Can't afford a personal trainer?

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Me neither.

In fact I have a friend who is a personal trainer who offered me "a great deal", but even that isn't a good enough deal for the hubby and I right now and I'd hate to offend someone who trains for a living so...I decided to hop on the world wide web and do some research.

I came across a website - http://www.freetrainers.com and signed up once I saw that you can enter all your info, kind of like MFP and they give you your very own fitness program to follow with print out exercises per day!

My problem with working out has been that while I get the whole cardio thing, I'm kinda aimless wandering around the weight training equipment trying this or that but with no real purpose. Now I'm a big fan of MFP, I really wish they had this option on the site but since they don't I'll utilize freetrainers.com to come up with a plan for my daily exercises.

For example: Starting Monday my target muscle groups are shoulders, forearms and abs and it tells me how many reps I should do and has a print out log. It also tells me what machines target those areas.

I think this will be a good tool to use in conjunction with MFP. It also has nutritional suggestion info with key foods to eat in all different categories.

Replies

  • aippolito1
    aippolito1 Posts: 4,894 Member
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    That's awesome!!! Good luck with it! :happy:
  • Adusenka
    Adusenka Posts: 108 Member
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    wow, sounds great! Ill check it out! :)
  • ProTFitness
    ProTFitness Posts: 1,379 Member
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    As a personal trainer I would say find some good affordable DVDs that use functional/circuit training. You will get your weights and cardio in/ JIllian Michaels has really good ones. I do them myself every so often and I love them and would reccomend them to anyone. Most people have no idea what to do and that is half of the frustration and struggle
  • MrsUnderwood
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    I'm not into DVD's. I don't have the room in my small apartment...AND...I enjoy going to the gym...I'd like to get all my weight training done there. I just thought this would be a great way to get the info and get it done where I'm paying for it already!
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
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    I'm kind of shocked that your friend offered you a deal instead of offering to help. Hmmm.

    I will have to check out that website. There needs to be more things out there to help people who are beginners with strength training and can't afford a CPT. Also, what if you have free weights at home and can't even afford to go to the gym to begin with? I'm glad to know that there is something online to help out!

    In addition to those workouts that they give you, I would also encourage you to remember when you do them to go as intense as you can and lift as heavy as you can in the reps that you do. If you get to about 12 reps and feel like you can do more, add more weight. If you can't get to 8 reps, do less weight. And always try to increase your weight within that 8-12 reps range so you keep improving. Don't worry about bulking up, because it is NOT going to happen! What WILL happen with this principle is you will get stronger muscles which raises your metabolism and helps you to burn more fat. If you look at my profile picture, I normally use between 20-50 pounds of weight per arm...but you don't see bulk there, lol. :) Just an example.

    Go for it!
  • kennedar
    kennedar Posts: 306 Member
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    If you have an iPhone, I just found an app last night that helps to design workouts for women. Its from Nike, but looks pretty legit. I have not tried it yet, but for a free app as long as it does not hurt me I can't really complain!