2 Types of Gym People – Which are You ?

10 or 2 Hours Per Week? It's up to You!

Around 10 years of working out religiously, personal training clients and being that much closer to 30 has finally changed what kind of gym person I am.

Sitting here working on AskTheTrainer.com for hours and hours, changing my activity level to almost sedentary has actually forced me to change my gym personality.

I spent a good portion of those 10 years without having a break of over a week from working out.  Was this because I loved working out so much?  Did I love spending 45 minutes on cardio machines at 24 hour fitness every day?

The answer is no.  I didn’t have any lofty fitness goals or any goals for that matter.  I was going to the gym every single day strictly for maintenance.

Unless you enjoy doing 30-45 minutes of cardio 6 or 7 days a week and 45-90 minutes of weights 4-5 days a week there is no reason me or anyone should have to do so for maintenance.  This has caused me to come to the conclusion…

There are 2 Types of People who go to the Gym

Excluded are the people who are competitors in weight lifting events or athletes in various sports.  Out of all the people in America who frequent gyms, athletes are a very small minority.

Type I

People who go to the gym very often simply to support their unhealthy diet or lifestyle of excess.  I know this because over the last 10 years I have been this person.  I loved working out, but loved feasting like Thanksgiving dinner every single meal.

A client once told me I should go to Overeaters Anonymous.  It was true, and I also could have went to Gym Rats Anonymous also.

There is nothing wrong with lifestyle, if you like spending many hours in the gym.  If you enjoy eating giant amounts of food at restaurants every day this is the type of gym person who you want to be.

If you think you have better things to do than to sweat in the gym for 10 hours a week you may want to do what I have did.  I have finally made the commitment to change the type of gym person who I am.

TYPE II

People who spend the bare minimum time in the gym and have an impeccable, healthy and clean diet.  These people either have great self discipline, great genetics or have just made a choice.

After 10 years of spending a majority of my free time in the gym I was forced to change.  I wanted to create a huge fitness website which focuses on science rather than cheesy sales tactics.  That is not done overnight.

My website was my reason why I had to change.  If you are a Type I gym person, you may have your own motivation.  Maybe you have a family at home.  Maybe you need more time to watch your favorite TV shows?

I would guess that at least 25% of the people who frequent the gym would rather be doing something else.  What forces them to be at the gym is their own unintelligent decisions when it comes to diet and lifestyle.

Implications to Personal Training

This generalization would apply to personal training clients as well.  As much as a personal trainer likes to train some clients they would always let the client know this.

Just because someone has a personal trainer does not mean they will get results.  They must follow a smart, healthy diet to get results.

Personal trainers always let the client know this but sometimes it fails to be done.  Most people go to a personal trainer with a specific goal.  When they accomplish the goal they can either ween down the number of training sessions or discontinue training.

Anybody considering working with a personal trainer should realize that if they are a Type I gym person, they can look forward to shelling out thousands of dollars on their trainer before they achieve their desired results.

Everyone should be smart about what they put in their body and any kind of fitness training will pay off tremendous results, rather than the marginal results associated with training excessively to support eating habits.

There is a section on the website which is all about being a personal trainer which talks further about the subject of client’s goals.