Thanks for joining us for episode 105 of The Ancestral RDs podcast. If you want to keep up with our podcasts, subscribe in iTunes and never miss an episode! Remember, please send us your question if you’d like us to answer it on the show.

Today we are answering the following question from a listener:

“I would love your criteria or recommendations for choosing a gym and a personal trainer. I don’t have much knowledge in this area and I’m intimated by and typically avoid the gym though I think it could be a benefit to me. At this point it’s been years since I worked out in a gym, so I feel like I’d be starting at ground zero.”

Have you been wanting to begin to improve your fitness level, but are intimidated by the process of finding the right gym and personal trainer that will work for your needs?

We’ve got you covered! In this two part episode, we will be discussing how to choose a gym and personal trainer that’s right for you.

Join us for part one today as we walk you through the factors to consider when choosing a gym such as identifying you goals and determining which activities will help you reach them. We even begin to delve into the benefits of having a personal trainer.

Be sure to join us next week for part two!

Here’s what Laura and Kelsey will be discussing in this episode:

• The importance of determining what type of activities you enjoy when choosing a gym
• Why you should try new and different activities regardless of preconceived notions
• The balancing act of adding variety while maintaining consistency with activities in your workouts
• The importance of time, frequency, and consistency when looking for results from workouts
• Why it’s crucial to determine your fitness goals and identify what type of activities will help you accomplish them
• How considering your strengths and weaknesses will help you determine workout goals
• The important role a personal trainer plays in determining and coaching your through your strengths and weaknesses

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Links Discussed:

• This episode is sponsored by Maty’s Healthy Products

TRANSCRIPT:

Kelsey: Hi everyone! Welcome to episode 105 of The Ancestral RDs podcast. I’m Kelsey Kinney and with me as always is my cohost Laura Schoenfeld.

Laura: Hey everybody!

Kelsey: We are Registered Dietitians with a passion for ancestral health, real food nutrition, and sharing evidence-based guidance that combines science with common sense. You can find me, Kelsey, at KelseyKinney.com and Laura at LauraSchoenfeldRD.com.

Over the next 45 minutes we’ll answering your questions about health and nutrition, and providing our insight into solving health challenges with practical tips and real food.

Laura: If you’re enjoying the show, subscribe on iTunes so that way you never miss an episode. While you’re over there, you can leave us a positive review so that others can discover the show as well! And remember, we want to answer your question on the show, so head over to TheAncestralRDs.com to submit your health-related question that we can answer on an upcoming show.

Kelsey: Today on the show we’re going to discuss how to find a gym and a personal trainer that really works for you. This will be a two part episode and part two will be released next week. Before we get into our question for the day, here’s a quick word from our sponsor:

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Maty’s Healthy Products. Maty’s started simply as a mom determined to help her daughter heal and turned into an amazing company that makes all natural and organic cough syrups, vapor rubs, and now even an Acid Indigestion Relief product. Maty’s All Natural Acid Indigestion Relief works quickly to relieve heartburn and indigestion while promoting healthy stomach acid levels. It aids digestion and promotes your body’s natural healing abilities. Made with whole food ingredients you know and recognize like apple cider vinegar, ginger, honey, and turmeric, Maty’s All Natural Acid Indigestion Relief is safe and drug free. Maty’s natural and organic remedies have powerful healing properties to support your body and improve your health. Try them today by visiting Maty’sHealthyProducts.com. You can also find Maty’s at Walmart, CVS, Target, Rite Aid, and a grocery near you.

Laura:Welcome back everyone! Here’s our question for today’s show:

“I would love your criteria or recommendations for choosing a gym and a personal trainer. I don’t have much knowledge in this area and I’m intimated by and typically avoid the gym though I think it could be a benefit to me. At this point it’s been years since I worked out in a gym, so I feel like I’d be starting at ground zero.”

