The Globe and Mail

THE PERV

Sandra Bueckert, founder of One on One Fitness in Calgary, was once working with a client when she got down on her knees to adjust his footing. Standing over her, the man looked into her eyes and said, “While you’re down there.” He then coughed suggestively.

Sexual come-ons, from the crude to the subtle, happen all the time. Often, clients seem to think they’re in a bedroom rather than a gym.

“Just because we’re getting sweaty together does not make it foreplay,” Ms. Bueckert says. Having to shoot down a client’s flirtations and get back to work can make for an incredibly awkward session.

And female trainers aren’t the only ones attracting horn dogs, says Ben Spooner, owner of Alive Personal Training, also in Calgary.

“It definitely goes both ways,” Mr. Spooner says. Male trainers often get propositioned or have a hand placed suggestively on their chests, he says. “It’s uncomfortable.”

Trainers may be in great shape, and working with you in close proximity, but that doesn’t mean they’re down for sexy times.

DIET DENIER

Clients who wolf down cake and fried chicken at home, then wonder why they aren’t losing weight have become common enough at Precision Athletics in Vancouver that the company now requires all clients to undergo nutrition counselling in their first month.

“Obviously, if you’re not losing weight, you’ve got to look at your nutrition,” says Craig Boyd, director of trainers. “But people just brush that off and say, ‘I eat healthy.’ But when you get a food log from them it’s ridiculous.” One client turned in a log that listed a scone as a healthy snack. “It’s a pastry!”

And more often than not, clients who drink four double mochas with whipped cream each day will blame the trainer, not themselves, for their failure to shed pounds.

“People go, ‘Oh, I eat healthy.’ First of all, they don’t eat healthy. And second of all, it takes you months of them working hard and not seeing results for the effort they put in [to identify the problem],” Mr. Boyd says.

LATE LUCY

Some clients think that because they’ve paid for an hour with a trainer they are going to get an hour, even if they show up 15 or 30 minutes late for an appointment – or, in many cases, cancel appointments at the last minute.

“She is hell on our schedule,” Ms. Bueckert says. “You’ve planned to see this person, and your time is your living.”

Often, trainers will have to deal with one client who has arrived late but expects a full hour while the next client waits for their appointment. “That next person’s in the corner tapping their toes and giving you the evil eye,” Ms. Bueckert says.

Conor Kelly, owner of Evolution Fitness in Toronto, says Late Lucy is probably the most annoying client type for trainers.

“For a professional who makes their money by the hour, it’s kind of like the ultimate disrespect,” he says.

BAD TECHNIQUE GUY

“It just really surprises me how people will pay so much money and hire a professional, just to ignore all the advice,” Mr. Kelly says.

Often, clients will sleepwalk their way through a routine, and then months later still not know how to do a particular exercise properly even though they’ve been taught the proper technique over and over again.

“That’s definitely something that we as trainers find very irritating,” Mr. Kelly says.

Some clients just never learn, says Debbie Scott, founder of Phoenix Personal Fitness in Calgary.

“You have some of those clients that it just doesn’t matter how many times you say to them, ‘Slow down, do this, do that,’ ” she says. “Their technique is just brutal and you just kind of pull your hair out. You know those assisted pull-up machines? Sometimes it’s like a ride at the fair.”

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

As with bartenders and hairdressers, people spill the details of their personal lives to trainers all the time. But that doesn’t mean trainers want to hear it.

“You’re trainer is not your therapist,” Ms. Bueckert says.

What has she had clients talk about during a training session?

“Their husband’s cheating. What he’s doing with the secretary. Why they want to leave their husband. When they plan to leave their husband. In fact, some of them have a timeline. What their children are doing. What drugs their children are doing. What schools their children have dropped out of.”

“Oh my,” she says. “I feel like I’m a bartender.”

Trainers want to help you get in shape. They don’t want to help you deal with your divorce or other details from your personal life.