Weighty matters
In which a certified trainer takes down Jillian Michaels as “not actually a real fitness trainer — she’s an actress playing the role of fitness trainer on TV and in a line of popular DVDs.”
Choice excerpts:
- “Typical viewers think she’s great, yet the collective jaws of professional trainers hit the floor after witnessing her regular displays of poor technique and unsafe training practices.”
- “The biography on her website goes on and on about her multimedia endeavors, but there is not a single mention of any health-and-fitness education or credentials.”
- “…a bubble on the cover exclaims, ‘Lose up to 5 pounds a week!’ … Sure, if you start off weighing more than a Smart Car.”
I’m forwarding this to my son the weight trainer, and my friend writing the play about the unhappy housewife trying to get fit. I think both of them will love this.
October 16th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
And yet she’s still making money off it. I’m sure I could lose 5 lbs in a day (though none of it would stay off), but this damn moral compass is keeping me from capitalizing on that outlandish promise.
October 16th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Moral compasses can be so inconvenient.
October 19th, 2010 at 11:25 am
You know, as someone who admittedly owns a couple of her DVDs and has lost weight working out to them (sans injury), it would be hypocritical of me to invalidate all her efforts outright. That “five pounds in a week” promise needs a disclaimer like “*results not typical,” though I’m sure someone somewhere managed to drop that kind of weight.
We should all stay away from kettle bells — those things are frightening.