Laura:I feel like this kind of asks two separate questions because finding a gym versus finding a trainer I think there’s going to be different things that you look for. When we talk about finding a gym, we really have to think about the different types of gyms and what kind of activities this person wants to be doing because I think when people think about gyms and personal trainers, they’re thinking about weight lifting or doing some kind of cardio machine like a bike, or an elliptical machine, or a treadmill. There’s a lot of different types of gyms out there that do a lot of different types of movement. For you and me, I think we’re really kind of focusing on the strength training side of things right now.

Kelsey:Right.

Laura:We can talk a little bit more about how we found our personal places that we workout or people that we train with, but I think we need to establish the fact that gyms don’t have to be weight training. There’s a lot of people out there that really hate weight training and don’t want to do it and then will avoid exercise because that’s what they associate with the gym.

There’s a lot of different things that people can do to be active or to work out that are not weight training related and may still be at a gym or maybe at some kind of studio type of thing like a barre class, or Pilates, or something like that that’s not really the same type of gym but may actually be a really fit for the person.

Ultimately my feeling is just to start when you’re thinking about this question is to think about what do you actually enjoy doing because if you don’t like working out with weights, you can try it, you can experiment with things that maybe you’re not sure about or you’re not sure if you enjoy, but generally for most of my clients I would say not to get into something that you don’t actually like doing because it’s probably not going to be enjoyable over the long run and you may or may not be very willing to stick to it. That would be the absolute starting point for most people.

Kelsey:Yeah, I was just going to add that granted if you‘ve tried something you know you don’t like it, then yeah, of course, I agree, I wouldn’t’ recommend trying to do something just because you hear it’s healthy or whatever, but you personally just don’t really like it.

But I do think that a lot of people have preconceived notions about certain types of activities and they sort of just decide not to pursue a kind of activity because of what they think about it or what they think it’s going to be like. Along the lines of what you just said before, certainly try something out if you’re not sure if you’re going to like it. I would really encourage people to do that if there is something that you have maybe heard a lot about and you think it’s probably a really great fit for you in terms of your actual goals but you’re not sure about the activity itself or what kind of people you’d be surrounded by.

Just for strength training for example, I think a lot of people think about those weight lifting bros in a gym and they’re like I don’t really want to be a part of that or that’s just not my scene. And there are a lot of gyms that do strength training and weight lifting that are nothing like that.

I think it’s really important to just open your mind up, toss out those preconceived notions and maybe try a few different places if there’s a specific type of activity that you are interested in but maybe a little bit hesitant about.

Laura:If you had experience with certain types of workouts that you know you really just don’t enjoy as a consistent thing, then again not forcing yourself to do it just because somebody says it’s good for you is I think a reasonable thing to do.

Kelsey:Yeah.

Laura:Just as an example, I had a couple of times in my life where I’ve tried to get into running as a consistent workout and I think the only time I ever actually enjoyed it was when I was living in Australia after I graduated from college and I was living on a beach called Bondi beach. If anyone has been to Australia, I’m sure they have heard of Bondi Beach. Or if you live in Australia, I know you’ve heard of it.

It was this really beautiful kind of built up beach area where there was a path that went from Bondi to a beach called Coogee and it was a couple miles long, I don’t remember exactly how long it was. But it essentially went from right around where I lived up in north Bondi past a bunch of really amazingly beautiful beaches and then up around these cliffs, not like a dangerous cliff, but enough that you can see a lot of things when you’re out there. Sometimes I would see dolphins in the ocean, or whales, or people were surfing.

It was just like a really cool experience and that was the one time I ever really enjoyed running as a workout because it was just so beautiful and half the time I would stop in the middle of a run and just watch dolphins or something.

Kelsey:Right.

Laura:Every other time I’ve tried to get into running on a consistent basis at least, I really just don’t like it. I don’t usually feel very good when I’m done. I usually tend to get a lot more sore than my current workout routine. Nowadays I’ll occasionally go for a run if it’s really nice out or if I want to go somewhere…I like to run on the beach so that’s one place that I will do running if I’m at the beach, like when I’m at The Perfect Health Retreat once a year or so. But otherwise generally running as part of my actual weekly routine never worked out because I just don’t have enough desire or interest in it.

