Exercise caution: Why your personal trainer could be wrecking your health

By Michele Kirsch
Updated: 19:21 EDT, 25 August 2009

Is your personal trainer pushing you too hard and risking your health? (file pic)

Dawn Elliot, a 46-year-old mother of four, had always made keeping fit a priority. Despite working for the NHS, raising a family and having a part-time job as a life model, she still managed to find time for regular sessions at the gym.

But convinced her workouts weren't as effective as they could be, Dawn decided to sign up with a personal trainer when her local gym offered a discounted rate.

'I felt I'd pushed myself to a certain level of fitness on my own, and wanted to step up my programme with exercise tailored for me,' she says.

At the first session, she mentioned the lower back problems she'd had since having her first child 24 years ago. 'Although this never stopped me exercising, I flagged this up during the initial assessment because I didn't want to do anything that would make it worse.

'The personal trainer didn't really seem very interested. He certainly didn't make any allowances for my back. I remember he had me running on the treadmill one day and I said: "This really hurts," and he said: "No pain, no gain."

'He did prescribe some exercises to strengthen my lower back, but the pain only got worse.'

By now Dawn, a phlebotomist (someone who takes blood samples) had begun to skip her weekly sessions with the trainer because the pain was so terrible. 'There were days when I couldn't walk properly I was in such agony.'

Dawn then went to see an orthopaedic consultant, who said she'd have to 'rethink' her lifestyle, including stopping her workouts for good because, in fact, she had a prolapsed disc.

Doing exercises specifically on that area of the back - as the trainer had recommended - was the worst thing she could have done.

Personal trainers have become an increasingly popular way of getting fit. Not only are you getting a programme tailored to your needs and ability, but costwise-40 to £70 a session) it can be less expensive than signing up to a gym and never going.

The problem is that anyone in the UK can set themselves up as a personal trainer - and the quality of the training they offer is now coming under scrutiny as stories such as Dawn's become more common.

Leading chartered physiotherapist Sammy Margo says there's been a significant rise in the number of patients being injured during sessions with personal trainers. Sometimes this is because the clients themselves push for quick results and don't tell their trainer the truth about their physical niggles.

But in other cases, injuries are a result of the personal trainer's lack of expertise - some trainers simply don't know enough about how the body works. The result is that clients are left with problems ranging from frozen shoulder to prolapsed discs, sciatica and even hernia.

The issue is one of training. While some personal trainers will have undertaken sports science degrees at university, many others have 'qualified' on the basis of a course lasting just a few weeks, if that.

'It's not rocket science for a reasonably intelligent person to work out that exercise professionals are not produced on courses lasting two weeks, six weeks or even 12 weeks,' says Alan Gordon, an exercise and nutritional specialist with more than 40 years' experience, including a degree from the sports specialist Loughborough University.

'There are over 7,000 "accredited and qualified" people who've done these short courses, and this figure is increasing all the time,' he says.

'But showing you their certificate from an official training organisation does not mean the trainer has the expertise to know how your body moves biomechanically. That sort of training takes at least two years of course work.'

In some cases, the personal trainers who are attached to gyms are trained by the gyms themselves, and these courses can be as short as two days.

'What is really lacking in these short training programmes is the personal bit,' says Gordon. 'That means being able to assess and thoroughly know how an individual person moves when they bend, stretch or lift a weight.

'This is essential to a personal training programme because everybody moves in a different way.'

A few years ago, Gordon was involved in a legal case brought by a group of 38 people against their personal trainers - many had been given the same series of stretches printed off the internet, though they were all of different heights, weights and builds.

Some of the stretches were ' dramatically unsuitable', says Gordon, and a third had their personal injury claims settled successfully out of court.

In theory, the trainers who've only taken short courses should be filtered out through the Register of Exercise Professionals (REPS), a governmentbacked body that regulates the fitness industry according to standards set by exercise professionals themselves.

Jean-Ann Marnoch, chief registrar, says the standards are reviewed regularly, but points out that REPS membership is voluntary.

'There are currently 28,000 registered members,' she says. 'But I'd like to see every personal trainer in the UK on the register, all meeting the same standards.'

Yet are the standards set by the industry itself good enough? Some experts think they are not.

At the moment, a ten-week, fulltime diploma course will get you qualified to REPS level 3 - the standard set for a personal trainer.

Pushed to the limit: But the quality of the training fitness instructors offer is now coming under scrutiny

'We no longer associate ourselves with REPS,' says Greg Brookes, who runs GB Personal Training. 'Most personal trainers are REPS 3, but the standard is embarrassingly low.'

It's not just the risk of injury that is worrying. If you want to lose weight, your personal trainer needs to understand about nutrition and lifestyle. 'No amount of exercise can make a client lose fat if other issues aren't addressed,' says Brookes.

Knowing the difference between normal, muscular post-workout pain and the type of pain that signals injury should be a basic skill of personal training, says Sammy Margo. 'I'd argue that not all personal trainers are skilled to do this level of assessment.'

It was a skill Dawn's trainer clearly lacked. A few months after her slipped disc diagnosis, despite having been told by the consultant to stop exercising, she went to see another trainer, Jan Keller, who specialises in personal strength and conditioning work.

Keller, who has a degree in sports and exercise science from the University of Wales (as well as a diploma in personal training) found Dawn also had a hip problem.

Working slowly and and liaising with her physiotherapist, he got her to do rehabilitative strengthening work and, within weeks, she felt stronger and almost pain-free.

Keller, like other highly qualified personal trainers, would like to see stricter guidelines in place. 'Dozens of my clients have been made worse by the exercises prescribed by those personal trainers.

One thing you should never do with lower back pain is prescribe exercises that work directly on that area, as it makes the pain worse. Yet this is just what many people are advised to do.'

Alan Gordon adds: 'Some people do hire personal trainers to be pushed - and that in itself is fine. But it's up to the trainer to push them correctly and safely within the boundaries of their physiologically tested and established capabilities.'

Dawn, who'd always considered herself 'gym savvy', says that, with hindsight, she should have listened to her own body and stopped. 'You always have to know your own limitations,' she says.