Its nice to see PTs properly referring to their clients as “gen pop” – or ‘general population’ – to distinguish regular civilians from athletes.
Following from this distinction are a couple of questions people need to ponder:
1) if ‘gen pop’ is something radically less physically impressive than an athlete, and ‘athletes’ include the last place finishers, of the least-muscular bodybuilding divisions, in their off-season, how bad is a ‘gen pop’ body going to be?
2) if sports training and diet is designed to make athletes the best they can be, and, by definition, the vast majority of athletes are not nearly good enough to even win a local level comp, what do you think the drastically softer, lower-expectations of ‘gen pop’ fitness training and diet is going to achieve?
3) who knowingly aspires to become ‘gen pop’, given how horribly mediocre ‘gen pop’ civilian status is; ie to be significantly worse than the worst athletes in their worst off-season condition? And, what gen-pop civilian would knowingly want to pay a PT good money to achieve gen-pop civilian mediocrity status?
While it is highly doubtful that any gen-pop civilian would want to put time, money and effort into training to be as physically mediocre as they already are, that’s what fitness diet and training for ‘gen pop’ is literally designed to achieve!
My question is: if you are already going to put the time, money and effort in, why not direct it toward something effective, positive, progressive and good? It is literally no more work; it just means using sports training and nutrition instead of health and fitness training and nutrition. They are 2 radically different things because they seek 2 radically different outcomes. The choice between gen-pop fitness, versus sports training and nutrition, is literally the choice between being the worst you can be, versus being the best you can be, all for the same amount of work. How is this even a choice?
if sports training and diet is designed to make athletes the best they can be, and, by definition, the vast majority of athletes are not nearly good enough to even win a local level comp, what do you think the drastically softer, lower-expectations of ‘gen pop’ fitness training and diet is going to achieve?
As a PT, would you want to devote your life to helping miserable, mediocre people do half-ass work to continue to be the most physically mediocre, aesthetically mediocre and physically non-athletic they can be (ie gen-pop)? I am confident most PT’s absolutely do not want to work to achieve nothingness. Most pride themselves in achieving physical progress and improvement in their clients. The trouble is, physical improvement is not what fitness training for gen pop is! You are actually breaking the rules of your own job description if you improve your clients! Thats not my opinion. Thats the documented Fitness Australia and Health Department facts. The only improvement to be achieved is to get inactive people to do… stuff, and follow the Government healthy eating guidelines, to reduce BMI below 25.
Abusing fitness exercise and healthy eating to try to achieve athletic progress (eg ultra high-volume exercise with ‘caloric deficit’ dieting) is, by definition, inefficient, ineffective and dangerous. It is literally abusing a medical treatment to achieve an outcome contrary to what the treatment is meant to achieve.
Bottom line:
If you want to be the worst physical specimen you can be before being physically debilitated, then do fitness exercise and healthy eating designed for ‘gen pop’. But do not complain when you do not change and your body looks like a soft, flabby, weak, unmuscled, non-athletic average person. Thats what gen-pop health and fitness is. It is what you trained and dieted for!
If you want to be the best physical specimen you can be, do NOT train for fitness or eat ‘healthy’ for ‘gen pop’ mediocrity. Act, eat and train like and athlete. Lift weights, train to get as strong as possible and follow a higher protein, highly nutritious, sports nutrition protocol.
Have some Gentec Casein Custard if you want to feel like a gen pop civilian without turning into one.
PS:
I created Recomp PT insurance precisely because of this issue. Neither Fitness PTs, nor S&C Coaches are allowed to give effective sports training and nutrition to ‘gen pop’ civilians. But serious sports training and nutrition is what gen-pop civilians need if they want to be better than gen-pop mediocre. Only PTs who register and insure with Recomp are actually allowed to deliver athlete development training and nutrition to gen-pop civilians. https://recomp.com.au/personaltrainer