It’s kind of an example of a workout where maybe you do it once in a while or maybe it’s like I do it on vacation because I can go run on the beach and it’s nice. But if it’s not something that you actually really enjoy, it’s probably not going to be something you stick with.

Kelsey:Yeah, I feel the same way about running. There’s been points in my life where it was fun for a while, but it’s never something that I have stuck with long term and I think it’s just because it’s not for me. I don’t really like it that much compared to all the other types of activities out there.

Laura:I think another thing that people tend to not consider when they’re thinking about joining a gym or changing their workout routine, this person that asked the question says that it’s been years since he or she worked out. Maybe this isn’t an issue for them, but I would say if you are somewhat active already and you’re looking to change things, one thing people need to think about is whether or not their workout routine could benefit from either more variety or more consistency.

What I mean by that is in variety maybe you’re doing the same thing every day that you go to the gym and you’re just getting really bored and maybe you’re not getting new results or you’re not really seeing any changes to your body that you used to see when you were doing that workout. If you’re in that situation and you want to start experimenting with different types of gyms or different workout routines, that variety that you can add will keep things a little bit interesting. You may find yourself more motivated because it’s more fun when you’re starting something new.

You may keep your current routine, so let’s say you’re doing a strength training routine, but then you figure you want to throw something else interesting in like acroyoga, like just something random that maybe you want to try out. Maybe you’re not going to just full on acroyoga as every workout that you do, but having that variety will help keep things interesting in your schedule and maybe just increase the likelihood that you’re enjoying yourself and not feeling bored.

But there’s a flipside to variety in your workouts and that is that if you’re doing too much variety you’re probably not going to see any significant results from a strength or a big body change because if you’re not doing things consistently, you’re just not doing it enough to actually see progress.

If you’re on the other end of the spectrum and you keep bouncing around between one day you do barre, and then another day you do yoga, and then you do weight lifting one day, and then you go for a run another day, it’s not that that’s bad. You’re not going to hurt yourself if you’re being super diverse with your activity choices.

But I will say that from a results perspective, and this is something I’ve experienced in the last couple years from training consistently, is that you really only start to see results when you are doing something more frequent and in a consistent way where you’re doing it week in and week out for a long time. I think people will kind of get all gung ho about a certain type of workout and they’ll do it for like a month and say I don’t see results, I’m just going to do something else.

I’ll say that a lot of the results that I’ve experienced, and I don’t know if you can agree this this, but the results I’ve seen in the gym personally a lot of them took months if not close to a year to actually accomplish. Just as an example, being able to do a chin up was one of my original goals for weight training and I think it took me somewhere in the 8 to 10 months range to even just get one chin up in the 2 to 3 times a week I was working out.

I know a lot of women that I work with have a goal to get a chin up and the problem is that if you’re not training for chin ups at least once or twice a week every week for months, you’re probably not going to get one.

Kelsey:Right.

Laura:That’s fine, getting chin up is not like some miraculous life changer. But if you do have goals like that, you can’t just be bouncing around between a bunch of different workouts every time that you go to the gym. You really do need some level of consistency.

I think depending on where you’re starting, if you’re just square one, not doing anything, I would say find at least one thing to get consistent in before you start bouncing around a lot. But then if you’ve been doing one thing for months and you’re getting a little bored, then you can say okay, what kind of variety might that be? For some people, it might be going from normal powerlifting to Olympic lifting. I’m not making a huge change, but just doing something a little bit different to keep it interesting. Or it might mean adding in something that’s totally different from what you’re used to doing, but it just gives you a little bit of variety.

Kelsey:Yeah and I would say with consistency, that doesn’t mean you have to do something like 5 or 6 times a week to be consistent with it.

Laura:Right.

