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Have you ever tried a new exercise and then ended up quitting just after a few reps because you couldn’t quite figure out how to do it correctly? Did you have anyone to review workout videos so you could understand what you need to improve? It can be discouraging when you want to add a new exercise into your routine but can’t because you have no idea what you are doing wrong or how to fix it.
Regardless if you are brand new or have been working out for several years, partnering with a certified Personal Trainer will help educate you to understand the purpose and technique in performing various exercises. This article highlights reasons why it is beneficial to work with a Personal Trainer who offers to take the time to evaluate your workout videos.
Reasons to Submit Your Workout Videos and Photos to a Personal Trainer
Working with a qualified fitness expert who provides you with regular feedback on your workouts is going to help you in both the long and short-term. So instead of feeling alone, confused and intimidated, a Personal Trainer can provide you with constructive feedback to help you learn and strengthen your confidence throughout your fitness journey.
With remote, online Personal Trainers, you are encouraged to record yourself performing exercises and ask any questions you may have. When they review workout videos, they can analyze your technique, tempo, ROM (range of motion), intensity, volume, etc. Just remember, you will receive the best answers by a certified Personal Trainer who understands your background and specific goals.
Help You Learn Proper Technique
Have you ever been frustrated because you struggled to learn how to perform a particular exercise? A Personal Trainer’s job is to teach you proper technique and there are a few different strategies to break down how to perform an exercise. They will be able to review workout videos, understand where your improvement opportunities are, and coach you accordingly.
Personal Trainers Can Adapt to Your Learning Style
Everyone has a preference when it comes to how they learn new information, such as watching, listening and doing. This is an important topic to discuss with a Personal Trainer during an initial consultation to ensure efficient communication. For example, a Personal Trainer can visibly demonstrate what an exercise looks like and explain what is happening.
Utilize Tech Tools
Your photos and videos taken while performing exercises can enable a Personal Trainer to help you understand and improve your technique issues. It can be quite beneficial to review workout videos or see a photo of yourself that has lines, angles, and arrows added by your Personal Trainer showing you a desired movement.
Restart Button
Sometimes it is best to push the restart button and approach the exercise differently. A Personal Trainer might review workout videos then have you eliminate equipment and focus on using bodyweight basics. Another approach might be to try alternative exercises that would help you learn how to isolate the same muscle before trying the exercise again.
Strengthen Your Confidence
Submitting videos and photos not only shows a Personal Trainer your form, but it also reveals your strengths. Instead of feeling like you are doing the exercise completely wrong, by seeing a photo or watching videos, a Personal Trainer can communicate what you are doing right after they review workout videos. By recognizing your strengths, you will begin to strengthen confidence and focus less on what you can’t do and more on what you can do.
Remind You of Where You Started
As you go through your fitness journey, there will be days where you don’t feel like you are making progress and want to just give up. These are the times when a Personal Trainer can review workout videos with you that were recorded at the beginning of your journey to remind you how far you have come since then. In those particular challenging moments, it is easy to focus on your current slump and forget about everything you have already accomplished. Videos and photos are great reminders as to why you should be extremely proud of yourself and to keep pushing forward.
Educational
Not everyone enjoys taking pictures or videos of themselves, especially while working out, but it can be extremely valuable to see your form when you review workout videos. For example, you might think you have perfect technique while holding a plank, but after watching a video of yourself, you may notice your back is arching and as your abdominal and arm muscles start to fatigue, your hips begin to sink. Although you may have felt like you were holding a plank correctly, you are now able to see how you can improve your form for the next time. Taking photos and videos of yourself is not only helpful for a Personal Trainer to provide recommendations, it is also an excellent way for you to learn as well.
It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect
The main purpose of having a Personal Trainer review workout videos is to have them evaluated so that you can receive quality feedback. You do not need to worry about making the best video of your life by finding the best angles, quality lighting, or which outfit you should wear. The only person viewing these will be your Personal Trainer who will provide specific instructions on how you should record and take pictures of your workouts. You don’t have to smile, talk, or have your best workout gear on – just follow the instructions, record the video and/or take the picture in one attempt, send it to your Personal Trainer and call it a day.
Online Personal Trainers Accessibility
With the more traditional form of Personal Training, your ability to ask questions and seek advice is limited to the scheduled appointments that you have made with your trainer at the gym. And more than likely, the trainer has another client immediately after you so there is not a lot of opportunity to ask any last-minute questions. Plus, if you do have a question after completing your session on a Wednesday night, chances are you’ll need to wait until next Wednesday to ask it if you even remember what your question even was by that point and time.
Things are a little different while working with an online Personal Trainer where the window of communication is wide open. An online Personal Trainer can review workout videos just about any time!
It is common for most online Personal Trainers to make themselves accessible through emails or other communication apps, meaning you will likely receive a response within 24-hours.
The Value of Constructive Feedback
Aside from answering specific questions, there is tremendous value in receiving constructive feedback. Personal trainers have a responsibility to help clients use the feedback provided to move forward in their accomplishing their goals.
Feedback should achieve 3 specific goals:
It focuses on what was done well or correctly.
It offers gentle corrections to any errors made.
It will provide a motivational aspect to encourage clients to keep moving forward and practice their skills and behaviors.
Providing constructive feedback can enhance your development both physically and mentally, along with increasing your knowledge of training. This in return can encourage long-term commitment and more importantly strengthen your motivation to continue training to the best of your ability.
Increases Your Insight and Perspective
Constructive feedback provides you with a new perspective and opens your eyes to things you may have overlooked or never considered. It can help you grow by shedding light and giving you the opportunity for improvement. Just remember, it’s important that you don’t take criticism too personally, it’s meant to help you learn and grow and is not an attack on your skills or character.
Strengthens Coaching Relationships
Your Personal Trainer should genuinely care about you and want you to succeed. Receiving feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, is a good thing because it just goes to show that your Personal Trainer is invested in your future and wants to help you learn. Rather than not caring and letting you fail; a Personal Trainer believes in you and will do anything to support you in your journey.
Cultivates Trust
Would you listen and take advice from someone you didn’t trust? Establishing a safe, transparent, collaborative trusting relationship with a Personal Trainer is essential for you to learn and make progress towards achieving your goal.
Personalized Advice Based on Your Goals
One of the best things about asking a Personal Trainer to review workout videos is knowing that they have your best interest at heart.
Discussing fitness and diet with an expert who knows you and understand your specific goals, strengths, and weaknesses are unquestionably more valuable and effective than talking to a random person on the internet, or someone only offering generalized advice. Why? Because fitness is personal! When it comes to fitness, there are some incredibly educated people out there. But that does not mean simply because a person used to compete in bikini competitions that they should be giving you the same advice. As personalized medicine, health, and wellness continue to develop in the United States, it is becoming more and more obvious that (while there are certain universal health-truths), many health-related topics vary from person-to-person.
Prior to asking a Personal Trainer to review workout videos, you will have detailed conversations about your goals and what you want to get out of working together. These discussions are particularly valuable because throughout your fitness journey, your Personal Trainer will incorporate exercises in your workout regime that align with your goals.