Why Waste Time, Energy, and Money on a Cookie-Cutter Program?
Working out can be extremely rewarding and fun if a program is tailored to you. There are countless ways to exercise and if you don’t like something, you don’t necessarily have to do it. Sure, some methods may get you results a little bit quicker than others, but a personalized workouts approach is what will always work the best for you in the long-term.
To build an effective personalized workout plan, you should first answer a few important questions. Here are just a few you may want to consider:
What is your goal? What are your sub goals?
Will you be working out at home or a gym? Which exercises do you enjoy?
How many days per week can you dedicate to working out?
What resources do you have available to you?
Do you have a strong social support system? If not, how can you build one?
What possible obstacles could you face? How will you handle them?
What will accomplishing this goal mean to you?
If you went through these questions and felt overwhelmed or uncertain about how to answer any of them then don’t worry, that is completely normal. This is just one of the many reasons why you could benefit from working with a Personal Trainer who can help you to successfully achieve your goals through strategically creating a personalized workout program for you.
This article discusses a few of the main benefits of building an effective workout routine that suits your goals, fits your lifestyle, and is enjoyable.
Defining Goals
It is imperative for a Personal Trainer to understand each client’s goals and how healthier habits will connect to their values in life before they can begin creating personalized workouts. Collecting this information will help a Personal Trainer provide effective guidance to help clients overcome obstacles and challenges. Identifying life values can help a Personal Trainer ensure that goals are real and relevant by framing the lifestyle behaviors in terms of those values. When people first begin working with a Personal Trainer, their goals tend to be generic, vague, and ambiguous. By putting the goals in context of what the client values, the Personal Trainer can facilitate the process of transforming the goals from abstract ideas into personalized and realistic plans of action that clients are motivated to begin. This can be achieved by using open-ended questions to identify the reasons why the goal matters to the client.
Sub Goals
Successful behavioral change is almost always the result of small achievements accumulated over time. However, the opposite is also true—the cumulative effect of repeatedly engaging in a series of small behaviors (missing several workouts in a row, eating a few extra “treats” every day, or regularly overeating) can have a big impact over time. These are essentially the way people make physical changes—for better or for worse. Over time, making poor choices and developing unhealthy habits, may inspire someone to make a decision to get back in shape, hire a Personal Trainer for guidance, and follow personalized workouts created specifically for them.
More often than not, once a person decides to take action towards living a healthier lifestyle, they will expect to see results immediately. This is where a Personal Trainer can help you understand the importance of making a series of small behavioral changes that will ultimately lead to a big change. Even when your daily life gets hectic and you fall behind on errands, work/home projects, and family demands, the support from a Personal Trainer can help you navigate through challenges while staying on track towards reaching your goals.
Identify Potential Obstacles
The pattern of starting a fitness program and then quickly stopping it is a very common theme for many people. Often, at the beginning of a workout program, people will be more focused and motivated because they are excited, and it is the beginning of a new endeavor. But there may be significant reasons why people never enjoy real and lasting change. Uncovering these reasons is valuable information to a Personal Trainer when developing a personalized workouts. Furthermore, it is essential to reexamine the goals in light of any obstacles and discuss potential changes that may be warranted. Common obstacles to health-behavior change—just like the motivations for health-behavior change—can be either internal or external. Internal obstacles relate to a client’s attitudes, opinions, thoughts, feelings, and self-talk about health, fitness, exercise, or nutrition. External obstacles can include time, family, and work responsibilities.
Internal Obstacles
Often times when people first begin working with a Personal Trainer, the have an unhealthy mindset that can adversely affect their attitudes, thoughts, and feelings toward change. For example, it is common for people to have tried several times previously to make changes but have failed each time. People often feel overwhelmed by daily demands, and their significant unhappiness with how they feel or look has decreased their level of hope that change is possible for them. A few examples of statements that Personal Trainers often hear from people with this type of experience are, “Exercise does not work for because I have bad genes,” or “I have tried everything, and nothing works for me.” Statements such as these reflect a fixed mindset of someone’s inability to change. As a result, they avoid challenges, give up easily see effort as worthless and feel threatened by the success of others.
If you can relate, it is essential for you to work with a Personal Trainer who can steer you toward a growth mindset as they create personalized workouts. They will enable you to learn and grow, embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, view effort as the path to improvement and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others. To successfully facilitate this change, a Personal Trainer can simply begin to examine the potential challenges you may face now and have faced previously in pursuit of health improvement. An important element of this is exploration with you is to learn what you have done to cope with challenges more effectively in the past and how you plan to cope with current challenges.