Kelsey: I think probably for most activities I’d say twice a week is probably the minimum to really feel like you’re going to progress the longer you do that. Once a week I’m sure you would make some progress overtime, but it might just take you a lot longer. Or just thinking from a strength perspective here, I think if you only did that once a week and you’re doing other things the other days, you may not build the strength that you were hoping to by adding in strength training. I’d say twice a week is probably the minimum that you want to do something to be really consistent with it and really see improvements overtime.

Laura, I completely agree and I had the same experience with strength training. And I haven’t been doing it for nearly as long as you at this point. I’m trying to think of how long it’s been for me, maybe 9 months, something like that.

Laura:When you say nearly as long, I’ve only been doing it for 2 years, so that’s not super long in the grand scheme of things.

Kelsey:True.

Laura:I know a lot of women that they’re like in their tenth year of training and they’re my age. It’s all relative.

Kelsey:It is, it is. I definitely didn’t see really major improvements in anything until I’d say at least four months where I was like noticing, wow, I feel like I have maybe a little bit more muscle or just feel generally stronger.

If you’re giving something a month long try, while you might see some improvement, it’s generally not enough time to notice a major difference in either body composition, or just your general strength, or your general ability to move around differently than you could before. You really do have to give these things some time and certainly some consistency to really see results.

Laura:If you’re going to try something out for a month, it would be more to figure out if you actually enjoy it as opposed to saying whether or not it’s going to be what you want to get the results that you’re looking for. I think if you’re starting from ground zero like this person that asked the question is, you may see faster results in the beginning.

I think that was something I experienced at the gym because I had just come off a couple of months of not working out at all because of my car accident and so I was very out of shape. I think you get that kind of initial bump in fitness from going from nothing to working out somewhat consistently. But then I found that there was a little bit of improvements for a while, but it kind of started to build on itself, and then eventually several months in, that’s was when I started to see more results.

The trial thing, you can definitely figure out if you enjoy something from just an activity perspective. But just to use yoga as an example, if you go into a class twice a week and then by the end of the month you’re like I should be able to do a handstand by now and I can’t, a lot of these things take many months if not years to actually be able to do.

I remember when I was doing yoga, it used to be like I just want to be able to hold crow for a period of time. I wasn’t doing it consistently enough to actually see that happen. I started to feel a little frustrated, but then I was also kind of realistically thinking well if I’m only doing it once a week, I’m probably not going to see miraculous crow just emerge from once a week of doing yoga.

Kelsey:Right.

Laura:I think it’s one of those things people can feel a little discouraged especially if you’re in a group class and there’s someone there that’s been going for years and you keep comparing yourself to them. That’s one thing I really like about personal training because there’s nobody to compare yourself to except to your previous self.

But it’s important to remember that you will get fitness benefits from doing things that are not consistent. I don’t want people to feel like if I can’t do something twice a week, I might as well not even do it. There are good reasons to do yoga once a week, or take a run once a week, or a hike once a week. But if you’re trying to accomplish anything beyond just maintenance fitness, then you need to do it more than once a week.

Kelsey:Yeah, absolutely. That’s probably a good segue into talking about what are your goals, what do you want to get out of wherever you’re going to go?

I know for me, I think I’ve talked about this on the podcast before that I tend to go through these phases of what type of activity I’m doing. I was doing yoga for a while, and then I was doing kickboxing, now I’m doing strength training. Strength training has actually been the longest one for me I think.

The reason I ended up starting that was because I truly just felt kind of weak. Like many of our listeners know, I was dealing with a health condition that I couldn’t really exercise for a long period of time. At the end of that once I started feeling better I was just like, man, I feel really weak. I just want to feel strong. My goal was to put on muscle and I wanted to change my body composition as well and adding more muscle was a big part of that.

Of course you started strength training a little bit before me and so I was hearing about your experience as well and that certainly led me more along that path I think. I was just really excited to start that. My goals definitely fit within what strength training would provide. Not that I couldn’t have gotten stronger from other activities, but I knew that that was my biggest priority and I definitely felt like strength training would be the activity that would get me there the fastest.

