Why you should consider training with a personal trainer

What’s so great about training with a personal trainer?

If you usually train alone, you probably find it hard to stay consistent. I know I do.

Aside from the obvious motivational reasons, training with a personal trainer can be beneficial in lots of other ways too.

A PT will help you reach your fitness goals, because you’ll be more consistent with your training. It’s a lot harder to make excuses and cancel appointments with a trainer, than it is with yourself!

You’re also much more likely to set bigger goals than you would when you’re training by yourself. Working with a trainer will give you more confidence. To try new exercises, lift heavier weights, and to generally believe that you are capable of so much more.

“Your mind will quit a thousand times before your body will. Feel the fear and do it anyway!”

Confidence is priceless

One of the things I used to be frightened of at the gym was hurting myself, by lifting something too heavy or with incorrect form.

I also used to worry about embarrassing myself. I mean who wants to look foolish by losing your balance, falling, not being able to lift something, or even just not knowing how to use a piece of equipment correctly?

I’m not sure if I would have had the courage to attempt some of the things on my own, that I’ve done in PT sessions. Like the monkey bars, or box jumps for example.

For me, that’s one of the major benefits of having a trainer. Trusting their judgement, as a professional, gives me more confidence in myself. If my trainer thinks I can do something, I believe that I can too.

My mental breakthrough

It took me a long time to be brave enough to discover that all of those motivational quotes about your body only going as far as your mind will allow, are actually true!

My trainer pushes me in ways that I would never think of and often when I least expect it.

Let me tell you about one of my most memorable sessions, where I had one of those big “aha” moments. It happened completely out of the blue, in a regular session.

My trainer made me do wall-sits (a squat hold position with your back against a wall). I’ve previously had a love-hate relationship with this exercise, mostly because I don’t like leg soreness. And wall squats require a lot of mental strength to keep holding the position once your leg muscles start to burn.

So he says “wall-sit for a minute” and I say “okay, I can do that.” 12 months prior I would have whinged and complained and asked to do a different exercise, so at this point I’m feeling pretty good (silly me, should have known better!)

20 seconds in, he comes over with a heavy bag and rests it on my legs. Now I’m thinking “oh crap, this hurts, but I can do it.”

Then, he added a second bag and my mind pretty much gave up straight away. I panicked, thought “no, that’s too much, I can’t do that,” threw the bags on the floor and gave in.

The best bit though, is what happened next. I decided not to give up, but try again because we both knew that I could do it.

He was just giving me a little push, and I just had to change my thoughts. So I did!

I actually did it twice more. With shaking legs and burning quads by the end, but I did it, and it felt amazing!

Obviously you won’t have breakthroughs like this every session. And a good trainer will know when to give you that extra little push.

More motivation for you…..

You might also like to read:

WHY YOU SHOULD RUN WHILE YOU CAN

Or these great ideas about MAKING HEALTHY CHANGES

And in this post, I’ve got 11 WAYS TO KEEP UP YOUR EXERCISE MOTIVATION

Pin it for later!