During this process, it helps a Personal Trainer avoid the common practice of telling you what to do and instead treats you like you have the ability to find the best way around your own obstacles by facilitating the development of your own unique solutions. For example, if a client admits that they need to drink more water. Instead of telling the client how much water to drink, a Personal Trainer can ask more questions such as, “How will you ensure that you begin to drink more water?” and wait for the client’s response. The client might have an idea about how best to achieve this goal. If the client needs help, then the Personal Trainer can offer suggestions, while still allowing the client to choose which of the offered suggestions seems to be best suited for their particular lifestyle. For example, the Personal Trainer may offer the following suggestions to help the client achieve the goal of drinking more water:
Always pack a water wherever you may go during your daily routine.
Link the behavior to something commonly done throughout the day, such as taking a sip of water every time you look at your phone.
Set an alarm on your phone for every hour to help keep you on track to hit your water intake goal for the day.
Out of the recommendations provided, it is the client’s decision to choose which option would work best.
External Obstacles
Frequently, when discussing goals and the available time for commitment to the exercise and nutrition changes necessary, a client will provide a Personal Trainer with best-case scenario answers. However, it is essential for a Personal Trainer to understand the realistic time that is available and the motivation level of the client. By having these honest conversations, it allows the Personal Trainer to build personalized workouts that will truly fit a client’s life and avoid setting up a situation where the lifestyle changes are in direct competition with other priorities and commitments.
The first step in identifying external obstacles is conducting a realistic examination of the opportunities for change remaining in a client’s life, after including all the daily work and family responsibilities. For example, pretend that you told your Personal Trainer that your schedule would allow you to workout 5 days per week for 1-hour sessions. But after further investigation, your Personal Trainer discovers that this schedule will only work if you leave work on time, don’t have any pre-scheduled after school activities that you need to drive your kids to, and don’t have any house chores that evening. After further exploration, you may have significantly less actual exercise time available given these realistic life considerations. If these factors are not uncovered initially and your Personal Trainer simply proceeds with developing a program for you, you will eventually feel the stress and pressure of the competing demands and the workout program will often be what is compromised.
Create Solutions Before Problems Appear
A huge benefit of following personalized workouts and working with a Personal Trainer is that they will provide their clients the opportunity to think of solutions before facing an obstacle. When facing an obstacle that has historically thrown you off course from your health goals, the most familiar path will be the one that is taken unless a different response has been planned. With guidance from your Personal Trainer, you can gain confidence from the knowledge that there has been a different solution created that will motivate you to successfully work through an obstacle. For example, if you get frustrated because you miss a few workouts and let your negative emotions take control, you will likely feel like giving up. After discussing this with your Personal Trainer, you realize that you will not get into great shape from one or two workouts and, similarly, you will not get out of shape from missing one or two workouts. Having these conversations with a Personal Trainer will help you to maintain a positive outlook and focus on your reaching your goals.
Everyone Has Strengths
You have likely been asked the interview question, “What are your strengths?” Regardless if you love or hate this question, candidates are expected to communicate their level of confidence in having the necessary skills required to be successful in the available position. However, when it comes to health and fitness, many people lack confidence in their own abilities, are likely to try the latest fads, and have difficulty focusing on their goals. When creating personalized workouts, a Personal Trainer will help you to reframe your goals by aligning them with areas where you are already confident. For example, if a client is an exceptional Financial Analyst, but has terrible nutrition and exercise habits. The attention to detail and organizational skills required to be a successful Financial Analyst are not that different from those required to successfully follow through on a personalized program. A Personal Trainer can reassure clients that they already possess the skills necessary to be successful in reaching their goals by pointing out the areas in which they are already confident and capable.
Remember, everything in life is hard before it is easy. You need to embrace the newbie stage until you have done it enough for you to get better at it. This is may seem simple, but it is still an important lesson that needs to be learned.
Bottom Line
If you are ready for an effective workout routine that suits your goals, fits your lifestyle, and is actually enjoyable, it’s time for you work with a certified Personal Trainer. When it comes to setting yourself up for success, a Personal Trainer can help you to define your goals, understand your strengths, and identify solutions to possible obstacles. All of these are important elements to take into consideration while developing effective personalized workouts.
At the end of the day, a certified Personal Trainer will design the best workout program according to your specific goals. Additionally, you will receive guidance as you begin to transition into a healthier lifestyle and develop new habits. Again, these are only just a few examples of the many benefits a Personal Trainer provides to ensure success in reaching your personal goal.
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