Why Get a Personal Trainer?

28 Sept

It’s About So Much More Than Being Told What to do….

With thousands of workouts available online for free, you might reasonably ask: why would I need a personal trainer? You can find an exercise programme on YouTube, download an app or walk into a gym and use the machines yourself. And for some people, that works brilliantly. But I think the real value of personal training is much bigger than simply having somebody standing beside you counting to ten.

A good personal trainer starts with you. Your body, your age, your fitness level, your confidence, your lifestyle, your previous injuries, what you enjoy and what you’re actually trying to achieve. Two women can be exactly the same age and need completely different programmes. One might need to build muscle and bone strength, another might want to improve her cardiovascular fitness, while somebody else may simply want to feel confident enough to walk into a gym without feeling terrified.

I know that feeling myself. When I first walked into an aerobics class in Japan in my early 20s, I was overweight, unfit, uncoordinated and frightened. I didn’t know what I was doing and my Japanese wasn’t particularly good either. I remember that feeling of everybody else appearing to know what was happening while I was trying desperately to keep up. It’s one of the reasons I’m so conscious of making exercise feel welcoming rather than intimidating.

A personal trainer can also teach you how to exercise properly. How do you squat? How do you use a resistance machine? What weight should you start with? How many repetitions should you do? How do you know when it’s time to increase the weight? What’s the difference between discomfort because a muscle is working hard and pain that you shouldn’t ignore? These are things that can feel incredibly confusing when you’re starting out.

Technique matters, but so does progression. We become stronger when the body is given an appropriate challenge and then allowed to adapt. If you continually lift exactly the same weight in exactly the same way, eventually your body has little reason to change. A trainer can gradually progress your programme by adjusting resistance, repetitions, sets, exercises, range of movement or other variables. Equally importantly, they can recognise when you need to back off and recover.

Then there’s accountability. This is one of the simplest benefits of personal training and possibly one of the most powerful. It’s remarkably easy to cancel a workout with yourself. I’m tired. I’ll do it tomorrow. It’s raining. I’ll start again Monday. It’s rather harder when you’ve made an appointment and somebody is waiting for you.

But I don’t want my clients to rely on me forever for motivation. Ultimately, I want them to develop the confidence and knowledge to support themselves. I want the voice in their head to become encouraging rather than critical. Instead of I’m useless at this, I want it gradually to become, I’m getting stronger. I can do this. One more repetition. Look how far I’ve come.

That’s where mindset becomes part of personal training for me.

I’ve trained in NLP and spent years interested in behaviour change, motivation and weight management. You can give somebody the most scientifically perfect exercise programme in the world, but if they hate it, don’t believe they can do it and never actually turn up, it’s not a very useful programme.

The best programme is one that is effective and that fits into your real life.

I think this becomes particularly important for women in midlife and beyond. Our goals can start to change. Exercise doesn’t have to be entirely about becoming smaller. Maintaining and building muscle becomes increasingly important as we age, as does supporting bone health, balance, mobility and the ability to perform everyday activities confidently.

I want my clients thinking beyond next summer.

How do you want to feel at 60?

At 70?

At 80?

Can you get yourself up from the floor? Carry your shopping? Lift a suitcase? Climb stairs? Play with grandchildren? Walk for an hour? Maintain your balance?

That’s fitness too.

Personal training can also help you discover what you’re capable of. Quite often people arrive with a very fixed idea about themselves: I’ve never been sporty. I’m weak. I’m too old. I can’t lift weights. Gyms aren’t for people like me.

Then one day they’re lifting something they couldn’t lift six weeks ago.

That moment matters.

Because strength changes more than muscles. It can change the way you see yourself.

My own approach to personal training is particularly holistic because I don’t believe we can completely separate exercise from everything else happening in somebody’s life. I want to know about your sleep, stress, food, energy, breathing, recovery and mindset. My background in yoga also means mobility, balance, breathing and relaxation naturally find their way into how I work.

Some days you may arrive full of energy and ready to work hard.

Another day you’ve slept terribly, you’re stressed and your body feels exhausted.

A programme written on a piece of paper doesn’t know that.

A person does.

That’s one of the things I think technology can never completely replace. Apps are wonderful. Online workouts are useful. I use technology myself. But there’s something different about another human being watching you move, listening to you, encouraging you, adapting what you’re doing and recognising when you are capable of more than you think.

And personal training doesn’t have to involve somebody shouting at you.

That’s certainly not how I work.

I want exercise to become something you want to continue doing, not something you endure for six weeks because you hate your body.

We’ll work hard. We’ll build strength. We’ll challenge your cardiovascular fitness. We’ll improve mobility and balance. But we’ll also laugh, breathe and learn what your body can do.