Personal Trainer.. Really worth it?

[rabid_child]

So my neighbor with whom I go to the gym has decided that we need a personal trainer, so she hired one through the gym for us for 5 sessions. She's paying for it, even though I said I'd pay half (its actually not so bad... $250 total, so $25 per person per session). I'm feeling a little iffy about the whole thing. I think its just my erratic self esteem kicking in, wondering if this woman is just gonna be really critical of my lifestyle, and tell me I'm gonna be a fatty forever or something. We start March 1, and she wants us to write up an idea of what our diet is, and what our fitness goals are. I think I have to keep in mind that my diet, with its cookie indiscrepancies and all, is better than the average fast food soda guzzling American. Anywho, the personal trainer seems really nice, and she does things like fitness tests with us, and calculates body fat (which I am interested in, though I'm afraid it'll just depress me...), and gives us things to do at home... so it sounds like its a pretty good deal.

My little rant aside... I'd love to hear some experiences people have had with personal trainers, if it was helpful and beneficial, what to expect... or from personal trainers.. to reassure me that I'm not just going to be critcized into the ground.

[pseudo_vegan]

If I could afford one, I would totally hire on. I work with a woman who has one, and she's pretty...spoiled so methinks her complaints are really whiny and irrational (i.e. "He's making me give up half and half in my coffee and no more soda!"...uh yeah just drink FF half/half, soy "creamer", and diet soda :rolleyes:). I saw a show one time with a personal trainer...she showed no mercy, but once she called on her behavior, she kind of "relaxed".

The one you two have found sounds nice...but at the same time, it's their job in some respects to get all up your :sealed: about things. I think the woman will probably agree that while cookies are bad, it's not like you eat a box every night...or do you? :stinkeye: HeHe. But that's my two cents...even though it's probably irrelevant b/c I've not had one myself...sorry.

:nigel: Cheers and buena suerta!

[rabid_child]

The one you two have found sounds nice...but at the same time, it's their job in some respects to get all up your :sealed: about things. I think the woman will probably agree that while cookies are bad, it's not like you eat a box every night...or do you? :stinkeye: HeHe. But that's my two cents...even though it's probably irrelevant b/c I've not had one myself...sorry.


Ooo you caught me!!

No, I'll eat like 3-4 cookies a few nights a week. Haha. But I make them myself and deliberately make them smaller/thinner than "normal" so that I feel like I'm eating more when I'm really not.

Thanks for your two cents! Words of encouragement are always appreciated.

[Christy]

I have to wonder about personal trainers giving nutrition advice (beyond cut back on sweets, etc.). Do they have any nutritional education? I'd like to hire one, but then I'd have to go to a gym. There's people there.

[vggiegirl]

I have to wonder about personal trainers giving nutrition advice (beyond cut back on sweets, etc.). Do they have any nutritional education? I'd like to hire one, but then I'd have to go to a gym. There's people there.


Ditto. I know the gyms I *used* to go to when I liked people, were always pushing supplements and shakes.

I'd like to go some day and get one though.

[eggplant]

If I could afford it I'd get one, only because It would be nice to have someone to make me do abdominal exercises, because I'm never going to do them otherwise...

A friend of mine once had a personal trainer for a few months. She had lost 100 pounds and had loose skin on her body and had very little muscle. She'd never been one for exercise beyond walking so she needed some help learning about how to do it. My friend was a vegetarian and the first thing the trainer told her was to start eating some meat so she could build muscle... :grr:

[GTChick01]

I've always enjoyed having personal trainers. Not only do they help push you, they can give great nutrional advice and the majority of them are really excited about their work and you can feed off that. :)

[zoebird]

hey, i think i wrote on this already somewhere else.

*they do get some nutritional study--it's generally party-line sort of stuff.

*they generally don't teach functional training, which is the best training available. why, you ask? because once you learn the basic moves and rules of functional training, you dont need them any more. THis means they no longer make money off of you. So, they like to use things like "shock your muscles by mixing up your training" and pawning off assinine exercises that are certain to injure you if you did them alone onto you so that you keep coming to them like a heroin addict to a den giving away your hard earned cash for a bunch of rah-rah clap trap that has nothing to do with real fitness.

* a few sessions for functional training is a good idea to learn form. beyond that, tell them to soak some other poor sap.

functional training is the basic, core moves of exercise that builds muscle mass in a balanced way. It's generally the 'big moves' of training: squats, dead lifts, overhead presses, bench presses, rows, chin ups or pull downs, dips, perhaps shrugs. Those are the biggies. most functional trainers will toss in a few concentration things like calf raises and ab work, and perhaps a cycle now and again of something fancy that you may want to work to look particularly buff in one area or another.

oh, and btw, i'm considering becoming a personal traininer, so it's not like i'm 'anti' the whole deal. i'm just anti soaking people and anti garbage like "stability ball bench presses with 2 lbs weights for 90 reps."

[rabid_child]

Yesterday was our (my friend and my) first meeting with the personal trainer, "Fran." I was really frickin nervous, but as it turned out, it went really well.
I brought in a little write up of what my diet and current exercise habits are like, along with a 10 day food log, and wrote up what my goals were. I told her my doc wants me to lose weight, but I had no idea how else to tweak my diet to make that happen, so I'm looking into more efficient exercise, and I want to tone up, especially around the middle bits. She said she thinks my doctor is an idiot. :D When it came to food, first she did ask me about protein, but when I had a fast and accurate answer she actually responded with "Hmm. maybe you're getting TOO MUCH protein." Ha! Take that! She then complimented my diet and said that she doesn't see many diets better than mine. :smitten: The only thing she could think of that might help with the weight loss (while being very firm about NOT advocating Atkins) was to cut down on the amount of bread I eat, and/or try switching to Ezekial bread.
She said "AHH!" when she saw how messed up my left shoulder is (it raises funny? the muscles developed weird, probably from playing the violin most of my life), and we went over some basic stuff, checked posture, taught us a few exercises, nothing major, but I did learn how to use a "tower of power" type thing!
That first session was free, and we have another one with her Tuesday thats free, then starts the 5 sessions that have been paid for. Fran seems really motivated to get us in shape, and is friendly and didn't make me feel bad about myself. I'm looking forward to working out tomorrow so I can dangle from the tower of power (haha!) and start working on my abs! (I never really knew what to do before without hurting myself, so I just did nothing, which she pointed out, is probably the #1 reason I've not toned up there. HAHA! But we'll work on it)

[eggplant]

Sounds great! I'm interested in what she tells you to do about your abs because I've never been able to find any ab exercises that I don't loathe. That's my mushiest part too...

[toadstool]

Not all personal trainers get nutrition education. (I'm thinking about getting certified, too.) Some do, but not all. It really depends.

Also... there are lots and lots of personal trainer "certification organizations" out there. Some of them are a little more than "I paid for my certificate" type things. Try to stick with a reputable certification. Some require actual college courses.