Thinking about hiring a personal trainer or coach to help you out with your workouts but not sure what you’ll get for your money?
If you’re wondering what personal trainers teach you, you’ve come to the right place. I was a level 3 qualified reps certified personal trainer for nearly a decade, so I can tell you exactly what any fitness instructor worth their salt will teach you.
Sound good?
Let’s go…
Hiring a PT or fitness coach is a big decision, you’ve gotta have the time and the money to make it worth your while. But what exactly are you going to get out of hiring one? Do they stand over your shoulder and watch you lift weights? You could do that on your own right?
Well, fitness instructors, personal trainers, fitness coaches, whatever you want to call them have all gone through lengthy certification courses and examinations to make sure they can offer you a lot more than being a babysitter for an hour.
Let’s go through some of the most common things a personal trainer will teach you during your sessions.
Personal trainers teach you how to exercise safely
Safety is so important when it comes to exercising. All it takes is a dropped dumbbell or a torn “whatsit’sname” on the back of your leg and you’re out of action for weeks or months.
A good personal trainer has been taught how to instruct a very wide variety of exercises so that you are safe whilst training with them, but also when you exercise on your own.
There’s probably a whole area of the gym you’d love to go into and try a few new exercises, but you’re too nervous about hurting yourself. This would be a perfect opportunity for a PT to show you how to use the equipment safely.
They can give you a few pointers on how to pick up and move heavy equipment like kettlebells or weight plates without hurting your back or knees. Picking something up may seem simple, but you’d be amazed at how many people get hurt just picking the weights up before they’ve even started the exercise.
They teach you how hard to train
If you don’t train hard enough, you are literally wasting your time in the gym.
I know, it’s horrible to hear that the workout you did at lunchtime might have had little to no effect on your overall goal. But how can this be? You spent almost your full lunch break in there, and you were definitely sweating.
Well, take a session with a trainer and you’ll see how hard you should really be exercising to reach your goals, it’s probably a lot harder than you’re used to training. It’s not particularly comfortable, but it’s the best way for you to reach your goals in the shortest timeframes possible.
A PT will show you that those last few reps where you usually finish your set because it’s starting to hurt, are the ones where the majority of your results come from. They’ll teach you how to push past that pain point and start making some serious progress!
They teach you how to eat to reach your goals
I know you already know the basics of eating right, keep portion sizes small, try to eat fruit instead of sugary snacks, etc, but what about if you want to make a real difference to your body, the kind that makes will make people stop and ask you how you did it?
Unfortunately, the little tips and tricks you’ve heard probably won’t be enough to get you to your ideal shape, you’re gonna need some expert help.
A trainer can go through your diet, tell you what you need to eat, and importantly, how much of it to eat.
A good example is one of my clients who I said needed to eat more protein, she came in the next week and said she had eaten a few slices of ham each day. Technically, this is more protein, but by about 6g a day, nowhere near what she needed.
This showed me that people generally don’t know how much protein carbohydrates and fat they need to be eating, (and why should they?). It’s a PT’s job to teach you these things, and they’ll do a great job of it.
They teach you how to motivate yourself
It’s so easy to give up working out, it takes ages to see results, it’s hard work, it hurts and you’ve got to pay close attention to what you’re eating all the time. That’s why most people quit the gym after only a few months without ever being even close to reaching their goals.
A trainer will help you see that there is a purpose to what you are doing and that the sacrifices you are making during training are worth it in the long run.
By testing and taking measurements, your trainer will be able to show you positive changes are happening in your body, which means what you are doing is worth the effort.
You might be more motivated when you have a trainer standing over your shoulder watching you, but what these results should show you is that whenever and wherever you workout, it’s working, it’s doing just what you want and it’s worth the effort. This should help motivate you to get up early and get yourself to the gym, with or without your trainer.
They’ll show you tons of new exercises
Repetition can be a good thing, but not always. In the case of going to the gym, using the same four pieces of cardio equipment each time is probably not a good thing. You’re going to get bored, it’s boring doing that, super boring. And if you get bored and don’t see results, you’ll probably give up.
Ask a trainer if they can show you some exercises to make your workouts more interesting, I’m sure they’ll be really happy to show off all the enormous exercise database they have sitting up in their brains.
They’ll have you using bits of kit that you’d never dream of going anywhere near yourself, working muscles you’ve never even felt before, and probably getting you towards your fitness goals in half the time.
Even if you don’t hire a PT, you can still ask them to give you ten minutes to give a few new exercises to you, they won’t mind unless they have a client literally walking onto the gym floor at that exact moment.
They teach you how to make exercise fun
A lot of people don’t find exercise interesting, in fact, a whole lot of people consider it torture and would rather do just about anything else.
Chances are, they probably haven’t found the type of exercise that interests them yet. They might know the cardio and resistance machines off by heart, but what about all the other kit that just gets left collecting dust in the corners of the gym floor?
What about sandbags, suspension equipment, sleds, VIPRs, and kettlebells? The list of heavily underutilized equipment is nearly endless.
If you’re bored of your workouts and want to have a play with some of the more interesting bits of kit but you’re too nervous to try them on your own (I would be), ask a trainer to show you how to use them, and if you have hired one already, ask them if they can incorporate them into your workout a little more.
Using new pieces of equipment will make your workouts far more interesting, and make you more likely to want to keep exercising.
They’ll teach you how to train for a specific goal
Wanna lose weight and look good in that dress for your friends’ wedding this summer, or want to train so you can fill out that crisp white shirt you bought for that speed dating event you’ve got planned in a few months? (remember when speed dating was a thing?)
Great, so how do you do that then?
Again, you’ll probably know that it has something to do with eating and training hard, but what do you actually need to do? Of course, you could search on the internet for it, but how do you know the article you’re reading is what you really need, what if it’s a training guide for ectomorphs and you’re a mesomorph?
I’m sure you’ll end up doing a search for those terms now too, the point is, a trainer will be able to specifically cater your training to your goal. Your diet, your training, and any injuries will be taken into account when they write up a program for you. This is something you can’t get from a “cookie-cutter” training program on the net.
They’ll teach you how to maximize time spent in the gym
Telling all your buddies that you train in the gym for an hour three times a week might make you sound like a fitness enthusiast, but are you actually making the most of the time you’re spending there?
I don’t have an awful lot of time these days, I maybe get half an hour to 45 minutes maximum for my workouts, so you know what I do? I make every second count.
I use supersets and circuit training to make sure I can get the most out of the short time I have. A trainer would teach you the exact same thing. No more watching five minutes of TV in the gym or scrolling through your phone during your rest periods. All those rest periods end up making your workout take twice as long as it needs to.
A trainer can show you how to make the best use of your time in the gym by teaching you which exercises give you the most bang for your buck (eg. no weighted wrist curls), so you can get your workout done and carry on with whatever else you need to do in your day.
Conclusion
Personal trainers don’t only teach you how to do a bunch of different exercises, they can completely overhaul your entire workout regime to make it vastly more time and energy-efficient, as well as practically guaranteeing you results as long as what they explain is followed properly.
Even if you have no intention of having a trainer for months or years, I would definitely suggest taking a few sessions, just so that they can show you everything you need to be doing, what you need to be eating and how to get the most of your gym membership.
The cost of the sessions will quickly pay for itself if you’re no longer wasting your monthly gym membership on unproductive workouts.
So give one a try sometime.
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