Personal Training

[smokeyblue]

Anyone a personal trainer or have done personal training before? I've done the evaluations at gyms before where they try to sell you a package as a new member. I really dislike this concept. Honestly, measurements mean absolutely nothing to me. If I feel good, am building endurance and muscle I don't care how much I weigh or how many inches my thighs are. Do you think I would be able to work with a personal trainer with this mindset/philosophy or would they balk at this? I am willing to do assessments which show where I'm at with weight training and cardio so there is a starting point, but no tape measures or scales!

 

[Pacolovestacos]

Anyone a personal trainer or have done personal training before? I've done the evaluations at gyms before where they try to sell you a package as a new member. I really dislike this concept. Honestly, measurements mean absolutely nothing to me. If I feel good, am building endurance and muscle I don't care how much I weigh or how many inches my thighs are. Do you think I would be able to work with a personal trainer with this mindset/philosophy or would they balk at this? I am willing to do assessments which show where I'm at with weight training and cardio so there is a starting point, but no tape measures or scales!

The measurements are mainly done to show where you're at body fat % wise. Trainers like to track to show that you're losing fat and putting on muscle. That being said, if you're paying a trainer, they'll do whatever you tell them to. If you don't want to track your body fat, just tell them that. They want your money, they're not going to turn you away over that.

 

[sonnyjane]

The measurements are mainly done to show where you're at body fat % wise. Trainers like to track to show that you're losing fat and putting on muscle. That being said, if you're paying a trainer, they'll do whatever you tell them to. If you don't want to track your body fat, just tell them that. They want your money, they're not going to turn you away over that.

This for the most part. The only reason I can think that they might encourage you to do the measurements even after you tell them you're not interested is if they're evaluated by their gyms based on their customers' (tangible) success. You may find some trainers that insist on doing the measurements, but I'm sure you can find one that doesn't.

 

[dotfurio]

I go to a personal trainer. At my gym, there is an expectation for the trainers to track weight and measurements on a regular basis. My trainer won't press if I don't want to do measurements, though. I've gone months without doing it. That said, sometimes it's nice when I feel like the scale isn't moving much to do measurements and discover I'm shrinking in inches.

 

[tcufrog]

I've used a few different trainers for different reasons and neither one measured me. The first one I used to help me keep up my strength and stamina during my second pregnancy and to help me recover from it. I had a difficult first pregnancy so I started working out with a trainer who was experienced at working with with pregnant women. It really helped and I was able to easily keep up with my preschooler during the pregnancy because of her help. She also was able to make sure I worked out safely while I was pregnant and even looked after my baby while I was training with her postpartum. I started working out with a trainer again when long lasting knee issue flared up and I was hoping to avoid surgery.

I'm not an expert on personal trainers but I've learned some things that can help you choose a trainer who will help you instead of hurting you:

1. Choose someone who believes in the importance of good warm up and a thorough stretching session at the end.

2. Choose a trainer who will trust that you understand what your body can and can't take. Yes you want to push yourself during a workout but if you push yourself too far too fast you can really injure yourself.

3. Choose one who listens to your goals and tailors your workout to them. For example, working out to build bulk is very different from working out to build stamina.

4. Be wary if they start trying to give the hard sale regarding a specific diet plan that costs money or supplements you can buy from them. A good trainer may have good advice regarding nutrition or supplements but you be wary of side businesses of referral bonuses.

5. Choose someone who emphasizes using machines, weights, etc correctly. A poorly trained trainer can be dangerous.

6. Yes you will probably be sore afterwards especially at first but you shouldn't have pain that or soreness that impedes your movement or makes it difficult to live your normal life.

 

[smokeyblue]

I've used a few different trainers for different reasons and neither one measured me. The first one I used to help me keep up my strength and stamina during my second pregnancy and to help me recover from it. I had a difficult first pregnancy so I started working out with a trainer who was experienced at working with with pregnant women. It really helped and I was able to easily keep up with my preschooler during the pregnancy because of her help. She also was able to make sure I worked out safely while I was pregnant and even looked after my baby while I was training with her postpartum. I started working out with a trainer again when long lasting knee issue flared up and I was hoping to avoid surgery.

I'm not an expert on personal trainers but I've learned some things that can help you choose a trainer who will help you instead of hurting you:

1. Choose someone who believes in the importance of good warm up and a thorough stretching session at the end.

2. Choose a trainer who will trust that you understand what your body can and can't take. Yes you want to push yourself during a workout but if you push yourself too far too fast you can really injure yourself.

