Do You Really Need a Personal Trainer?

Most likely You are one of the following people:

• Hater. You don’t do any sports or just despise anything related to it; make your daily recommended calorie consumption explode, and are “proud” of having your wobbly belly with an excuse that it’s not because OF the beer, it’s FOR the beer.

• Occasional sports-binger. You exercise only when all those fit-chicks pictures on Instagram suddenly make want to become the next fitness model and you start working out determinedly till the next work-out as your body is so sore that you cannot even get down the stairs without looking like a penguin. And so you let your body recover till you feel no pain anymore. It usually takes few months or so. Kind of like new-year-resolutions: you are the best in January or at least for 2 first weeks of new year, and then you are back to your old-self with thousand excuses why you should not work out and reward yourself with a cake instead.

• Healthy sports(wo)man. You have a great balance between working out, working, and having a blast on the weekends. You usually work up to 3-4 times a week. You work hard, but you also play hard. You love shopping for new gym clothes as you know that nowadays gym resembles more to a freaking fashion show. But once you are in the gym, you work you little pretty ass off with loads of Gobble squats.

• Selfie-queen/king. You love going to gym, but not to work out, but to take selfies as an evidence you were in the gym and post them on your social media with the deepest quote saying something like: "Your body won’t go where your mind doesn’t push it". But in reality you consume far more less calories in the gym than while getting ready for the gym, taking the selfies at the gym and then spending quite a while choosing the filters and hashtags and then posting them. I am sorry if there is too much criticising for selfie-takers at the gym, but that is just one trend I really do not understand!

• Pro-athletes. They are the ones who have only one extreme balance in life and that is to work out..and work out and everything that is related to that. By “pro” here I don’t mean that you actually are getting paid for doing that, but this is just your obsession, or should I just say life. Healthy eating, set bed-time regime, no mind-poison like alcohol, sometimes even no social life because you are constantly working out or recovering...and eating! And of course always feeling guilty that you are not working out even if you just came from a session that left your body feeling like a jelly bean from the intensive workout, but nooo…your mind is telling you that it is not enough!

Of course I didn’t cover all the types of people and maybe exaggerated a bit with some, and left out also people with eating disorders or just lucky bastards, who have won the gene-lottery and can eat whatever, whenever they want, unlike the rest of us, where someone can gain weight just from smelling the food. It’s kind of like me: smelling alcohol and getting drunk. Yeah, I’m the cheapest date ever!

Now I will ask the question: Would the above types need a personal trainer? Or rephrase the question: Is personal trainer worth your money? My answer would be: ABSOLUTELY YES!

Why? Okay, let’s dig deeper (in my head).

• Haters. Excuse after excuse for feeling like dying when walking up the stairs, trying to tie your shoelaces, keeping up with your grandkids or just walking down the block to buy next the frozen pizza or beer 6-pack for the week/night. You will never stop finding excuses to make you feel better without realising that you are making your body feel worse and worse. Harsh truth is that many of us do not even know how bad our body might be until you take a plane to a foreign country, take a nap on the plane and once the plane has landed, you will not wake up..ever. This legitimately happened to a person I knew. He was around 50 or so, without any signs of physical illness. Maybe just a beer-belly and lack of physical activity. But the reality is that he had a heart attack. High cholesterol? Stress? Will leave that into the air… So your first step would be to sign up for a gym that will advise you about the personal trainers choice, then get your ass there and leave the rest to the personal trainer. They will work on your body and mentality. It’s going to be hard, but that’s what you pay for. Believe me your body will thank you even if it feels sore af. Also remember that you will have to work hard on your mentality as there are plenty of people who are willing to pay the money, go to the gym, but find an excuse every single time they have to perform an exercise. Like this hurts, or that hurts, or I don’t have the right bra on to do burpees, or this and that etc. They assume that paying money will get the fit. NO! Paying money will get your a personal trainer, who will put you on the right track and push you, but you need to work HARD to stay on that track. To all my non-sports friends: sports is addictive, your body will crave for it as you will feel so good after the practice! My advise: JUST START and the REST WILL FOLLOW.

• Occasional-sports binger. I hope you know that consistency is the key to success in any area of life. While you think that you might be doing good for your body while working out irregularly, then sometimes you might even hurt it more. Because typical bingers will not work for months and then suddenly kill 2-4 hours workout with killing their body. With personal trainer you could establish consistency, better physical form and most likely stop being a binger and will love your body and working out.

• Healthy sports(wo)man. Well, at this moment I belong to this group of people. I work out regularly, and feel quite good about it. But we tend to fall into a trap. We think that we are working hard, but in reality we are either performing the same kind of exercises or with not enough intensity. When working out alone you can say to yourself: oh, I had a hard workday and my body is tired, I can take it easier today. Or maybe: I am a bit too full from my dinner, or I am too hungry, I should take it easy. We make up random excuses. We work out a lot, but we don’t see any result and then wonder why. And I realised that when I asked a mate of mine to be my personal trainer for couple of sessions and oh,man! I was dying in 50 minutes of so. It was that bad that my hands were shaking even though I had a leg-day! I thought that I was fit, came out I was just a little shit. And the same happened again during our next training session. One again I was so tired in less time than I would have been during my own practice, if ever! So yes, even if you think you know what you are doing, but if you don’t see the results, then most likely you don’t! Personal trainer will not only help you to reach the next level for your body, but will also make sure you do it in a correct manner without hurting your body.

• Ahaaa! My favourite group of people! Selfie-lovers. Well, I have not much to say here but to get yourself a personal trainer ,who will make you work hard and you will actually have something to show off and legitimate reason to take so many selfies in the gym.

• Pros! If you want to make it as a pro-athlete then you need a trainer, who knows what she/he is doing to make your body perform at the highest level. Let’s leave out elite athletes as they have coaches anyway. Let’s focus on the people who basically live in the gym, on the soccer, footy, basketball…field. These people have a drive, motivation and the will to work their asses of. Therefore they need guidance on how to do it more efficiently without hurting their body (joints, ligaments etc) and make sure they have the right nutrition to support the amount of time they spend behind the bar (gym bar of course) or kicking the ball. Sometimes less is better! And personal coach will make sure you have the right balance to achieve the best result.

Personal trainer costs money, but don't you think you are worth it? Would you rather pay a bit more to do the right thing or just do the wrong thing for free? The choice is yours.

Just remember: sport is science! You wouldn’t self-cure yourself if you had a disease (I hope!), would you (I don’t mean man-cold here)? So why won’t let people do what they are trained to do. Your body will thank you later!