Imagine this. You meet a new friend and this friend has never eaten a strawberry. As you hear about this craziness, you realize that you must describe to this person what it is like to eat a nice, juicy strawberry.
Think about that for a moment. How would you fully describe to someone what it is like to eat a strawberry?
When I think about this, my ending thought every time is “well, you really just need to try it yourself.” Were you thinking the same thing? Probably.
This is because eating something as simple as a strawberry is an experience. It’s not something that can be fully experienced by another person through a description of it. You actually must experience the experience of eating a strawberry to fully understand and to fully relate.
Working with a personal trainer is like this. It is an experience indescribable with words. BUT, I am writing this blog post to share parts of the personal training experience that individuals that have never worked with a personal trainer may not consider…. Since they have never worked with a personal trainer.
1. Good personal trainers have GREAT perspective.
Perspective will help you think differently about what you are experiencing, working through, or being challenged with. Why? Personal trainers have experience. Experience is not only measured in years of working as a trainer, but also as an openness to consider any and all options. A great personal trainer is not scared to try something new but is always willing to learn, track, observe, and modify the path you are going down to make sure it is a success. Perspective is also gained through the pursuit of understanding the medium in which they work, in this case, the human body!
Remember- We bring to reality what our minds think. A personal trainer is a great resource to help you with your mindset as you participate in exercise and pursuit your goals.
Related: 3 Exercise Myths That Are Holding You Back
2. Personal trainers work hard to build their toolbox.
Do you view personal trainers as expensive cheerleaders or overpriced babysitters? This point is for you. First, I do not want to discredit your observation that personal trainers CAN be expensive cheerleaders and overpriced babysitters. If you come across a great personal trainer, you will quickly notice, this is not the case. Great personal trainers work extremely hard to build a large toolbox. It is blatantly clear that one method will never work for all individuals. Even if two individuals have VERY similar goals. A great trainer will have many systems or paths to help people with…. You never know what will work! The challenge on the trainer is how to deliver these many options. It can be overwhelming to a consumer to be bombarded with (for example) ‘15 ways to strengthen core muscles’ or ‘100 ways to lose weight.’ An eloquent trainer will strategically sort through options in his/her toolbox to find a direction. Lastly- great news! If plan A doesn’t work your trainer will have pan B – Z.
Related: 5 Ways To Tell If Your Personal Training Is Truly Personal
My last point is my favorite point because no goal will ever be achieved without this one-
3. Personal trainers put urgency on your exercise…and I promise that if you don’t actually DO your workouts, you really WILL NOT get to your goals.
From the top of your head, think about everything that you could be doing instead of working out. To be quite honest, during my workout yesterday I started watering my plants, cleaning my tea maker, and folding my towels. REALLY? In my time that I designated to improve my body and healthy, I decided to fold towels?! This happens all the time and I know it happens with you, too. During your workout time, you really could be productive with other things like paperwork, laundry, picking up kids, making dinner, working on your business, following up with prospects, going to networking events, going to social events, watching the news or television, etc. When will you put urgency on YOUR EXERCISE? A personal trainer can be the person who does that for you. When you come to a personal training appointment, there is very little things that will happen outside of your workout or some other activity to help you work towards your goal. Your personal trainer will help you put your workout (at least for that hour) as the most important and urgent thing to happen in that time. It is my belief that many people never realize their goals because they are unable to put an urgency on their exercise like a personal trainer is able to do. An urgent workout happens NOW. A non-urgent workout happens sometime if ever at all.
Again, I understand this post cannot share with you the experience of working with a personal trainer, but I hope that it gives you 3 more reasons to consider working with one.
Our mission at Muscle Activation Schaumburg is to help you with your fitness mission and we would be honored to put an urgency on YOURS.