One of the most common questions in the health and fitness sphere is the value of a personal trainer (PT). So, we’ve popped together just a few benefits of having a PT in your corner, especially as you age.
Safety – Avoiding Injury
Whilst we are able to carry out daily tasks and generally have an understanding of where our limbs are in relation to our body, our proprioception isn’t always as good as we’d like to think.
Proprioception, also called kinesthesia, is the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions. It’s the reason we’re able to move freely without consciously thinking about our environment.
There are a number of things which can alter our proprioception, like drinking alcohol, but there are also age-related changes which can too.
What this means is that we may think we are moving in a certain way, and therefore safely, but in reality we may not be. Having a PT on hand can watch how we are moving, help us enhance our proprioception which ultimately helps us move safely, avoiding injury.
Training Adaptation
One of the key benefits of having a PT is that if life does give you an injury, you have an expert to modify your program so you can keep training.
We often see two types of people with an injury – those who train through, no matter what, and those who rest until recovered. The issue with training through with no adaptation is that it likely impedes the recovery process and could even worsen the injury. In addition, depending on the injury, being sedentary until recovery often isn’t great either. Having a PT means we meet somewhere in the middle – we can remain active, but our training programme is modified to accommodate our injury. This is not only great for our physical health, but our mental health too!
Efficiency
We’ve all been there – we get to a gym and then spend half of the time figuring out what exercise to do next. Without a plan, we get easily distracted and maybe even spend time watching what other people are doing and wondering whether we should be doing the same.
Having a PT means we have a structured programme – they keep us on target, leaving little time to get distracted. It means we get a lot more done in the time allocated too!
Accountability
We are what we repeatedly do.
Without consistency, we will struggle to hit our health and fitness goals. Having a PT provides accountability. Whilst we may think we are doing everything in our power to achieve our goals, having a professional helping us identify where we may be sabotaging ourselves is crucial in keeping us on track.
Motivation through the uncomfortable moments
The word “coach” in the athletic performance capacity we know it as, originated from the word “coach” or “coche” meaning wagon or carriage. Essentially, it was a thing that got people from A to B. Whilst we tend to call ourselves Personal Trainers or PT’s, a huge part of that role is coaching. A coach, or PT, is therefore someone who gets you from A to B. A being where you are, B being your goals.
But how?
Well, the brain (and body for that matter) is like water, it chooses the path of least resistance. It adapts.
A coach or PT can encourage you to activate parts of your brain that you likely hadn’t planned. Novelty brings adaptation and usually a surge in reward circuitry, meaning we are more likely to want to repeat the same behaviour again.
A coach or PT can also tap into thoughts and processes that you hadn’t anticipated, again bringing novelty and surge in reward circuitry.
And lastly, the feedback from a coach can reinforce learning, build confidence and reset (likely unhelpful) feedback loops we’ve gotten ourselves into – you know that little voice telling us we can’t do something? Oftentimes we can, with a little encouragement.
If you have tried to tackle your health and fitness goals in the past, but not quite gotten there, you may see the value in a personal trainer.
We have decades of experience supporting individuals in achieving their fitness goals, whatever they may be.
Get in touch to see how we can help you achieve yours!
