Over the years we have had our share of both excellent and suspect Personal Trainers. From these experiences come the 7 things that they do to tick clients off.

1. Fail to keep appointments: perhaps this should be saved for number 7 as it is the most unbelievable; you know save the best for last. This is the case of the trainer that calls on the day of the appointment, sometimes within hours, and wants to let you know they will be unable to train because they got tied up. Still worse is the trainer that runs perpetually late. Picture yourself at the gym, warming up, and looking out for your trainer. At the appointed hour they are no where in sight so you begin to lightly workout. 10 minutes into the scheduled hour they come strolling in asking to be forgiven for running late. O.k., things happen. The question is do things happen 2 weeks out of 4. My advice? Get a new trainer.

2. Neglect to keep charts on their clients. How in the world is a trainer supposed to keep a mental note of all the particulars surrounding a clients health, contact information, goals, workout weights, injury areas, to name a few. Boggles my mind how many trainers simply write nothing down. They truly must have amazing memories.

3. Eating while training a client. Hey, I get hungry too and I also work a long day. It would be unimaginable for me to eat in front of a client unless we went out for a meal. Frankly it does not matter if it is a power bar, a peanut butter sandwich or a bag of trail mix. I pay you to work me out, eat on your own time.

4. Talking to other trainers, or familiar clients, while working me out. Here's a novel thought: my health and safety for that one hour is in your hands, your complete attention is required. It does not matter to me if your best friend from grade school that you have not seen in 10 years just walked in. Your attention is on your client for one hour.

5. Children do not belong in the gym. Not the client's kids or the trainer's. Last thing I want is to hear or see is kids when I am trying to concentrate on touching a cone while balancing on half a foam roller with a 20 pound jacket on my body. Don't get me wrong, I like children. I don't like children at the gym.

6. Talking on cell phones, or texting, while working out a client. This one might have been a contender for the number one position. As if the invasion of cell phones in not pervasive enough it has now entered the gym. Picture this: client is doing a deep lunge exercise down a lane at the gym. Following behind offering no words of encouragement, but "spotting" her is trainer on cell phone. Unbelievable. Unbelievable that the trainer is on the phone and equally nuts that the client does not care. Important caveat: clients are guilty too. Recently I witnessed a client doing step ups on to a platform while speaking on the phone. It was her husband who "always calls me when we hear this song". Could you just wretch?

7. Lack of creativity in workouts. Worse is the trainer who you know is making up the routine as we go along. Getting to the gym takes a certain amount of motivation for most clients. Help us out and add some variety to the exercise routine.

The last item is for the gym owners in the reading audience: stop being cheap and make sure the carpets are cleaned, the equipment is updated and in good working condition, the amenities in the locker room are clean and control your employees or contractors. At $50 to $75 per hourly session these are reasonable requests.

If you are shopping for a personal trainer, use this list to size up the trainer and the facility you are contemplating using. Know too that there a many, many simply excellent, diligent, qualified trainers that fit none of the faults mentioned above. In fact this article is a result of observations made while either warming up for, or working out with, my trainer who cannot be faulted for any of the issues sited.

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R. Adam Shore writes about Physical Fitness from a consumer point of view. To read 2000 other articles about Trainers and additional Fitness topics visit Physical Fitness Articles at http://www.physicalfitnessarticles.net