Is there a need for hiring personal trainer for my goals?

Are you doing only steady state or also resistance training?

The trainer's goal is to make money. Your goal is... Our gym offers "supervision / assistance" - there is always someone around I can ask - it's part of the deal, no extra cost.

I think "need" as whether or not it's worth it is very individual. My wife has a trainer...she doesn't really have any "hard" goals, she just wants to maintain her fitness...she doesn't "need" a trainer for that, but it's worth it to her because her trainer keeps her accountable and works her harder than she would likely work herself. It also gives her an appointment to keep and then she gets her homework. That wouldn't be worth it to me, but it's totally worth it to her.

I have worked with a couple of different PTs over the years. The first one was a few months after I got started with my weight loss and I wanted to get back into the weight room. It had been awhile so I hired a trainer to give me a program and teach me form. I didn't work with him that long as it didn't take me long to get my form down and just figured I was just as good to run something like Starting Strength. He was a decent trainer, but by no means great, but he served his limited purpose.

My second trainer was a different story. I started working with him a couple of years after I lost my weight. I had gotten into cycling and was doing some cycling events and was pretty fit, but kind of hit a wall in terms of progress. I also wanted to start actually racing rather than participating in various charity rides. I didn't have any expectation of standing on a podium, but I wanted to be competitive at least, and while I was pretty fit, I wasn't race fit. I also had an interest in getting into Olympic lifting.

I had a fairly tall order and it was difficult finding a trainer to meet my needs...the standard commercial gym employee wasn't really going to get me where I wanted to go. I ended up pretty much lucking into my guy. He owned his own gym, but lost the lease and started temporarily renting space at a gym I was going to at the time. The first thing I noticed with him is that he had all of his clients doing Olympic lifts as part of their workout. The second thing I noticed was that some of his clients were Joe Schmoes like me...but some were very obviously athletes.

I started talking with him, and it was the perfect fit. I found out that he was a retired professional BMX racer with multiple national championships and a world championship and that he is one of the team USA BMX coaches and was an avid road rider and racer himself. He really helped me a lot and my fitness went through the roof...as a bonus, I saw better and faster re-comp results than I saw when working on my own. At the time it was definitely worth it. I don't workout with him anymore as I am not racing anymore and it got hard maintaining that level and I just kind of burnt out. I've been considering going back to him though as I've been in a bit of a funk. He's a really good friend of mine (and his wife is my wife's trainer) so I think we'd have no problem working on some goals that aren't racing and a little more tame.

As with any profession, there are good PTs, decent PTs, outstanding PTs, and downright horrible PTs. Finding the right fit is just as important as anything else.

It sounds like you know what you want so I don’t see a need for a personal trainer unless you need the accountability and expertise that comes with one. I get all my cardio workouts from YouTube. They do the job and the best part is it’s free

pjwrt wrote: »

Trainers are required for professional athletes, but for us? Not so much. But just like the professionals, fitness programs are tailored to meet your needs and goals.

I disagree with this... like anything having someone who knows more than you can greatly improve you own efficiency, dedication, ability etc. It just requires you to know what it is you want from that person and knowing when to cut lose. It is also important if you want to learn a technical skills - enter clean... wouldn't advise you learn it from watching a video...

I think there are a lot of reasons to hire a personal trainer. I personally use one to help me keep my program balanced, to help with form and load management to avoid injury, and to give me that extra little accountability to actually haul myself out of bed at 4 am.

It sounds from your posts like you have a tendency to let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of good and have a hard time sticking to something long enough to know what results you may be getting. If that impression is correct, having someone prescribe a program and buying enough sessions ahead of time to see the programming through might be what works best for you at this point.

pjwrt wrote: »

Powerclean2deadlift wrote: »

pjwrt wrote: »

Trainers are required for professional athletes, but for us? Not so much. But just like the professionals, fitness programs are tailored to meet your needs and pffft....we're talking about middle-aged office workers who failed gym class here. They'd be far more comfortable researching fitness and tailoring what they learned to meet their needs.

Every single gym in my small county is trainer-centric. Good money standing there telling clueless noobs to jump up and down.

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I disagree with this... like anything having someone who knows more than you can greatly improve you own efficiency, dedication, ability etc. It just requires you to know what it is you want from that person and knowing when to cut lose. It is also important if you want to learn a technical skills - enter clean... wouldn't advise you learn it from watching a video...

Pffft... You might be. I'm not. And even if I was my comment still stands, a PT can be very beneficial to alot of people. Including the general population. Perhaps you assume everyone has a "failed gym class" mentality, like yourself?

Besides, even if they did fail gym class perhaps they will have more success later on.