Can Active Living Save the Planet?

There is an ongoing debate over whether or not we are detrimentally affecting the world's atmospheric environment.
 
There are climate change believers and climate change deniers!  In my previous existence prior to my Fitness Training career, I had a university degree in Geography and worked in the Environmental field.
I am a believer and have difficulty understanding deniers. I actually find the climate change debate between believers and deniers rather futile. It seems counter productive!
   It is irrefutable that industry and cars can produce gaseous waste. Too much waste can pollute! No matter how far to the political right that you are, how can you argue that? Trying to reduce gaseous emissions can only be a good thing.
   My environmental days happened in the Canadian west. That's oil country! I totally understand the importance of energy extraction as the engine that fuels that economy. I like to try to see the middle ground and look at ways that the fossil fuel business can help fund the growth of alternative energy sources that may have less environmental impact. Unfortunately those at the left and right extremes see everything in black and white. This stunts the search for real, practical answers!

   What does this have to do with Fitness Training! According to the book "The End of Growth" by Jeff Rubin, one of the most successful countries at reducing emissions has been Denmark. They have many wind farms but most of their energy still comes from coal. Coal is a significant source of pollution and emission.
   So how does Denmark do it? They have made oil prices costly.
When this happens there are possible effects:

• People may drive less. 
• They may tend to live closer to where they work. 
• They take public transit more often.
• They run, bike, walk, skate, or ski more to get around instead of taking a car.

This could have longer term consequences:

• Urban sprawl with it's low density, sidewalk-lacking, automobile dependent environment may become less of a choice for short sighted urban managers and land speculators.
• People may become more active.
• People may decide to park their personal cars and seek other modes of transport or join car-sharing clubs.
• Emissions may actually drop.

   Hamlet said "Something is rotten in Denmark!" Well it smells less rotten now. Other countries may follow the Dane's example out of necessity.

   As people become more active because of fuel costs, they may decide to take the next step and seek the services of a Fitness Trainer. Conversely, energy costs may force them to become more money conscious and curtail non-essential spending.
Will it be Boom or Bust for future Fitness Trainers? I'm betting on the Boom!

Fresher air and fitter days could lay ahead!

Until next time,...keep fit!

Little Bobby Strong
   
  
   
     

Effective Fitness Training Marketing or a Sleazy Publicity Stunt

Yes, once again I am astounded and maybe even somewhat shocked!

    Some fellow fitness professionals never fail to amaze me. Why strive to become an accepted profession?
Why bother trying to impress a skeptical public that we are not a bunch of hormone hyper gym rats up to no good? Just ask your clients to pose nude! Yes, that's the ticket! That will really make us acceptable!

   I was reading the weekend edition of a national tabloid style newspaper. There is a weekly article by a syndicated fitness writer from California. Usually he writes from the perspective of 'the beautiful people'.
He writes about the fitness regimes of actors, bikini models, mixed martial arts gladiators and reality TV performers.
   This is 'Fitness Trainer to the Stars' territory. For the average trainer trying to grind out a living, this is but a fantasy scenario. The average Fitness Trainer's world is often one of overweight civil servants, weekend warrior office workers, and weight conscious working Moms. In other words, regular people. More power to the trainer who attains this other worldly level of the stratosphere.
   This particular article featured a Canadian Fitness Trainer who has his own reality TV weight loss show.
Okay, maybe this guy really is a 'Trainer to the Stars'. This trainer made a decision to pose nude for a photo shoot. Fair enough if not somewhat weird. He also talked some of his female clients to pose in the buff. He explained that this was a good goal to keep motivation levels high. He talked some male clients into it as well but they eventually chickened out. Still his powers of persuasion are obviously significant.
   If I were to suggest such a thing to any of my clients, men or women, I would wind up with a black eye! It's not something that I ever considered doing. It is not something that I will ever consider doing in the future. Nor will I ever pose nude on any of my Fitness Training Websites!
   Here's my beef! I was visiting my folks in Florida at their winter retreat. We were kicking back one night watching the tube after I had spent a day by the beach. My Mom likes watching a sitcom called 'Reba' starring the country and western singer Reba McIntyre. The plot of the show was as follows:
Reba's ex-husband is married to Reba's best friend. The best friend was working out with a male Fitness Trainer. The ex-husband was suspicious that his wife was having an affair with the Fitness Trainer. Reba had to go undercover in the weight room to check it out. After some false affirmation that the affair was happening it turned out to be a false alarm. There was no affair. The Fitness Trainer turned out to have other preferences than women.
   My concern is that this is how much of the world views our profession. Fitness Trainer's are promiscuous opportunists who will get your significant other fit and attractive and then have a fling with them. ( I suppose this does happen but hopefully not very often.) Fitness training has never been able to totally escape that underlying perception of sleaziness! My feeling is that posting nude pictures of yourself on your fitness website may just be catering to the wrong demographic. Likewise with asking your clients to pose without training garb. It hearkens back to the dark ages of the 1950's when weight training was a closet sport and many muscle beach bodybulders had a secret life as nude porn models.

   Ask yourself these questions:

•  Does your accountant ask you to pose naked?
•  Does your doctor prance about in the unclothed anatomical position while making his diagnosis?
• Does your lawyer post raw pics on his attorney-at-law advertisements?

Not likely. You would expect professional behavior from such professionals.

   Am I being overly judgmental? Is this just me showing my repressed, prudish, Victorian guilt? Has my past evangelical Christian upbringing left me unable to envision the raw human form without a sense of remorseful shame? One of my Fitness Training colleagues thinks that this nude Adonis and his willing clients will draw a multitude of traffic to the website. He does concede that it seems somewhat 'creepy'.  A neighbor of mine who lived in Europe said that this nudity business wouldn't even be an issue over there. Is this possibly a brilliant method to motivate existing clients and draw new members?
Shouldn't the beauty and symmetry of a well-sculpted human body be celebrated as it was in ancient Greek and Roman art?
   I suppose that if a Fitness Trainer has a clientele strongly composed of lingerie models this would be a normal marketing ploy. However for a regular trainer with a regular base of clients this road may be pocked with potential potholes. Getting a black eye from a client could be the least of your problems.  
    There is no right and wrong answer here. Nor does this particular Fitness Trainer need or give a flying hoot about my blessing.  The pictures may be aesthetically pleasing and artistically amazing. He may well exponentially increase the viewership to his website and to his reality TV show. Hopefully they attract people that are potential fitness converts rather than unwholesome voyeurs! Let's keep the creeps at bay!

Hey, maybe I should pose in the buff to  draw people to my fitness
 enterprise.  Then again......maybe not a good idea!

   I will confess. There is a compartment of my brain that just might appreciate fit people in the buff.
I keep this compartment as far away as I can from the compartment of my brain that deals with my fitness business!  It's just safer that way. I'm allergic to bad images, harassment complaints, and lawsuits!

But maybe that's just me.

Until next time,......Keep fit!

Little Bobby Strong    

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