Personal training is an absolute game changer, no matter what stage of fitness you are in. Whether you’re just getting started or are an elite athlete, having a personal trainer can elevate your performance, keep your form in check, and drive accountability. One study showed that personal trainers helped significantly improve the level of fitness of over 70% of gym-goers.
Even an awkward friend is a better personal trainer than nothing at all.
But for most of us (myself included), personal trainers are completely out of reach. There’s two main problems:
1. Talent level
While having a personal trainer is helpful and important, it’s really crucial that you have a GOOD personal trainer. Because a trainer who isn’t well trained (yes, trainers have to get trained too) can actually hurt your exercise.
A few signs of an effective personal trainer are:
They themselves are not in shape. I never understood personal trainers who try to motivate their clients to be better when they can’t even motivate themselves.
They tell all their clients to do the same thing, regardless of varying fitness levels.
They don’t carefully engage with each rep and each set.
They don’t advise you on more than just fitness (e.g. diet)
2. Price
This is where the real challenge is. A WebMD article says
...a recent survey found an average of $50 per hour with a range of $15 to $100 per hour.
Are you freaking kidding me?? Who has $50/hour to spend on personal training?? If I do it even twice a week, that’s $5,200 a year that I’m spending on training! That’s on top of my gym membership, and the really awesome workout clothes I treat myself with.
(For what it’s worth, from the trainer’s perspective, that price actually isn’t actually all that much. Simple math: average trainer probably gets about 10 of those sessions a week, which comes out to $500/week, or ~$25k/year. It’s not a lot for them, but for us, it’s really undoable.)
So, because of these two problems, what do most of us do? We read articles online, and then when we go to the gym, we try to remember what we read.
Unfortunately, that's not very effective.
Why?
First, because you are unlikely to remember the specifics, and that's the most important part.
Second, because when you're deep into a workout and sweating and tired, that's really the time that you need a trainer. And that's the time when you're most likely to ignore/forget everything you've read, and just do what's familiar. Unfortunately, familiar isn't always the best.
So, what's the solution? Well there's a number of good services out there that provide digital personal training, and we think it's great if you use them.
They help you diversify your workout, and they provide guidance throughout your workout. And even though some of them are really expensive, many are quite affordable.
Another option is to bring a partner to the gym with you. You can hold each other responsible, you can keep each others form in check, and you can use the motivation from someone else when you are getting tired.
But if you're a runner, like we are, there's no one product that provides personal training. Until now :-) Apologies for the shameless plug, but we are firm believers in the value of personal training, and we believe it should be accessible to everyone, not just those who can afford to spend $60/hr. That's why we spent all our energy trying to make the classes as affordable as possible, while hiring the most effective trainers in the world.