Things I learned from the personal trainer

Oompa_Loompa
Oompa_Loompa Posts: 1,099 Member
edited September 21 in Fitness and Exercise
I met with a personal trainer yesterday. It was free because my gym offered like a free consultation if you will. So he said that loosing weight..80% of that is your diet-what your eating(I think he said 80%..maybe it was 70% I dunno) and then the rest is excersising. Also he told me that Cardio will only take you so far. That strenth training and resistant training really help make you lean and burn fat. Now all the time I had with his was like 30 an hour so he did show me a few things. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have a personal trainer but it is sooooo freakn expensive! For half an hour it is 45$! WHATAH! I can't afford that.

Replies

  • Oompa_Loompa
    Oompa_Loompa Posts: 1,099 Member
    I met with a personal trainer yesterday. It was free because my gym offered like a free consultation if you will. So he said that loosing weight..80% of that is your diet-what your eating(I think he said 80%..maybe it was 70% I dunno) and then the rest is excersising. Also he told me that Cardio will only take you so far. That strenth training and resistant training really help make you lean and burn fat. Now all the time I had with his was like 30 an hour so he did show me a few things. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have a personal trainer but it is sooooo freakn expensive! For half an hour it is 45$! WHATAH! I can't afford that.

    Man sometimes my head is saying one thing but my fingers type another. lol
  • cherie2304
    cherie2304 Posts: 632 Member
    I know what you mean...I finally broke down and got one at my gym and its $90 a month for 4 sessions. I still think that is a lot but I have hit a plateau and I needed to do something. Hopefully one of these days my weight will budge but on a happy note I have lost some inches and 3% body fat in 2 months. I have learned though eating out is just detrimental on the healthy eating. I knew it before but didn't realize I was getting into my old habits of going to restaurants every weekend. So now I limit myself to twice a month.
  • mooz
    mooz Posts: 101
    I have a good friend who's a PT and he said the same thing. You can lose weight without exercising [80:20 ratio] but I think you'll end up looking flabby. Who wants that? I'm flabby enough already!

    I try to incorporate strength training with my workouts. I feel good. Powerful. I agree with you, ridiculously priced. My friend charges double that amount. A co-worker spent close to $5K on a PT and got no results at all. I feel for her.
  • Breathe_Glamour
    Breathe_Glamour Posts: 136
    I'm glad you got some good information though =)

    Personal trainers are excellent but I really wish they'd bring their prices down - I mean it is a recession, right? LOL.
  • Oompa_Loompa
    Oompa_Loompa Posts: 1,099 Member
    I need someone to push me and motivate me. I'm going to try some classes that the gym offers for free and if in a couple months im not seeing results ..then I'm going to get a pt i think.
  • supersarah14
    supersarah14 Posts: 170
    You'd be shocked to know that the going rate of a Personal Trainer in my area is around 150 for a session...and they only do hour long sessions.

    Sometimes they give you discounts if you do it with friends but the reason I want a personal trainer is because it's one on one...not one on five. Know what I mean?
  • douglaswyatt
    douglaswyatt Posts: 2
    Some simple math will help you figure out where to spend your time/energy.

    A) If your base diet is 2,000 cal/day to maintain your weight,
    that's 14,000 calories a week.
    B) A pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories - meaning if you
    eat 3,500 more calories, you'll gain 1 lb, and if you eat 3,500
    fewer, you'll lose 1 lb.
    C) An hour of cardio may burn around 600 calories (highly
    dependent upon your body weight and speed, but this is a
    reasonable number for calculation purposes.
    D) A pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day (doing nothing)
    while a pound of fat burns 2.

    Putting this all together, if you want to lose 1 lb of fat per week, starting from a 2,000 calorie diet, you would need to either:
    1) eat 500 calories less per day (i.e. 1500 instead of 2000)
    2) jog for 50 minutes each day
    3) build an extra 83 pounds of muscle mass

    So from my perspective, option 1 and 2 seem about even in terms of their effectiveness - provided you have a spare hour everyday to exercise. If your life is busy and that's not possible, then option 1 is the way to go. But the whole "strength training to build muscle and increase your basal metabolic rate" is really not a very feasible path towards losing fat. Not that strength training and building muscle isn't a good idea for a host of other reasons, but it's not the way to burn fat. [To be fair, yes, strength training does, in itself, burn some calories, but per hour, nothing close to cardio exercise.]
  • david1956
    david1956 Posts: 190 Member
    I have a good friend who's a PT and he said the same thing. You can lose weight without exercising [80:20 ratio] but I think you'll end up looking flabby. Who wants that? I'm flabby enough already!

