What’s Your Craziest Personal Training Client Story?
Ok, thought we’d lighten things up today with a little fun… and a contest.
Having previously owned a 2-location personal training business with 653 clients… and now working with thousands of fit biz owners through NPE… I’ve racked up my fair share of client stories.
Fun clients.
Sad clients.
Successful clients.
Struggling clients.
Wild and wacky clients.
And, of course, the completely off-the-wall crazy clients.
You name it, I’ve probably been there, done that.
And my guess is you’ve got your fair share of wild, wacky, and crazy client stories to.
What’s your best one?
Post it the blog (names withheld to protect the innocent).
Best story wins $50 gift certificate to the NPE Webstore, good for any of our best-selling business building products or coaching programs.
Winner will be chosen and announced in Sunday mornings post.
So post your story to comments below now.
Sean
P.S. No criteria required for your submission, accept nothing mean, nasty, or ill-spirited. Just healthy ‘venting’… which we all need from time to time.
Here’s another fitness marketing post you may enjoy.
While working as a Clinical Exercise Physiologist in a Cardiac Diagnostic Unit at a local hospital, one part of my job was prepping patients for stress tests. We would call the day before and give detailed instructions about the procedures and the appropriate attire for the procedure. Despite our instructions one patient, an elderly lady that was morbidly obese showed up for her treadmill stress test in her Moo Moo. I was not pleased as I knew that I would still have to prep her for her test by applying the appropriate electrodes to the appropriate locations. I told her that we would have to remove the dress temporarily to apply the electrodes then we could run the wiring harness through the neck of the dress. She whipped off the dress to a very large bare chest. Now you think that was funny now give me another second or two. Trying to remain professional I sucked it up and proceeded to apply the electrodes for the test. The last few electrodes needed to be placed along the ribline around the heart. Using my forearm to move her breast to get to the proper location, a wedge of toast from her morning breakfast fell from under her breast, onto her lap then onto the floor. Without missing a beat, she exclaimed! “I was wondering where that went, thought the dog got it!” I picked up and disposed of the toast, excused myself from the room (told her I needed more electrodes) and begged my associate to finish prepping her. He said not until you tell me what is so funny, I told him I would tell him after he finished prepping her otherwise he would be useless as well. Funniest thing to happen to me in my entire life. True story, hope it brought a smile to your face, it still brings a smile to mine!
I had a client – middle aged, that wanted to work out to lose weight. We talked about healthy eating and increased activity and the importance of the two working hand in hand. He didn’t want to adjust his eating and suggested that the exercise alone should do the job. We worked out 3 times the first week (no additional on his own). We worked out 2 times the following week. On our 3rd workout on the 2nd week he told me that he was “done”. (Please take note: we had completed 5 sessions and were about 15 minutes into our 6th session) I thought that he meant for that day – perhaps he was tired or didn’t feel well. He continued to tell me that he had not seen any results thus far so he wasn’t coming back. He was going back to his “diet place” where they give you a needle and you didn’t need to exercise to lose weight. He had done that previously and lost about 30lbs. – and of course had since put it all back on. I tried to “reason” with him but to no avail. He wasn’t concerned about his heart health, etc. He just wanted to lose the weight – preferably with little to no effort on his part. I lost him as a client…..
I’ll try to give you the Reader’s Digest version of this story.
A few years ago, I had a client referred to me. She was the neighbor of an existing client of mine. The woman came to me weighing near 200 pounds at…get this…barely 5 feet tall. She had tried other trainers and diet centers/plans with little, if any, success. Working together in the beginning was great. The more results we achieved together, the more she got into it. She ended up being a client of mine for 2 years and we got her down to a 136 lbs. It’s through this that things took a bad turn.
Not unlike many student/teacher relationships, she developed a little bit of a crush. That crush sooned turned to an obsession. It started with her hanging out at the gym more and more. Then she decided she wanted to try to get certified and see if I would hire her. That progressed to her making subtle, then less subtle, passes at me. She also did things like if I would go out on a weekend, she would show up. She would go to my girlfriends place of work and try to get personal information on her, on us, and just try to put a monkey wrench in our relationship. The kicker was when I found out she was parking across the street from my condo complex and watching me come and go. Creepy!
I tried to handle it diplomatically but eventually had to cut the umbilical chord completely. It’s a shame that such a great success story had to end up so negatively.
