Do you have a personal trainer? How have things been going with him/her lately? Are you reaching your goals that you set for yourself? I’m going to lay out some tips here that I think will help you in your fitness, strength, physique endeavors, or whatever your goals may be with your personal trainer if you have one. Personal training/coaching is a joint effort that only works when both parties are committed. The majority of the advice that I’m going share with you today will help you on your part if you have a personal trainer.
The first thing you should ask yourself is why are you there? Why are you hiring a personal trainer/coach? Are you educated enough to create yourself a training program to help you to progressively reach your goals? To peak for a specific event? Do you need the accountability of having someone to show up and meet just so you can get your butt in the gym? In my experience, the majority of people who are in dire need of a trainer don’t even realize it. If you had a pipe burst in your house and it started to flood your basement, would you try to handle it yourself with no prior experience at all, especially with everything else that might be going on in your life? Job, kids, general adult responsibilities, etc…probably not. You would do the smart thing and hire a plumber because you don’t know the first thing about it, and you probably don’t have the time to go to a trade school and learn how it’s done, so hire someone who is already well educated and has helped others to successfully reach their goals. Back to my original statement, why are you there? I hope it is for a much better reason than to just look good naked because you’ve pretty much already failed at that point. To truly be able to reach and sustain your goals you need to have a good, solid mindset behind it. Maybe you want to run a marathon, or be able to play with your grandchildren, walk up the stairs in your house and not be gasping for air. Maybe you want to do it for the mental health benefit. Exercising regularly has been shown to ease mild to moderate signs of depression. Whatever your reason, have a good one and stick with it. You are going to need it when things get tough and you want to give up.
The second tip is just common sense and one of the easiest, yet most difficult for people to acheive with their trainers. Show up on time! Don’t waste your time, their time, and your money. Okay, I know sometimes things come up from time to time, maybe you slept through your alarm, traffic is bad and there was an accident on the road, but for the most part this should never be an issue. I too have been guilty of this and I’m sure it will continue to happen throughout my carreer as that is just a part of life, however it is within your control to make the best effort you can to show up on time. You paid for that hour and you should be able to get in every single minute of it, otherwise you are just selling yourself short of progress that you could be making. It also shows that you really just don’t care that much because let’s face it, if you did you’d be there not only on time, but early so you can warm up and have your body primed for action. This leads me to my next point.
Do not sit around like a helpless child before your trainer gets there. WARM UP! I really don’t think I can stress this point enough. It is your job to get your body primed and ready for what you are about to put it through. If you roll into the gym coming straight out of bed, hop right under that barbell with weight already on it, I can guarantee it is only going to be a matter of time before you get injured, trust me. If you know what you are going to be doing with your trainer that day, then go ahead and set up the rack or station that you are going to be at so things can get rolling along quickly. This is going to allow you to not have to waste the time of your hour on all of the small things that take up time. Get warmed up, get out some weight plates and be ready to get after it!
The next piece of advice I want to give is to be in it for the long run. Personal training/ coaching is not something that is going to change your life by just purchasing 1 package of 5 to 12 sessions. Changing your body, and your life habits is something that takes time to achieve. You did’nt get you bachelors or masters from going to school for just 12 hours for 2 weeks, so don’t expect to be an expert on designing a progressive training program for yourself after a couple of sessions. Again, you may be the person that needs the accountability of having someone to show up and meet, and that is perfectly fine, at least you are able to identify that, as opposed to denying that fact and hardly ever showing up to the gym on your own. People are typically much more likely to follow through with a commitement if they are paying for it, than if they were getting a service for free. Think about it, if you were trying to diet and you had a friend that was going to do your nutrition for free, or you had and expert coach that you were paying, which scenario would you be more successful in. Let’ s say you’re out with some friends on the weekened and they’re all eating some nachos at the bar and they keep trying to get you to have some with them. If you weren’t paying for someone to do your nutrition you’d probably think, “what the heck. why not?” However, if you had an expert coach that you were paying weekly for nutrition services, you’d probably say hell no! You’d probably tell your friends that they aren’t the ones paying for someone to tell them what to eat. How could they understand? They’re not in your shoes, maybe they don’t share the same goals as you. The point is, you are going to stick to your guns if you are paying for the service. The same holds true for personal training.
The last point I want to make is to make sure that you aren’t coming in just to talk for an entire hour. I’m not saying that you and your trainer should’nt talk at all while you are there training, that would be akward and a total drag! I’m just saying to make sure you are working your other muscles more than you are working your mouth muscles. A coach and their client should be able to develop a relashionship together, and a great way to do this is to plan ahead and try to hang out on the weekends outside of the gym. It’s a great way to get to know each other better without wasting your time, or progress.
So there you have it. These are just a few ideas that scratch the surface when it comes to being successfull with your personal trainer. Try to start implementing some of these techniques with your trainer or coach over the next couple of weeks, and I strongly believe you will start to see improvements in your performance, as well as the relashionship between you and your trainer.