    I try to incorporate strength training with my workouts. I feel good. Powerful. I agree with you, ridiculously priced. My friend charges double that amount. A co-worker spent close to $5K on a PT and got no results at all. I feel for her.

    5K and got no results!!!??? That is crazy, simply unbelievable.

    I think there is something that masquerades as "Personal Training" that any clown could do. Stitching together a few exercises, showing you how to do them, and changing them every few weeks is NOT, in my opinion, something worth paying for. My PT can tell me exactly what the objectives are of the current 6 weeks program, exactly where we will be going with the next one, and where we are heading in the bigger scheme of things. It is paying off way beyond my expectations and much more quickly than I expected. I had developed a pretty good understanding of weight training, but nothing could have prepared me for how radical his techniques are. And I don't really pay him a lot, certainly much less than what I used to spend on the junk in my supermarket trolley.

    To me, maybe the sign of a good trainer is that a real relationship develops. If I didn't feel that happening reasonably quickly I'd be out. I almost sense my PT has as much invested in my development as I have. He want's me to discover where I can go, and we trust each other. Really cool guy who I respect enormously.

    That 10 reps of this exercise, 10 reps of that... glance at watch.. well, that's all for now, and off to the next client stuff is crap but unfortunately it probably happens too often. Kinda like, if you can find the person who takes you from purgatory to hell and you actually thank them for it you're probably onto a winner, LOL.
  • arewethereyet
    arewethereyet Posts: 18,702 Member
    I'm glad you got some good information though =)

    Personal trainers are excellent but I really wish they'd bring their prices down - I mean it is a recession, right? LOL.

    the problem is the gym takes most of the money. the trainers make 15-20 bux tops for a session. That is for an HOUR of their time! I have gotten some good deals and worked with an awesome trainer. she was worth every cent I paid.

    I would just rather pay her 50 bux than the gym I am already paying for!
  • Vipecap
    Vipecap Posts: 166 Member
    A real simple way to tell if a trainer knows their stuff is if they can describe to you the anatomy and physiology of an exercise. What I mean is, can they tell you the difference between a regular dumbbell curl, a dumbbell hammer curl, and a dumbbell concentration curl? They need to be able to tell you more than just the movement but what are the differences in the way it hits the muscles, any secondary muscles involved, or any major tendons involved. You can use any set of exercises that targets a major muscle like biceps or quads, etc. to see what they say. Also check out their certification online, one of my biggest gripes is a lot of chain gyms do their certifications in house as well as there are certain certifications you can get online in 10 minutes. Those should be large red flags when you are considering a personal trainer. Also watch out for ones that use popular buzz words for lifting or diets like a real trainer won't use the word tone or talk about fad diets. Basically if you are going to spend $30 or more an hour for a personal trainer, make sure you are getting a quality product in return :)
  • kimber607
    kimber607 Posts: 7,128 Member
    I would ask around the gyn..there are lots of trainers in our area that are looking for more clients/side jobs and will work u out in your home or even their home.....just a thought

    Kim
  • arewethereyet
    arewethereyet Posts: 18,702 Member
    I am trying to locate the pictures of before and after 8 wks of training with a good PT. I did not lose 1 pound!! :noway:

    But the difference was amazing! My stomach was flatter, my butt was higher, my legs were thinner and my arms and shoulders had definition.

    Oh and I am no longer afraid of the gorilla room, to skip rope between sets of arm exercises or to do step ups on the bench between shoulder presses!! :glasses:
  • april522
    april522 Posts: 388 Member
    I am trying to locate the pictures of before and after 8 wks of training with a good PT. I did not lose 1 pound!! :noway:
    Almost the same with me with my first trainer in 2008 - in 3 months, I lost less than 6 lbs, but I could tell a huge difference in the way clothes fit me. This time around, I'm loosing inches and weight - and I've stuck with it for much longer!
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