Anna Kournikova can play tennis, but can she train?
This question comes up a lot with celebrity trainers and popped up again when Anna Kournikova was named the newest Biggest Loser Trainer replacing Jillian Michaels.
Does being a great athlete mean that you’re automatically a great trainer? I say, emphatically, no and here’s why.
Athlete’s are remarkably gifted individuals. They have stellar DNA and have had a cluster of amazing people around them to support their career and achievements. Yes, they’ve been coached, a lot, but just because you’ve been getting coached for years, maybe decades, doesn’t mean you can make the transition to becoming a trainer or coach yourself.
Athletes have an inherent gift for what they do. They move innately and have honed their skills with coaching. Often that means they don’t know how to translate what they do to others because they “just do it.”
Also, the training skill set is entirely different. Athletes need to know how to play their sport well and win, everything they do is geared towards winning some sort of trophy or medal.
Trainers need to be able to communicate effectively with a wide array of people using verbal, visual and tactile cues. They need to be able to break down movements so they can teach it to their clients. They need to know anatomy, kinesiology and physiology in order to help their clients to the utmost. They need to know how to work around injuries and other medical conditions such as obesity.
You don’t need to know any of that stuff if you’re an athlete, again they “just do it.”
I know a lot of fans of the Biggest Loser watch the show and say “they’re great trainers, I watch them.” But the thing is it takes a good trainer to spot another good trainer. I watch form and I watch basic form skills being breached every single show. Stuff that is trainer 101 like keep knees from going over toes, don’t do shoulder lifts in a way that would cause an impingement.
When I interviewed Rulon this past season he mentioned that almost every one of the contestants was injured the first week. Is that the example we want to set? Is that how we want to inspire America to work out?
Sigh. Sometimes I feel like a feeble little voice against the juggernaut that is NBC. I wish they’d pick trainers with experience with the morbidly obese population and I wish they’d find a photogenic, good on camera one. I know they’re out there. Several of you have mentioned bringing back a former contestant who has since become a trainer. I like that idea too.
What do you think?
Lisa