I think it’s important to think about what you actually want to accomplish whether that’s a body composition change, or a strength change, or maybe you’re going on a trip soon and it’s a heavy hiking trip and so you really feel like you need to have the ability to hike up steep hills. All these different types of things that you can train your body to do better, you need to think about what kind of activities are actually going to get you there.

Laura:I think with strength and I’d say mobility as well, some of that can just be general life preparedness, which I know is a big Cross Fit thing where it’s like you’re basically prepared for all situations and everything that could ever happen. Which not everyone is going to be able to be that level of fitness where it’s like I could climb a building if I had to get away from a zombie or something. But just generally feeling like you can function in daily life, for a lot of people that is their goal.

Just thinking about with strength training how that affects, especially as a woman I feel like it’s really nice to be able to do things physically that give a level of independence, which maybe sounds a little sexist, but I think whatever, that’s my experience that if I can do something that requires strength, I feel like I can take care of myself a little bit better. Or even just something silly as carrying all your groceries into the house in one trip, or moving furniture by yourself, that kind of stuff.

It might not be that you have some strength goal as far as being able to compete in a powerlifting tournament, or deadlift 200 pounds, or whatever these goals might be, it may just be that you want to feel like you can handle whatever life throws at you better and there are some certain types of exercise that’s going to improve that. Whether that’s walking or jogging to build your cardiovascular strength, or weight lifting to increase your muscle strength, or maybe you have a history osteoporosis in your family and you want to avoid that, so that’s where strength training can help.

The goals don’t have to be performance related from athletic perspective. Or when we talk about body composition, it doesn’t just have to be like I want to be sub 20% body fat as a woman or something which would be pretty lean. I think there’s a lot of benefit that can come that maybe won’t leave you looking like a power lifter, or a bodybuilder, or something. And that’s okay. It may just be that you’re a little bit overweight and you want to try to get into a more healthy weight category and that might be the goal that once you hit you don’t really feel like you have to keep pushing a lower weight or anything like that.

Just getting really clear about your goals I think is super important. Or there may be some things that you want to accomplish like running a marathon, which that’s something I probably will never want to do. Maybe a half marathon. I’ve done a 10 mile race before, but running a marathon to me sounds awful. But for some people that’s like that’s a great goal and I want to do that before I die. I have friends that are like ultra-marathoners that have run 50 miles.

Kelsey: Oh my gosh!

Laura:Yeah, so everyone’s going to have their own desires as far as what they want to accomplish and that’s going to impact what you do. Because if you want to run a marathon, doing powerlifting 3 times a week probably won’t get you there. It might give you a little bit of a boost, but you shouldn’t be training for a marathon by weight lifting. And vice versa, if your goal is to get strong, then running 100 miles a week and not doing anything else may not be the best training strategy for you.

If your overall goal is just wellness, which it sounds like this person, they said that going to the gym could be a benefit to them. Whatever the benefit is, whether that’s just health or energy, or being able to handle life challenges or anything like that, I’d say something that’s fairly rounded between strength training and cardio type movement. And cardio doesn’t mean going on the elliptical for an hour. Cardio could literally mean a hike or something, or swimming, or something that just is lower intensity but kind of gets your heart rate up just to build your cardiovascular capacity. Those two things combined I would say are generally good for overall fitness.

Kelsey:Yeah.

Laura:If you’re literally looking to be fitter, then doing something like that is fine. You don’t have to do anything crazy to just get generally fit. I think what you and I do is probably a little bit beyond what we would need for general fitness.

Kelsey:Yeah, I would agree.

Laura:I’m not saying it’s extreme by any means, but it’s definitely more than what we would need if our goal was just overall health.

Kelsey:Yeah.

Laura:It really just depends. And then the other thing that could be taken into consideration here is when you’re thinking about your goals, because I think a lot of people will say I don’t know what my goals are, and I don’t want to lose weight necessarily, and I don’t really care about getting super strong, so what should I set a goal for because that’s the only thing people will think about.

