Why Use a Personal Trainer?

There are some common misconceptions that personal trainers are a luxury only afforded by well-off, bored housewives, or by the already super-fit. I am Alison Berrisford, Whitehill and Bordon based Personal Trainer, and I can assure you that it is not the case. Now, more than ever, a personal trainer is affordable and accessible for anyone.

Why would you use a personal trainer?

There are many reasons to use a personal trainer and some of the common ones are as follows:

To lose weight

Despite what some social media says, there is no quick way to lose weight. The only way to lose weight successfully is to eat less calories and move more. In addition to promoting a healthy heart and strong bones and muscles, exercise burns calories to help you shed weight by losing body fat.

Creating an effective weight loss exercise program on your own can be complicated. A good personal trainer can make an effective and enjoyable exercise program for you, considering your schedule, exercise preferences and any history of injury.

Having a personal trainer also provides you with an ally, an advisor, and someone to whom you are accountable for staying on track. If you have a question on technique or if there is an alternative to an exercise you don’t enjoy, a personal trainer can help you with that. Additionally, personal trainers can provide expert advice on your form and protect you from injuries.

Personal trainers are exercise experts, and know how to offer efficient results for you, no matter how much weight you need to lose. A personal trainer can also provide you with nutritional information on the importance and benefits of eating healthily (this may not include providing meal plans as that is the role of a dietician). At ABPT Fitness, I help you change the way you think and feel about food and learn which foods are unnecessary when improving your health.

Improve your performance at sport

A personal trainer can give you the one-to-one attention needed to specifically improve as an individual athlete. Trainers design programs to enhance the individual athlete in areas like sport specific speed, power, strength, and endurance as well as work with reactivity and agility training.

This may ultimately give the athlete the upper hand over others that simply attend the sport practice. Personal trainers can look for imbalances within the body and create a plan to correct the discrepancies. This may reduce the risk of injury and remove impediments to performance.

I am a lifetime sports enthusiast, and, at ABPT Fitness, I provide a custom program to meet your needs.

Build strength

Strength training is not just about body builders lifting weights in a gym. Regular strength or resistance training is good for people of all ages and fitness levels to help prevent the natural loss of lean muscle mass that comes with aging. It can also benefit people with chronic health conditions, like obesity, arthritis, or a heart condition.

At its heart, strength training is based on functional movements i.e., lifting, pushing, and pulling, in order to build muscle and coordination needed for everyday activities.

Having an educated personal trainer beside you to demonstrate the correct posture and technique is invaluable. A personal trainer will ensure clients are performing exercises correctly and efficiently, to maximise results and reduce risk of injury.

I am enthusiastic about providing the training and support to improve your fitness and your life.

A personal trainer can

Provide motivation – we all have days where we would rather do something else, or we feel like giving up. A personal trainer wants you to be successful in meeting your goals and will be there to motivate you.

Set realistic goals – They want you to set yourself up to succeed and part of doing that is to make sure your goals are achievable!

Plan sessions/workouts – Trained to know which exercises and activities will provide the results you are looking for; a personal trainer will tailor your sessions to your requirements.

Demonstrate exercises and routines to clients – Not everyone is trained in fitness, and it is important that, when doing any exercise, clients are doing it correctly to maximise effectiveness and reduce risk of injury.

Modify exercises according to clients’ fitness levels – Trial and error may show that a particular exercise is not right for a client straight away. In which case, modification is needed.

Monitor client progress- If you can’t see the results, a personal trainer may point out where the progress is being made. If progress is slow, they can look at ways to improve this.

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At ABPT, I use an app called ‘My PTHub’ to track your progression. This allows me to send programs, easily track results, look at trends and habits and show me when your next workout is, what it is, and when you've completed it. It's a great tool for you too, to keep you accountable and follow your own progress.

Provide information or resources on general fitness and health issues- A personal trainer has a good understanding of how the body works and, although not a dietician or medically trained, they can offer general advice.

At the end of the day everyone is different, so the requirements from personal training are very much unique for each client.

Make the most of Summer

Part of being a personal trainer is to be flexible to meet our client’s needs. In summertime, when the weather is warmer, we can plan sessions outside. We don’t always need to have the latest workout equipment, clients can use their own bodyweight, park benches or even trees to vary the exercises they do outdoors. So why not utilise nature?

Costs

If you are serious about making changes to your health and physique, a personal trainer is more cost effective than a gym membership or a diet club. You will learn what is right for you and will be accountable - no skipping sessions when you just aren’t feeling like it. So, if any of this resonates with you, can you afford not to have a personal trainer?