Do You Deserve a Personal Trainer? Of Course You Do!

Summary

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I've always admired my friends who dutifully get themselves to the gym, plug in to their Walkmans or iPods and do their 45 minutes on the treadmill or Stairmaster. I've never been able to stand the tedium for more than three weeks at a time. There are many reasons to pay for some time with a personal trainer, and accountability is certainly one of them. When you're paying $40-$70 for that hour, you're a lot less likely to blow it off.

It made a tremendous difference to have someone design my workouts with my very specific needs and idiosyncrasies in mind. One of those idiosyncrasies is attitude. I get easily discouraged when I don't see quick progress, and positive thinking has not always been a strong suit. At first it was hard just being in the same room with my trainer, who was relentlessly positive and didn't consider her work done until she got me to reframe in positive language whatever struggle I saw myself up against. She laughed off my curmudgeonly attitude in those early sessions, although there were sometimes intense negotiations, trading exercises I hated (say, 20 reverse lunges) for ones I enjoyed (two minutes of medicine ball crunches). My trainer was a diplomat and motivator as well as a fitness expert. I began making progress, working around those old injuries to get my legs stronger. I became able to take some yoga classes and occasional cardio classes. I cut my beta-blocker dosage in half.

After two and a half years of PT, I've gone off beta-blockers completely, though I do remain on a small dose of a calcium channel blocker. I've lost 10% of my body weight and increased muscle mass by more. I successfully (though honestly, not without pain) walked roughly 10 miles a day for 12 days in a row on our trip to England last summer, by the way impressing my husband with my baggage-carrying capabilities. I'm even occasionally a very positive person. I'm also tapped out.

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Extract

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Do You Deserve a Personal Trainer? Of Course You Do!

I've always admired my friends who dutifully get themselves to the gym, plug in to their Walkmans or iPods and do their 45 minutes on the treadmill or Stairmaster. I've never been able to stand the tedium for more than three weeks at a time. There are many reasons to pay for some time with a personal trainer, and accountabi...

See the full content of this document

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