I think there’s two things you can look at when you’re setting goals. One you can look at what you’re good at get better at it. Let’s say you’re pretty strong but you want to get stronger, then focusing on building strength could be more fun because it’s something you’re good at. Whereas like we were saying running, we’re not really that good at running and we don’t enjoy it that much so trying to get better at running may not really actually be a good goal for us.

Kelsey:Yeah.

Laura:The other side of the coin would be if there’s something that you’re bad at and you want to improve, like for example if you’re really inflexible and you can’t even touch your toes and you want to be able to do that, then working on your flexibility for a while might make sense.

I know for me, depending on what I’m good at versus not so good at will somewhat affect my workout goals and it will affect how I work with my trainer. An example is I’m just a very naturally flexible person. I don’t really have to work at it. I mean I’m not like a Cirque du Soleil artist or something, but I am very flexible.

Building more flexibility for me actually doesn’t really make sense or make me any healthier because I’ve actually found that my hyper-flexibility has almost caused some problems like with some back pain and that kind of thing. With yoga and stuff, I was finding that I was injuring my back from doing lots of sun salutations, or just a lot of bending and kind of back and forth forward folds, back bends, that kind of thing. I was realizing that that actually wasn’t making me feel good because I just had too much flexibility and pushing more flexibility was causing some problems.

Whereas we’ve established in my training that one of the things that is a limitation for building strength at this point for me is my core. I tend to have a weaker core. I think some of that is from the over-flexibility and some of that is also from sitting as much as I do unfortunately.

Kelsey:Laura, we’re the same person. You’re stating all of my problems as well.

Laura:Yeah. For me with the training that I’m doing with my coach, a lot of what we do is focused on core strength. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing sit ups all day or planks for hours, but a lot of the stuff like heavier squats, or deadlifts, that kind of thing that can definitely involve the core and the heavier things get, the more strength you need to go up in the weight. Focusing on that actually has helping with my overall fitness and physical function on a daily basis because I have more core strength and then I don’t hurt myself doing things as much because my core is more activated.

That’s an example of where if you are too dominant in one area and you keep pushing that dominance, you could actually cause problems. And then if you’re weak in an area, working on building that weakness a little bit can make you stronger elsewhere.

That’s just something to think about with goals because again with core strength, I know everyone is like I want abs and visible abs is like everyone’s goal for whatever reason. But core strength isn’t just about what you’re abs look like, it’s also about how they function. I’d say it’s even more about how they function and thus building core strength for most people is a good goal. It may not make them look any different in a bathing suit necessarily, but they’ll feel better, and they’ll feel stronger, and they won’t throw out their back as easily when they’re moving or whatever happens in life.

This is the kind of goal that maybe is a little bit less obvious compared to something like weight loss or achieving a certain time in race or something like that, but I think it’s a really important goal for people that want to just generally be healthier.

Kelsey:Yeah. You were talking before about that you can push something you’re good at further if you enjoy it because most people of course enjoy things that they’re good at more than doing things that they’re bad at. But what I have found to be helpful for myself is to basically combine what I am good at and what I’m bad at.

For me for example, strength training is actually a really good mix of things that I feel like I’m good at and bad at. The flexibility piece, like you were saying you’re almost hyper-flexible, as am I. That at first was a good thing because a lot of people aren’t flexible enough for example to do a normal squat position. Their ankles aren’t very flexible and so they can’t get into the right position. At first I was very motivated by the fact that my coach was like, oh you actually have all this flexibility so you can kind of get into these positions that for a lot of people that’s what holds them back in the beginning.

I was able to actually build strength a little bit I guess I’d say more quickly from the beginning because I didn’t have to worry about that flexibility piece of it. And now the flexibility piece of it its almost what’s holding me back at this point and what I have to work on and why I have to work on building core strength because I can kind of get into these almost weird positions that cause my core not to be as activated and not to hold me up as much.

