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My Jillian Michaels (and other Celebs) Rant
Jillian Michaels is a smart marketer, not a yoga expert
I was surfing over to one of my favorite fitness sites, FitSugar, when their banner ad poked me in the eye. A picture of Jillian Michaels with a yoga mat tucked under her arm, pushing her latest product a Yoga DVD. Really? The Yoga mat looked like the plastic sleeve had just been removed and it hadn’t even been unrolled once. I’m sure that’s the way it’ll remain.
Jillian Michaels is not a yoga expert, she is not a nutritionist, her credentials for personal training barely qualify her to work in the industry. Why do you want to take any advice that she dishes out? Yup, she’s cute, she’s sassy, she has a drop-dead gorgeous body but c’mon now she’s doing yoga?
I’d like to let you all in on a little secret. The fitness industry is about 95% marketing! It’s some guys in suits sitting around figuring out how they can tap into this billion dollar industry. You know what the easiest way to make money in the fitness industry is? Throw a celebrity’s face on the cover of whatever gizmo/gimmick you’re selling and sit back and wait.
Because of that we get the Susan Lucci Malibu Chair, the Kim Kardashian diet (I don’t even know what the real name of it is, I just see it plastered all over the place) and Jillian Michaels diet pills. It’s appalling.
To give you context, Brad Pitt walks up to you and says,” Hi there!” (flash big toothy grin). I’ve had surgery 5 or 6 times in my life and I’m pretty sure I can remove your gall bladder no problem. Just lie down on my magic pillow and when you wake up you’ll be good as new. Would you lie down on the table, with Brad Pitt holding a scalpel and happily let him cut you open? (If the answer is yes, you need to see a therapist …)
A good yoga instructor has hundreds of hours of certification training before they begin teaching. Someone like Rodney Yee or Baron Baptiste know how to guide people fluidly, even on a video, to keep them safe and ensure an effective workout.
Please ~ I beseech you ~ consider the source of your fitness information before you swallow it all, hook, line and sinker. The goal, should always be to make you a healthier, more fit person, not to give some marketing dude the opportunity to buy another Armani suit.
Comments welcome.
Lisa
Popularity: 21% [?]
Nice one! There are way too many good fitness experts out there that nobody knows about. We as fitness professionals need to take an active role to better educate the consumer. I’m trying my best to do my part.
Peace,
Mike
Jilian is a clown!
Bravo!! Well said. I don’t know why celebrities allow themselves to be so overexposed. At some point don’t they respond, ‘Ya that is a great idea, I love (whatever it is you are suggesting I should do) but I don’t know anything about it. Maybe someone with some knowledge of that should make that video… oh, they already have… perfect, then I don’t need to make it’.
Well said Mike … it’s important to focus on a fitness pro’s credentials, not just their looks … the looks are the least important part of their expertise!
Mark, the overexposure thing I always wonder about too … Is it because they think they need to grab all the money now … do they sign a contract somewhere that just feeds them into the machine and they have no choice … I don’t know …
I actually bought this DVD. Its pretty freaking awesome. Im pretty fit and it was difficult at times and I was really sore. I find that all of Jillians work out DVDs are incredible. She has tons of them that she has done. Shes not just a celebrity, she is in fact a trainer and has many certifications. Thats how she got her job on The Biggest Loser, from being a kick ass trainer. Your entitled to your opinion but maybe do some research on her before you think she is just a face on the cover of a DVD for marketing and financial purposes.
When Jillian first appeared on the scene I thought she was pretty cool. Now she seems like someone who’s trying to hop on every fitness gravy train she can find. It’s disingenuous of her to pretend she’s qualified to teach yoga or train kettlebells (her KB form is absolutely atrocious), etc. I’m not surprised she’s being sued. I predict more lawsuits to come for her.
Hi Cherrie,
Actually if you go to Jillian’s twitter feed and read back a day or two you’ll see a comment where she says “@adocking I have 2 I keep current. I really like affa.”
From an article written in IDEA Fit last fall (a professional only access site ~ I’m a member) it researches both her and Bob’s credentials and they found only two online certifications for both of them.
AFFA is considered a basic, low-level entry certification for personal trainers. You can also now do it completely on-line with no practical hands on experience. That means that you can “learn” how to be a personal trainer without picking up a weight or stepping foot in a gym.
Again to use my analogy of being a doctor, would you want a surgeon to read about a procedure and then pick up a scalpel and just start cutting? I would hope not.
