SCOTTSDALE, Arizona ‹ July 8, 2004 ‹ Responding to "Confessions of a Personal Trainer," an article in the July 12 issue of Newsweek magazine, and found online on the MSNBC Web site (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5359377/site/newsweek), Scottsdale personal trainer Scott White rebuts the notion that men go into the personal training field to pick up on sexually dissatisfied married women.
"Guys like [Mike] Torchia . . . are destroying the reputation and industry of personal training. Torchia is making a mockery of the few trainers who work hard to make their lives¹ passion into a true profession.
"The fact is, if this guy were a doctor, he¹d lose his license. Too bad trainers don¹t need to be licensed. Hell, they barely even need to be educated. It¹s the height of unscrupulousness to use women in the way he does to make himself feel more important and desirable. This trainer is not important ‹ he is pathetic. He isn’t making love ‹ he¹s taking advantage. He isn’t even motivating these women ‹ he¹s using their desperation and loneliness to build up his own diminished ego, the one that needs to still be found desirable by someone, even if it is a woman having problems in her relationship with her husband."
White, a certified personal trainer and nutritionist, has a BA in kineseology from Arizona State University and has operated his own personal training business for the last four years.
Knowledgeable and well respected in his field, White cringes at the idea that people with questionable credentials are passing themselves off as personal trainers simply as a means to acquire more sexual conquests. But he¹s equally dismayed at the fact that a magazine like Newsweek would publish such a piece under its Society heading.
White warns that when a trainer such as Torchia "exhibits this much bad judgment regarding sexual involvement with his clients, he probably doesn¹t really know very much about training, either. It¹s likely he recommends a lot of things that don’t work, like yo-yo diets, diet pills, and steroids. He¹s all about temporary satisfaction and joy ‹ he¹s not about helping his clients find solutions, just ways to cover up their problems."
See the following document for White¹s full response to the Newsweek piece.
For more information about Scott White and Personal Power Training, visit his Web site at www.personalpowertraining.com or phone him at 480-628-1607.
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Regarding "Confessions of a Personal Trainer"
My name is Scott White, and I am a personal trainer in Scottsdale, Arizona.Though potentially a wonderfully rewarding career, personal training as a profession is often considered a joke ‹ and most trainers only amplify that image. One of the reasons is that it doesn’t take much to call yourself a trainer. Mike Torchia¹s mom bought him some new Adidas and a pretty blue jogging suit, and presto, he was a trainer. A rare few highly qualified trainers bust their butts to educate themselves about the human body, to learn how proper training is essential for the body¹s optimal functioning and how improper training can hurt an individual emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Guys like Torchia ‹ and sensational articles glamorizing him and giving his sordid story the time of day ‹ are destroying the reputation and industry of personal training. Torchia is making a mockery of the few trainers who work hard to make their lives¹ passion into a true profession.
The fact is, if this guy were a doctor, he¹d lose his license. Too bad trainers don¹t need to be licensed. Hell, they barely even need to be educated. It¹s the height of unscrupulousness to use women in the way he does to make himself feel more important and desirable. This trainer is not important ‹ he is pathetic. He isn’t making love ‹ he¹s taking advantage. He isn’t even motivating these women ‹ he¹s using their desperation and loneliness to build up his own diminished ego, the one that needs to still be found desirable by someone, even if it is a woman having problems in her relationship with her husband.
It¹s easy to see how this profession could be an entry into sex, if you allowed it to, but come on! Why limit the commentary to personal training? Why aren¹t we talking about tennis pros and divorce attorneys and therapists and ministers? This behavior goes on in so many other professions besides just personal training. Our society has become a joke when so many of us (30 to 40 percent of women and 50 percent of men, according to Newsweek¹s own figures) sleep with anyone nowadays. Commitment barley even exists, as of today; people are so easily willing to give up on the one person they promised their life to.
It¹s ridiculous how easy it is to get married and then to get unmarried in our country. If getting divorced were a more stringent procedure (such as, if you divorced someone, you would lose your head), I guarantee people would work a lot harder to save their marriages. Getting married is easy ‹ staying married may be one of the hardest things there is to do in life, harder even than staying on a personal training regimen. And the fact that people are no longer willing to work at anything, that they just throw in the towel when things get difficult, is not making staying married any easier.
I’m not pointing a finger at who¹s to blame in any given relationship. Most times, the problems have to do with both parties, though not always. Each and every relationship that ends has its own specific reasons for falling apart. But if every married couple promised each other at the beginning to help keep their relationship alive and fresh, so that even after six years or twenty-six years, they still felt the way they felt the day they got married, the only thing jerks like Mike Torchia would have to confess would be about being lonely and stupid.
What a joke ‹ "Confessions of a Personal Trainer." More like "Taking Advantage by Your Personal Trainer." Torchia was right about one thing ‹ working with a trainer does by its nature create an environment of trust and confidence. Clients often feel open to discussing personal problems with their trainers. But a true man ‹ and a qualified trainer ‹ discusses ways to help his client¹s marriage and improve her life. He doesn¹t sleep with her to satisfy his own lust and ego and make her feel temporarily better.
The fact is, if Torchia exhibits this much bad judgment regarding sexual involvement with his clients, he probably doesn¹t really know very much about training, either. It¹s likely he recommends a lot of things that don’t work, like yo-yo diets, diet pills, and steroids. He¹s all about temporary satisfaction and joy ‹ he¹s not about helping his clients find solutions, just ways to cover up their problems. Torchia calls himself a trainer, but he might just as well put an ad in the paper and call himself a second-rate gigolo.
I truly hope more women won’t be confused by this lost soul. A real professional trainer would never allow this kind of behavior, let alone suggest it. He would assist you emotionally, physically, and spiritually in getting your life back together ‹ he would not "help" you by trying to tear it apart. Value yourself enough to get with a professional fitness trainer who will help you make your life positive and motivate you toward the right solutions. It¹s possible that your marriage may not work out, and that is OK. But sleeping with some ridiculous guy who calls himself a personal trainer, or with anyone else, for that matter, won’t help your situation.
Believe me, Torchia and other trainers like him aren¹t making love ‹ all they¹re making is disaster.
