The Benefits of Personal Training

Today I had a consultation with one of the personal trainers at my gym. His name is Umar and he’s a six foot fellah with broad shoulders, a tiny waist and a bit of a cheeky grin. He’s also very, very good.

He approached me last week and said he’d like to talk to me about what I’m doing on the machines and, of course, I agreed. Earlier this week he showed me one of his clients and explained that he could give me a free consultation to talk about what he offers, how he works and what he could do for me in terms of fitness and body transformation.

. . . well, you know I’m all over that sort of thing, right?

So today, in I go and spend a good 40 minutes with him, doing a mini version of one of his full sessions. Lunges, squats, tricep-pully-things (can’t remember the actual name) and pull ups (fuck, that was tough!). I’m sitting here now, feeling the ache across my thighs, knowing that what I did in those 30 mins (the last ten was us chatting about prices and meal plans) was far more effective than the entire 90 mins I spent in that place on Monday.

So, personal training; what does it give you, just from what I saw today?

• One on one, tailored support and exercise plans.
• Encouragement and support (the amount of times I thought I had to stop doing those pull ups and yet I got to the end).
• Accountability (not only do I know that there’s someone else waiting for me at the gym each session, but there is a cost involved too)
• Structure (someone who knows what they’re doing in place to offer advise on reps, sets and weights is bloody helpful)
• Measurable inputs and outputs (Umar’s meal plans all have weighed food and he ensures clients have before/after photos to look at)

So . . . yeah. All in all, the idea of a personal trainer is very attractive to me. Previous to this, I had thought that PTs were only for celebrities or other otherwise rich folk and I won’t deny that cost is a major factor here. But the fact that he and the other trainers frequent my local gym means that they are always accessible and not as aloof as I may otherwise have considered.

Basically, this is something I need to do a lot of thinking about, because it isn’t cheap. On top of finding the money to use the gym in the first place, this would be an additional wedge of cash to book the sessions. Balance that with my up and down relationship with food (more on that another time) I’ll have to think long and hard about whether or not this is something I can pursue.

For now however, the knee-jerk reaction is, ‘hell yes, that would be a great thing to try.’