News arrives today that fancy gym Equinox is instructing all of its personal trainers to spend the next few weeks getting in extra-good shape, because the company is about to start making them wear fancy new "form-fitting tops" that will be unflattering to anyone with a stray millimeter of body fat. This is fantastic news, because it will cause the vain rich people who go to Equinox to select their personal trainers on the dumbest possible criteria.

Here's a good reason to pick a personal trainer: because they are a good trainer. Here's a dumb reason to pick a personal trainer: because they look good in a tight shirt. That's why you make out with someone. That's not why you take their advice about fitness. If you disagree with that, well, I'm not going to argue with you, because that just leaves more good, ugly trainers for the rest of us. Please, continue to pay Equinox outrageous sums of money so that a spandex-shirted part time model can instruct you to do more bicep curls.


On the left is Cus D'Amato, the man who made Mike Tyson into a boxing champion. On the right is America's foremost weightlifting coach, Mark Rippetoe.

Neither one of them, I would venture to say, looks great in a form-fitting top. They are not Equinox material.

[Well And Good. Photo, top, via Shutterstock; Rippetoe photo via; D'Amato photo via]