If you’d like to compare the levels of certifications that are out there. Here’s Jillian’s http://www.afaa.com/103.afa and here’s what most gyms prefer to hire, the NSCA’s program …
http://www.nsca-cc.org/nsca-cpt/about.html
You might notice that … the NSCA requires you to have hands on experience before beginning their certification … specifically …
“Must have a hands-on training component (certification through a course completed entirely online will not be accepted)
Must include a skills performance evaluation”
I did get my facts straight before I wrote the post. I’m glad you enjoyed the workout DVDs, but there is a lot to being a fitness professional … the most important thing is having enough knowledge to give your clients a safe, effective workout.
Thanks for your comments,
Lisa
It’s amazing how they seem to insist that Jillian is a big time certified trainer – though I will still like cause she is hot!
But would never actually buy a product from her as I am not high on celebrity endorsements gearing towards health
I am the world’s biggest Jillian fan, and find it funny that she has some issues with balance in showing some of these off. Mostly (from clips I’ve seen) she is instructing two people behind her through the moves.
Hey honey! Just found your great blog here. I didn’t know that about Jillian, all I knew is that something just rubbed me wrong about her. She’s kinda’ mean and vulgar. Anywho, glad I found a nice, honest place for fitness!
thanks for the great post, I like denise austin with her pilates alot of people find her constat chatter annoying but when i did her workouts i liked her litle pep talks she would give me
Okay, Cherrie is obviously a plant and a shill for Jillian, because anyone with a clue knows Jillian is a joke. If you want a real laugh, go to youtube and check out the vids of her demonstrating her kettlebell technique. It looks like she picked one up for the first time about 5 minutes before the camera started rolling.
~Dave
Thanks for the comments Dave :-) I think I responded to Cherrie with some more facts. She demonstrates that as a lay person it’s really hard to judge when you’re getting good, thoughtful instruction and when you’re not …
:-)
Lisa
Lisa:
I too see folks like Jillian Michaels being considered “experts” and yet folks still flock to them. You wouldn’t see people hire a lawyer, doctor, dentist, etc… if their life depending on it, would you? HELL NO !!!!
I have one word: REGULATED
The fitness industry needs to be regulated the same way general contractors have to jump thru hoops to be licensed and experienced to work on your house doing electrical, plumbing, etc…
For example: Trainers should have a degree in exercise physiology, exercise science, kinesiology, etc…, then sit for the test for ACSM, NASM, NSCA, or ACE which are the top four highly accredited certs for PT according to NCCA.
Then, if you want to be given the title EXPERT, you would need to show proof, like the PMP in Project Management, that you have 10yrs or 10,000 hours before you get the label EXPERT.
According to wikipedia and many other defition sites, an expert in any field usually has the 10yrs or 10,000 hours in their particular field.
Jillian has the background in martial arts, I give her that. She has studied for many years on health and fitness, but you are all right……….AFAA or NESTA are no the top of the food chain or highly accredited with the NCCA.
Also, she was working in hollywood and then decided one day to become a trainer……….it’s not like she went to college for health science, studied, took the PT exam, then started training.
She was or is partners with that Jackie Warner from the Bravo show WORKOUT. That lady too only has a cert from ISSA and no degree…..it’s all a big biz of sales, marketing, etc….for more money.
So to folks out there………..CAVEAT EMPTOR……do your research and lets hope the fitness industry gets regulated before more people get hurt, sick, or die in the hands of uneducated, unprofessional, and inexperienced trainers.
Tom, you seem very well versed in the credentials for the fitness industry and I agree with almost everything you say. There are actually degrees now in Personal Training and I think that’s a step in the right direction. It is so easy to take money from someone with low self-esteem and poor body image. There should be standards, that are quite high, that professionals need to achieve to work with people in a health club setting.
The bottom line is we’re putting our hands on people and making them strain their bodies. We should know what we’re doing or we shouldn’t be doing it.
One small quibble. I have a 500 hour certification with Stott Pilates. I have studied extensively and I do have over 10,000 hours training clients at this point in my career. Actually I think I’m about 13,000 or so (rough guess). I do not have a degree though. I have a Bachelor’s of Science with a strong emphasis on pre-med classes but not a kinesiology or physiology degree (although I wish I did). I would respectfully request that people of my caliber but without the diploma be grandfathered in as long as they can pass the test and show a high degree of professionalism in their careers.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment.
Lisa
I completely agree! As a trainer myself (NASM), I can no longer watch the Biggest Loser. So many of the things they have the contestants do are just not safe!
And Jillian used to say in the earlier seasons, “there is no magic pill” yet now she seems to be selling it? She has sold out for the almighty dollar. (sigh)
I have quite a few complaints about JM of my own. I have never watched the entire show but I have seen enough to know that it still shocks me that NBC continues to run the crap she tapes. I feel there are real liability concerns for them.
On the other hand, she has helped create kettlebell awareness and I am certified Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) certified instructor so she has helped drive clients my way and for that I thank her.
Train with purpose,
Sandy Sommer RKC