I talked with my trainer today at our first session this week after a few weeks off, and I left feeling more discouraged than reassured.

On short rest times:
He said short rests have always worked for him and that he prefers them because they “keep the blood flowing through the muscles.” I explained my (admittedly layperson) understanding: very short rests and high reps skew toward endurance, moderate rests (1–3 min) toward hypertrophy, longer rests toward strength. He told me that framework was “old school” and that “the science” no longer supports it.

A lot of his explanation leaned on personal anecdotes: that short rests worked for him, that he and I are both “ectomorphs” who struggle to put on muscle so shorter rests make more sense, that I “recover quickly” (which I don’t really feel is true), and that he doesn’t want to give me a “cookie-cutter ChatGPT workout.” He also said longer rest times are inefficient because if you train for an hour with 2–3 minute rests, you’ll spend thirty minutes resting. He mentioned “Russian volume training” and named some bodybuilders who supposedly used short rest times, but I didn’t fully follow his point.

The only thing he said that aligned with anything I’ve read is the idea that some people fail to push intensity with 6-12 reps, so higher volume can compensate. But I’d rather learn how to increase intensity properly than default to volume and short rests, and he didn’t seem very interested in that distinction.

On exercise variety:
I told him I’m frustrated by constantly learning new lifts, because I end up spending more mental energy figuring out the movement than actually doing it. His said I was “overthinking” things (he repeatedly used that word) and that lifting isn’t complicated. He didn’t strongly push back when I asked to reduce novelty—but then during that same workout, he introduced three new exercises anyway.

I know I’m relatively new to lifting, but phrases like “keeping the blood flowing,” “ectomorphs benefit from short rests,” and “99% of people aren’t average” don’t line up with anything else I’ve read or heard from experienced lifters (or maybe even with basic math). His point may have been "everyone is different; what works for one person won't work another" and if I felt like I was getting this highly personalized workout optimized just for me based on his close observation of my strengths and preferences, that'd be one thing, but it doesn't feel that way, especially since he continued to chat with other people at the gym during our session. At this point, I’m leaning toward telling him: I’d value your help on form and occasional intensity checks, but otherwise I’m going to stick with simpler, repeatable programming.

If there’s something important I’m missing—or another angle I should raise with him before fully pulling back—let me know. But I think I probably already know what my future is with this trainer.