While working for the YMCA in Ellsworth, I had the unique opportunity to work with a client who was suffering from ALS. he has stem cell therapy in Belize since he was told a death sentence here in the states. The inital theory behind the training was to re-educate the damaged area with the stem cells. One of the methods we used was to exercise the body parts to help re-develop the neuromuscular gap to get the initial signal from the brain to the muscles.(Obviously, we the stem cells were used in other ways, mainly to help heal the lesions on the brainstem) In the first three months of his training program, he made tremendous stridge making significant gains in balance, stability, and strength. His speech was improving, his grip strength in his left arm improved, and his gait was improving. However, unbeknowst to us, his body was slowly rejecting the stem cells, and he was slipping back quicker than before.
Since his passing, his spirit is still with us today. I have had the chance to work with more clients than ever who are suffering from ALS, all because of the work i did with Jerry. They all have come to grips with the prognosis, but we have come to me to help them regain a little bit of themselves in the process.
Thank you for the opportunity!
I live in New York City. On the terrible day of September 11, 2001, I was finishing with one client in her building’s gym. The TV was on, and they were erroneously reporting that a small private plane had crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center. No biggie, I thought. I left her and went onto my bicycle to travel to my next client. Suddenly, there was a crazy amount of fire trucks and police cars speeding downtown next to me. I was afraid, and hopped off to walk my bike on the sidewalk. And I saw a huge smoke plume.
I arrived at my next client who was in her building’s gym. On the TV, we saw the second plane crash into Tower Two. Now we knew these were big jets, not a little private plane. We were crying and scared. We cut off the workout and ran to her apartment to watch the TV coverage. Then we saw the Pentagon get hit. She was on medication for anxiety (Xanax) so she took some. Then we tried to reach our husbands by cell phone, but no cell phones worked that day. So she asked me to get in bed with her and lay under the covers and hold her until we could find out if our husbands were OK. Then we watched the towers fall on TV. There was nothing at all sexual about this. God no, on that day. She just was very needy and needed to be held, and we were frantic and hysterical and sobbing, as New Yorkers and Americans. Finally, her husband came home and was OK. Mine was OK too, thank God. I rode my bike through deserted streets, to meet him at our home, a few miles away.
Two quick stories about the same client. He’s been a regular client for 22 years and both of these “events” happened more than 15 years ago, but they still make me laugh today.
Before Gravitrons existed, we used creative ways to do weight assisted dips & pull ups. One day I had resistance tubing wrapped around two olympic bars, on either side of a power rack. My client put his hands on both olympic bars and his knees on the resistance tubing to help with the dips. As he got close to 15 reps, his knees began swinging forward and back…his knees rolled off the back of the tubing and his head came forward and hit the tubing, catching his hair in the band…he quickly pulled his head back, causing a big chunk of his hair to be yanked out.
The second story happened because he (the same client) was trying to adjust his heart rate monitor while walking on the treadmill (not a good idea). His weaved to the left, placing his foot on the side of the foot step…while his right foot remained on the moving treadmill. It spun him around causing him to land on his backside and roll off the back of the treadmill. The story didn’t end there because he proceeded to react quickly to get up…he placed his hand on the moving treadmill and tried to push himself up…his hand just rolled under him and he bounced his head off the treadmill. The only injury was to his pride, but he’s still a client to this day.
Well I get a kick out of this client at least 4 times a day. He’s tough to describe except he has a low attention span, enjoys doing different things from time to time then what I ask, and if quite the negotiator in trying to get better deals. Just to give you a little back ground and then lead up to the fun part:
When we first began he was always extremely tight, but would go see a massage therapist 2 times per week. SO basically all I offered was stretching. Then the sneak
tricked me into having me rub his neck and shoulders. Eventually it became a habit where he would stop in the middle of a workout and tap his shoulders like im a dog being called for a treat haha. So I tried to suck it up, then it advanced. Before starting a workout I gave him a full body rub down (imagine that on a 60 year old man. Can you visualize those words). The only problem and its not to be mean is there was a smell/odor that sneaked out from time to time where I wanted to gag but I was too nice to say anything.
So now I will cut to the chase. I dont know how this happened, but now I find myself massaging his ass. That’s not involved in my services haha. That goes a little further then what I enjoy.
Let me tell you. The man can sprint at 6.0-6.5 on a treadmill because of my healing hands on his ass
.
Looking forward to reading more stories.
I thought i partied hardy in college, but I recently got two new clients, in their mid 30′s and these folks go to strip clubs and bars 6 nights a week and party until 5 or 6 am. They sleep until 3 to sober up, and train at 4:30pm. After every one of their workouts, you could light my gym on fire from the alcohol smell which pours through their pores. They told me on a light night they have about 20 shots. But that’s not even the worst part, they told me just the other day, that sometimes when they get home after partying all night, and their feeling a bit hungry, they mix their meal replacement shake with vodka!
