrong anymore!” And he laughed and said, “I know. It’s hard after you’ve learned how to do it right to do it wrong.” Ugh. Ugh. Triple Ugh.

Here’s my biggest problem: Even though I loathe seeing him, I always tell him I’m so appreciative of his help. Like I go way overboard on this. I’m like, “Thanks for taking the time to help me. I really appreciate it.” What? No I don’t. I hate it. I hate him. I hate that he’s so patronizing and most of all, I hate it that he reeks of smoke as he’s telling me how to get in shape.

So for a few weeks I avoided that gym location. I actually drove further to another location just so I didn’t have to see him! How pathetic is that?

On Saturday I braved my old location. I had a speech prepared: “Look, I don’t really feel like getting helped today. I just had this gum surgery and I’m trying to take it easy.”

I was doing this leg press machine when he came bouncing over. I gave myself a mini pep talk: “You can do it. Just tell him you don’t want to be helped. You don’t need his help. Remember how he imitated how you walked with your butt sticking out? You hate him. You hate him…”

He poked his spiked head around the machine and just as I started to say, “Look, the thing is,” He asked, “How many sets do you have left?” I was so caught off guard that I stammered, “Um, uh, I guess…two?” He said, “Great,” and walked off.

You know what that means? I’m doing something right! So today I’m bravely going back to that location. I wanted to do arm exercises with free weights but it’s too risky—too out in the open and too much room for error. So I’ll do them at home and then go do the trusty leg presses.

I mean, once you get so good at something it’s hard to do it wrong.