Diamond Cut^®

The third installment of “Workout” bored me with Jackie Warner and her lesbian lover Mimi squaring off against Jackie’s mother. It also disappointed me to watch Warner taking an obese woman through a first workout so intense it made her puke.

Exercise Intensity and Results
As personal trainers we face pressure to create results for clients in a reasonable amount of time. Exercise intensity is a key tool for accelerating physical change, but it’s a double edge sword. A seasoned fitness professional is able to ebb and flow a workout to maintain an intensity level appropriate to the clients capacity moment by moment.

When working with the unconditioned (especially the first time) I would think it’s common sense to be conservative with exercise intensity. An elite trainer billing $400.00 per session like Jackie Warner should have this skill. Is her client really going to see results faster by pushing her physical limits on the first workout? Especially Tess, who clearly states her health risks. (Video clip)

How To Lose Clients
If you want to get rid of clients fast just make them throw up during a workout. Unless they are being filmed by a T.V. crew they will most likely challenge your competence as a trainer once they recover. Warner lucked out that her client stuck it out…

An Accident Waiting To Happen
If an out of shape, obese person exercises at an intensity that causes them to vomit they are putting their health, wellbeing and even life in jeopardy. They are literally an accident waiting to happen. Perhaps Ms. Warner needs to consider her application of client training progression. It will save her from needing 911 on speed-dial and keep her liability insurance low.

Read more on Jackie Warner and the Skysport Spa Trainers at Fitness Guardian. 

It’s refreshing to see a show that captures both the business and personal side of personal training – making it accessible to all. As a personal fitness trainer and business owner, I found myself smiling again and again at the business environment and personality combinations that form the essence of the “Workout”.

Power, Passion & Passive?
Jackie Warner is the owner of LosAngeles based SkySport & Spa. She comes across as knowledgeable, likable, ethical yet somewhat tyrannical as she drives toward her goal of making SkySport the best gym in L.A.. She is mentally and physically strong, yet we see her submissive side when she deals with the personal tension created by her girlfriend Mimi.

Every “Body” has a Story
The Workout also offers the personalities and lifestyles of Jackie’s core personal training team. Their quirks, interactions and issues will undoubtedly provide the fuel for highly combustible episodes. Set against a backdrop of celebrity, glamour, and adrenaline I think the Workout Series on bravo has the potential to be red hot with viewers.

Lessons For Trainers
For personal trainers the show offers all the Diamond Cut principles of elite personal training in action. Study Jackie Warner and you’ll see how it comes together. She definitely understands the magic formula and her success is an ideal case study for entrepreneurial personal trainers. I’ll break down her applications in future posts.

If She Can Do It So Can You
Meantime, if you’re a personal trainer, ask yourself what business Jackie Warner is really in? How does she manage her environment to go beyond working out and create “exercise experiences” for her clients? Why is she paid $400.00 per session? How can you make the same?

(Watch WORKOUT video clip)

As I get ready to watch my first episode of “Workout” tonight, I thought it might be interesting to post some excerpts from reviews.  Here are three…

Arizona Star / Boston Globe

If the trick of a docu-reality show is finding a good character, Jackie’s a gold mine; she’s attractive in a curious, non-Barbie way and even her platitudes come across as biker-Zen deep.

Her supporting cast isn’t quite as distinctive. The show purports to show the inner workings of a gym, but these trainers are no less cliquey than high school kids. Rebecca — who did a turn on “Amazing Race 6″ — is a pathological flirt. Brian (nickname: Peeler) is a would-be ladies’ man who’s jealous of Jesse, the slightly smarmy teacher’s pet.

The plot points follow unimaginatively. Things get interesting when they return to Jackie: We get to revel in her vaguely Machiavellian style of management and gawk at her fights with girlfriend Mimi, a stormy and jealous Brazilian who, because of some quirk of underexplored psychology, likes to bite.

Warner is a bit stiff at first, and the premiere episode is unfortunately the most lackluster. As Erika, the only seemingly normal trainer, points out, you have to keep things interesting to stick with a workout. The same holds true for TV

Reality shows and docudramas routinely feature stereotypically good-looking participants and depict them with hair and makeup intact even when engaged in an activity (hiking up a mountain, building a house) anyone else would look, at best, disheveled while doing. Work Out doesn’t have to worry about such incongruities, since it’s expected that employees at such a place would have toned (and in L.A., tan) bodies. In addition, though, this series films the trainers and clients as they sweat, grunt, and strain for those bodies. Yes, it really does take work, on and off the camera.