Long story but worth reading. About 3 years ago I started working with this girl in her early 20s that just wanted to get back to her pre baby figure. She seemed normal enough at first but she had me fooled. One day she comes in a little late and visibly upset so I ask her if she wanted to just forget about the session and go home and take care of whatever was bothering her. She said no she wanted to workout so we started the session. About 10 minutes in to the session she starts moving bad and her form is way off, she starts slurring her words and her eyes were starting to droop. I stop the session and because I know something is wrong. She admits to taking a few more pills that she usually does because of her stress level from that day. She like she needed to sleep and there was no place for her to sleep at the club and she was is no shape to be driving. So like an idiot, (Very, Very bad decision on my part) I offered to take her to my place so she could just crash on the couch until she sobered up. As I was taking her to my car she said that she had left her purse in her locker and asked one of the receptionists to go get it. When the receptionist opened her locker she found a SUICIDE note and an empty bottle of sleeping pills. She was trying to kill herself during our session! So we call the ambulance, they come and she ends up making it. This crazy chick was going to let me take her to my apartment so she could die on my couch. I was little rattled by the situation for the next few days but started to forget about. Then about a week later I get a voicemail from this girl and she wants to know when our next session will be haha!! That was the first and only time I have never called a client back.
I had almost forgotten about this day until I came across this thread
Several years ago I was training a woman who was a NYC Police detective. She was maybe 5ft tall if that.
That day we were working on legs and I was mixing some functional stuff with traditional. She was working really hard. I don`t remember exactly, but I think she was doing split stance squats and she kept stopping before she completed her reps and I kept saying don`t stop. She suddenly just grabed me by my collar and said ” It Hurts “.
Well it seemed like she surprised herself and I just laughed at her. The whole gym stopped. I said “what are you going to do, pistol whip me?” She was so embarassed. She was really a sweet person. She kept apologizing and the next day she brought me a gift. She was really ashamed and I reassurred her that I understood.
I use to wonder how someone so small would make it as a NYC police woman. Well I found out that day. She could handle herself.
I had a new client who arrived for her appointment early and insisted that she arrived at the right time and was ready to begin her session.
Our admin at the time sent her back to begin her training session. While I thought that a different client had this time slot, I presumed I was mistaken and began to work with the new client that had arrived.
When the client arrived who was supposed to be training with me, I quietly asked the new client if she had her time confused for her scheduled session.
She said no, she just didn’t feel like waiting and wanted to workout now. When I informed her that I was going to cut the session short and then reschedule her… she insisted she wanted to continue and became upset. My other client who is easy going said it was okay, no problem… despite my feeling otherwise.
So I continued to work with the new client and she proceeded to vent about how disturbed she was that I wanted to re-schedule her appointment. She saw nothing wrong in what she did. – She then began to pass gas, intentionally! It could be heard and the odor was unmistakeable. Awkwardly I asked if there was a problem, if her stomach was upset… She replied, “I am upset, so I’m letting it be known.” Wow… – Need I say more!
I had a new client come in to me who had a brain injury and due to the stroke was left with severe neuropathy and atrophy to the left leg and foot. She also developed a condition called drop foot in which she was unable to do a dorsiflexion. She was told she would never walk normal again. She participated in physical therapy until her insurance coverage ran out only to see the condition get worse. I use a unique training protocol using conditioning for the mind first and in her first session I had her attempt to perform a dorsiflexion with her eyes open and looking at her foot. Nothing happened. I then had her visualize the dorsiflexion movemnet with her eyes closed. To our surprise she was able to perform the dorsiflexion movemnet. Just another example of the power of the mind. She now is able to perform most strength training exercises, walk very well and even walk with heals. So here is my story. The power of constructive thought.
I had a woman come in years ago when I worked at a large club. She was doing an initial session where we were doing the consultation followed up by an initial workout. When we went over her goals she told me she had 2 one was to look good in her cat suit that her girlfriend(she was married) would parade her around in at a local bar on bondage a-go-go night, the other was to look good naked at the Hedonism trip in Jamaica she took annually. Now all you guys don’t get to worked up. She was a little on the chunky side and dressed like she had dropped in from a time machine straight from the 80s aerobics class(complete with the Olivia Newton John headband)not exactly a swimsuit model to put it mildly. Even though I was in shock I put on a poker face and did the appointment. As we were going through the workout she asked “can I ask you a personal question?” I said sure(dumb answer) She proceeded to ask me what I did if I had a one night fling with someone in the gym and didn’t remember their name to which I replied “I can’t answer that since I’ve never been in that position.” I suffered through the rest of the session and finally it was done. Instead of bokking another session and upselling I said “you know I think you really have this workout down and don’t need me so I wouldn’t want to take anymore of your money so here’s your program, it was nice working with you.” Thankfully I never saw her again. It was the longest 1 session package I ever did!