It’s kind of a mix of things that I’m good and bad at. And at different times during my lifting career thus far, those things have been a benefit to me or a detriment to me. All this to say basically is that I feel like that mixture of incorporating things that you’re good at and that you’re bad at is for most people going to give them that right amount of motivation to continue with things because you feel like you’re getting better at the things that you’re bad at while you’re also not totally neglecting the things that you’re good at. You’re still pushing things forward that you’re already good at so that feels good of course, and then combine that with the fact that you’re improving things that maybe you were bad at before also motivates you.

Laura:I think just generally being balanced with different areas of fitness is going to just help everything be easier. Like you were saying if you aren’t flexible, it’s going to make it hard for you to do certain movements. But then if you’re too flexible, it’s going to make it hard as well. That’s something that it can be really challenging to figure that out on your own. We’ll talk about this in a second, but this person was asking about finding a personal trainer and that’s where I think getting a trainer can actually really be helpful because you may not be aware of what your weakness are.

If you’re not good at squatting, you may think that that’s because your legs aren’t strong. But you may work with a trainer who points out the fact that you just either can’t get the ankle mobility, and maybe you’ll raise up your heels or something to help with that and then start to build more strength. Or maybe you, again like me and Kelsey have some issues with core strength that once the weight gets heavy you start to lose your tightness and then that makes it hard to stay in the squat position.

Having somebody to actually coach you through the areas that you are struggling with and then also help you build the areas that you are good at and kind of mixing that in so that you don’t just go through a workout and just hate life the whole time because you’re just like this is too hard and I hate this!

Having some stuff that you’re good at can make the workout a lot more fun. That’s where having a trainer or a coach actually can be super helpful to make sure you’re balancing things. Because I think a lot of people when they’re working out on their own if they don’t have a plan, they’ll end up just doing that they are doing because it’s less hard and less uncomfortable. Which it’s not the end of the world if you go and do the same thing all the time, but you’re really not going to make any progress if you’re just focusing on increasing the things that you’re good at.

It can be really hard not only be objective about what you’re not good at, but then also push through the discomfort of not being good at something to get better at it and that’s where having a coach I think actually really comes in handy because if they’re the ones that are putting together the routine for you, you’ll have a little bit more balance across that spectrum of building things that you’re good at as well as improving things that you’re not so good at.

Kelsey:Right, yeah. I have to say that I have loved having a coach. I had started doing weightlifting on my own kind of, or at least sort of in the beginning I had for a period of time done it on my own. And boy, there is such a big difference when you actually have somebody coaching you and making your programing for you. I just wasn’t making really any progress on my own and I think that’s because really I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to program the right kind of workout schedule and I didn’t know what things I wasn’t doing right necessarily.

Having that coach really allowed me to see things objectively. Like you were saying before, there were things in my squats that I can’t notice on my own when I’m just doing it, but somebody else watching me can certainly notice. That objective eye is really helpful as is of course somebody who knows how to make a workout program that’s going to address you’re weaknesses and also improve what you’re already good at.

Laura:Definitely. That’s not the only benefit of a coach. It’s definitely one of the bigger ones, but as I found in the last couple of months as life has gotten kind of crazy, and tiring and stuff, that for me I think I’m at the point where I could probably do a pretty good balanced workout routine and I know generally what I need to focus on to improve certain things.

I think there’s still benefit of having the coach, but because I’ve been doing it for two years I’m probably at the point where I could do my own workout if I wanted to. However for me the real benefit at this point seems to be coming from the motivation piece because right now at least because of how busy I am and there’s so many things that I have to do that it would be super easy to just not go to the gym on a certain day if I’m tired or if I have a lot of stuff that I have to get done. Right now having my sessions scheduled with my trainer means that I’m not going to skip it because I paid for and I can’t just bail. I mean I could, but then I would lose money and it’s not a cheap session, so it’s not like I’m like oh it’s just 10 bucks, I’ll just skip it.

We have a lot to talk about with this episode. What we’re going to do is actually cut this one into two different parts. If you were enjoying what we were talking about today, just tune in next week and we’ll be finishing our conversation about how to pick a gym and a personal trainer if you’re starting from scratch. We hope you’ll join us next time and we’ll see you around.

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