7 Benefits Of A Personal Trainer
Why would you even want to hire a personal trainer in the first place?
After all, you can just as easily work out on your own and have people gawk at you while you do so, especially if you’re attractive, wearing inappropriate clothing, or executing a sexually-suggestive exercise.
Yeah, you can have that service performed for free rather than paying someone to do the same thing, that of watching you while you work out. Like, what benefit does a glorified rep counter provide?
That’s a very good question concerning the benefits of a personal trainer.
However, while the benefits of a personal trainer may not be clear at first glance, there are many reasons to hire one wherever you may live.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Studies suggest that we feel the pain of losing something twice more powerfully than the satisfaction of gain. So what do humans being hardwired to feel the pain of loss have to do with anything? Well, it’s probably the number one reason why people hire personal trainers, as it’s harder to skip a workout when you’ve invested money in that particular workout, as most trainers demand payment in advance so they’re compensated for their time even if you don’t show up.1Something like 80 percent of the people who own gym memberships don’t go enough to warrant them. Despite not going, people continue paying monthly dues when it’d probably be cheaper to pay for a day pass given their infrequent visits. So why doesn’t the loss of money drive these people to go to the gym the same way that it drives people who work with a trainer? Well, a single personal training session may be the cost of one or two month’s dues. So one explanation may be that their membership isn’t pricey enough, with the cost of using their membership as a status symbol outweighing the cost of not actively using it.
Another reason has to do with the fact that most gym dues are removed electronically by credit card or direct debit so the person doesn’t see the cost to even notice the pain. That is, unless they go through their billing statements every month, which most people don’t do and is why this mode of payment is preferred by the gym industry so money can continue being made off people. If people were compelled to pay their dues with cash, which is tangible, it’s safe to say that not as many gym memberships would go unused. They’d either be cancelled or people would go, something that’s the worst nightmare of gym owners.
See, to turn a profit after payment of staff, rent, utilities, and insurance, as well as other expenditures, such as equipment and its upkeep, a gym needs about 10 times the number of members it can hold. So if everybody who had a gym membership actually showed up, there wouldn’t be enough space to accommodate them all, in addition to the rising cost of overhead with the increased wear and tear of equipment, for example.
If losing money isn’t enough, there’s also that of losing face, as there’s nothing worse than having to answer to someone when you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, like show up at such-and-such time at such-and-such place. That right there is the power of having a personal trainer. By having one, you’re obligated to make it to the gym even when you don’t want to because of the social pressure of being viewed disapprovingly.
MOTIVATION
In what’s known as “social facilitation”, people perform complex tasks better in the presence of others. Several studies have borne this out, explaining why that guy picking his nose in the car next to you at the stop light suddenly starts really going at it as both your eyes meet when you look dead at him. One reason why people work harder is out of reputational concerns. They either want to impress others through their performance or not lose esteem.2Steinmetz J, Pfattheicher S. “Beyond Social Facilitation: A Review of the Far-Reaching Effects of Social Attention.” Social Cognition, vol. 35, no. 5, Oct. 2017, pp. 585–599. Also possibly at play is that when observed, what you’re doing feels magnified in importance. This sense of meaningfulness then motivates you to work harder.3Bond C, Titus LJ. “Social Facilitation: A Meta-Analysis of 241 Studies.” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 94, no. 2, Oct. 1983, pp. 265–292.
Having a personal trainer by your side as you work out can give you that umph to work out harder than you possibly could on your own. Although that’s extremely important, motivation in the gym is dwarfed in importance by the motivation that’s necessary to keep you wanting to go to the gym and forge ahead with your fitness goal. A personal trainer can provide that, as it’s part of their job to find out why you’re not motivated to do what you’re supposed to do and then suggest ways to correct it, as well as help boost you up when you’re feeling discouraged.
EXPERIENCE
My vocabulary is pretty expansive.4The common suggestion is to write at a 6th to 8th grade reading level. So remember that before you point to my display of limited vocab here and scoff at my claim of being sesquipedalian! As large as it is, I don’t think I’m aware of a word in the English language that can be used to say something is beyond confusing, as the word “confusing” and its synonyms undersell what someone new to fitness and nutrition would use to describe their understanding of what to do. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there!
To illustrate the point of there being conflicting information, let’s take nutrition studies, for instance. One study says one thing. Another comes along that completely shits on what the other study said. Then another shits on that and agrees with the first study. Then another study comes and shits on the first and third in support of the second. And the cycle goes on and on as study after study is published that says contradictory information. A qualified personal trainer can help you wade through that and remove the guesswork of figuring out what’s right or wrong.
CONFIDENCE
A common reason given for why people don’t go to the gym is that they feel intimidated. Because they’re not in good shape and don’t know how to perform this-or-that exercise or use this-or-that machine, they think they’ll look out of place among the sea of professional bodybuilders that happen to be the only members of their gym. As such, everyone will immediately drop what they’re doing and laugh them out of the building. Working with a personal trainer for only a few sessions can help a beginner see their fears are unfounded, with them learning enough of the basics to become comfortable enough to tackle the gym on their own.
CONVENIENCE
With all the things some people have to deal with in their life from work to family and social obligations, the last thing they want to waste time and energy on is thinking about their workouts, like what exercises to do for what muscles, how many sets for how many reps, in what order, etc.
By working with a trainer, working out is one less thing these people have to deal with since all they have to do is execute the plan. The same for their nutrition and having to figure out what and how much to eat. Someone telling them exactly what to do allows them to turn their brain off instead of having to add to the daily stressors of their life.
EFFICIENCY
A lot of people think they have to work out hours upon hours to see results, so you see them in the gym doing marathon workouts. If what’s keeping you out of going to the gym is not having the hours upon hours to spend working out or that’s currently how long you work out for, a personal trainer can show you how to maximize your time and work out in the most efficient manner.
VARIETY
Maybe you’ve been doing the same workout routine since the Nixon administration. You know, the one you ripped out of a magazine when those things still existed. Anyway, because you have ADD/ADHD, it’s hard for you to find the motivation to work out and do that boring ass routine. You’re bored out of your mind by that workout and magazines don’t exist for you to rip a new one out of. But even if that weren’t the case and you were able to find a new routine, you’d still have the issue of a stale workout after a while. Designing your own workouts is an option, as is hiring a qualified personal trainer who knows an assortment of different exercises and all their variations so your workouts are different and provide much needed variety that wouldn’t have been achievable on your own.
This benefit may also be of interest if you’re an experienced gym-goer but are no longer seeing results from your routine or training style. A personal trainer can offer an objective eye to unearth reasons for the stalled progress, whether it be the routine or training style itself or you not working as hard as you think you are. Additionally, a personal trainer can introduce you to new exercises, techniques, and equipment that you may have never tried or thought to consider.
Glossary: bodybuilder, exercise, fitness, goal, gym, gym membership, motivation, muscle, personal trainer, results, routine, work out, workout
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