3. Choose one who listens to your goals and tailors your workout to them. For example, working out to build bulk is very different from working out to build stamina.

4. Be wary if they start trying to give the hard sale regarding a specific diet plan that costs money or supplements you can buy from them. A good trainer may have good advice regarding nutrition or supplements but you be wary of side businesses of referral bonuses.

5. Choose someone who emphasizes using machines, weights, etc correctly. A poorly trained trainer can be dangerous.

6. Yes you will probably be sore afterwards especially at first but you shouldn't have pain that or soreness that impedes your movement or makes it difficult to live your normal life.

2 and 4 are important to me. I injured myself terribly pushing myself too hard at the gym and it scared me from going back again. I also will not tolerate any discussion of supplements or shakes.

 

[Klayfish]

That being said, if you're paying a trainer, they'll do whatever you tell them to. If you don't want to track your body fat, just tell them that. They want your money, they're not going to turn you away over that.

That is not true at all, at least not for a good trainer. They will tell you how to achieve your goals, which is going to include some type of metrics tracking, and if you don't want to do it, they won't have a lot tolerance for it.

DW has had several bodybuilding trainers over the past 10 years (frankly, she could be a trainer herself if she had the time). Measurements are definitely important. They aren't the "be all and end all" but they're a good tell tale sign of how you're doing. Someone with morbidly obese measurements simply can't be considered "healthy". The number on the scale isn't necessarily as important, because muscle is far heavier than fat per sq inch. But again, it's a general indicator...if you're a 5'4" female and weigh 200lbs, you're not healthy. Body fat % is the best measurement, the best way to measure that is in a water tank.

Yes, you can work with a trainer if you don't have hard core goals. That's perfectly OK. But if you say "I don't care about my waistline or any of my measurements", then a good trainer is likely going to decline working with you. I'm not implying that you said you don't care about your waistline, just stating a general concept. I totally understand what you're saying. I don't have truly specific goals and don't necessarily care about my measurements. But I do know that I want to gain as much lean muscle as I can and support my joints. You should at least have some sort of rough goal. Do you want to loose body fat? Gain a lot of muscle? Just a little? Fit into a certain size?

 

[seashell7290]

Anyone a personal trainer or have done personal training before? I've done the evaluations at gyms before where they try to sell you a package as a new member. I really dislike this concept. Honestly, measurements mean absolutely nothing to me. If I feel good, am building endurance and muscle I don't care how much I weigh or how many inches my thighs are. Do you think I would be able to work with a personal trainer with this mindset/philosophy or would they balk at this? I am willing to do assessments which show where I'm at with weight training and cardio so there is a starting point, but no tape measures or scales!

I told my trainer I could care less about the evaluation. I have the goal of building upper body strength for a fitness test. You should be able to find someone that will help you reach your fitness goals.

 

[wenrob]

I kind of get not wanting to know your numbers, I was a master at avoiding the scale. For me that just led to denial and trouble. You should want to know them so that you know you're improving them. Sometimes progress isn't readily apparent in the mirror. A trainer wants to know these so that he knows he's leading you in the right direction. Would you go to the doctor and get your cholesterol, blood glucose, blood pressure etc. all tested and then refuse to hear the numbers? How would you know where to start improving? How would your doctor be able to help you if you were just going at it blindly? Knowledge is power in both cases IMO.

Over 25ish + years I've belonged to just about every gym in my city and what I've found is that the trainers who are employed by the gym give the same basic routine to everyone. It's pretty much the same routine across the board in commercial gyms. It happens to be included in my membership but I never use it because I watch these guys drag around new people and give them the same old, same old. A good trainer will tailor a program for you specifically but they need the info to do it.

 

[soccerdad72]

My wife and I have been doing personal training once a week with the same guy for the past couple years. In our case, he's also the gym owner, so he's obviously not pressured to do anything to prove himself to anyone else. We also go to a number of classes that his gym offers (boot camp, TRX, fitness boxing, HIIT) so it's a good mix of different workouts. He's also good at tailoring the training sessions to enhance the classes we've been to that week, so it might be more weight training on a week when we've been doing more cardio or vice versa if we've been to more boot camp classes that week.

The key is finding someone you're comfortable with and who is willing to work with you. Once they get to know you, your goals and the way you prefer to workout, they should be able to adjust accordingly, recognizing that it's not a one size fits all situation.

Oh, and our trainer is not a big measurements guy, but I'm sure if that was something we were focused on, he'd do all the measurements and track them. We're more focused on getting healthier and stronger, not on the pure measurements.