Why do instructors do this?

[carolyn jane]

Okay maybe I am getting cranky but here is something that has really started to bug me - instructors who keep saying "you're almost done" almost throughout the workout.

Dana Pieper is the worst offender. She starts saying "you're almost done" - or variations - way before the end of her interval workout and then she keeps saying it!

It makes it sound like they think you are just miserable and want the workout to be over.

I know how long the workout is and I know when I will be done, so why keep telling me over and over that it's almost over when it isn't???

That is my vent for the day!

[Chomper]

I'll add my own pet peeve- when instructors cue "dig deep" and you're only in the warm up. It tells me they're operating on autopilot.

[marya]

Why do instructors waste time (theirs and ours) showing us what NOT to do--the wrong form, etc? It's bad psychology--at least for me. Whenever someone says, "Don't do this," I can hardly keep from doing it! Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and just show the right way!

Teresa Tapp and CS's Miranda are, I think, the worst offenders.

[Nuggie's Auntie]

Originally Posted by marya

Why do instructors waste time (theirs and ours) showing us what NOT to do--the wrong form, etc? It's bad psychology--at least for me. Whenever someone says, "Don't do this," I can hardly keep from doing it! Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and just show the right way!

Teresa Tapp and CS's Miranda are, I think, the worst offenders.

See, I actually appreciate this--sometimes I don't realize I'm doing it wrong until I see what 'wrong' is!

[muddjeansgal]

My gripe is when they show a modification at the end of the set. Cathe does this in some of hers and it drives me crazy. It wouldn't be such a big deal if I did the same video a lot but, you know.

[bzbnmom]

Originally Posted by muddjeansgal

My gripe is when they show a modification at the end of the set. Cathe does this in some of hers and it drives me crazy. It wouldn't be such a big deal if I did the same video a lot but, you know.

Yeah, I have never understood this. Who's gonna remember it for next time?

[cataddict]

Originally Posted by carolyn jane

Okay maybe I am getting cranky but here is something that has really started to bug me - instructors who keep saying "you're almost done" almost throughout the workout.

Dana Pieper is the worst offender. She starts saying "you're almost done" - or variations - way before the end of her interval workout and then she keeps saying it!

It makes it sound like they think you are just miserable and want the workout to be over.

I know how long the workout is and I know when I will be done, so why keep telling me over and over that it's almost over when it isn't???

That is my vent for the day!

I think the instructor means that we are almost done with a set or reps within a set with weight work and the end of a block of moves in a cardio workout. Kelly Coffey used to drive me crazy with this until I realized that she didn't mean the workout was almost over, she meant I only had 4 reps left and then we would move to something else. I can see how it can be misleading, particularly if you're not as familiar with an instructor's style to know that when they tell you you're close you've got 10 reps left out of 20! I must be tuning it out, since I haven't really noticed this with Dana Pieper.

[Demeris]

Originally Posted by marya

Why do instructors waste time (theirs and ours) showing us what NOT to do--the wrong form, etc? It's bad psychology--at least for me. Whenever someone says, "Don't do this," I can hardly keep from doing it! Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and just show the right way!

Teresa Tapp and CS's Miranda are, I think, the worst offenders.

Amen!

Teresa Tapp's original total workout instructionals make me homicidal. If it weren't such a good workout, I'd burn it.

When I'm cranky or anxious, Miranda can force me to Joni-O a workout. When I'm feeling magnanimous, I just chuckle.

[afirmrose]

Not a pet peeve or a grip. Just an observation but I don't know why instructors say they are not going to be saying very much right now because they are out of breath but they acutely keep talking as much as they did before, if not more.

[PrairieGem]

Originally Posted by Nuggie's Auntie

See, I actually appreciate this--sometimes I don't realize I'm doing it wrong until I see what 'wrong' is!

ITA! I think this is actually one of the most useful things in a workout, and a couple examples spring to mind immediately. There's a moment in one of the Essentrics Strength & Stretch in Motion workouts where Sahra says to make sure your shoulders are down, then shrugs them and says, "This is shoulders up. This is shoulders down," and her form is so impeccable that you correct yourself immediately. And Cindy Whitmarsh does this beautifully several times in Ten Days to a Better Body. Too many workouts DON'T spend time pointing out good and bad form, and it can be hard to know if you've got bad form unless you see what it looks like! You just assume you're doing it right.

***
I recently read something somewhere (maybe Women's Health?) about the whole "You're almost done!!" rhetoric... when you actually have several reps left. They said it was motivational for some reason--like you relax into the moves and hit them with better form if you think you have fewer left than you actually do... or something. Wish I could remember! Because it's something that has always bugged me, too--until I discovered that they're sometimes sneakily doing it for our own good!