“It became boring”, “I grew to hate going”, “I wasn’t making much progress ", “I was stiff and sore ALL the time”.

Any of this sound familiar? Many of the clients we work with when explaining why they stopped going to the gym or weren't happy with the progress they were making with a trainer would tell us one of those reasons for stopping. 

A few years ago there were very few trainers throughout Ireland. Fast forward a few years and the country became overrun with coaches that some of whom were doing more harm than good because they didn't have a proper plan to apply to clients or a systematic approach to working with people of all ages and abilities. I do believe the quality of coaching is improving and I’ve played a small part in that through the work I do here and the direct coaching we do with trainers that come to work with us directly.

Similarly you can go on line and access information such as I provide and workout yourself at home but generally speaking it is never going to replace some one to one work with a good coach that can simply and quickly show and tell YOU what YOU need to be focusing your attention on right away. i.e. what’s going to give you the biggest bang for your buck.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”
― Zig Ziglar

It all comes down to how we best use our time relative to our goal. For example, if your primary goal is to drop body fat then threePilates classes per week are NOT the best use of your time. Why? Because it simply doesn’t compare to 3hrs of properly programmed mobility, strength and conditioning work per week. The calories burned in a Pilates class vs the latter is massively inferior.

If your primary goal is to improve your mobility because you’re stiff and getting injured all the time then 3-5hrs per week of doing lots of strength work, Crossfit metcons (conditioning) and little to no properly structured mobility work is just as much a conflict with your goal.

My advice is to seek to work directly with a coach one to one and then when you have a good understanding of the movements as well as a good base of strength and fitness to then evolve onto group based training or an online option (in which we provide support and instruction) if funds don’t allow continual personal instruction.

How do you know the coach is doing a good job?

Simple –

1. They should assess you – body fat, mobility check etc.
2. Nutrition should be addressed.
3. There should be a strong emphasis on developing strength on the basic movements i.e pull ups, press ups, squat, deadlift etc
4. They should LOOK and behave like a trainer
5. They should fill you full of energy and enthusiasm through their support and encouragement
6. Are they training you like they train themselves? Leg day, back day, arms day might be fine for someone that wants to train like a bodybuilder but is this really the best approach for someone that wants to improve their fitness, drop body fat and improve mobility? The same applies to someone that’s all about running, power lifting, Olympic lifting etc we don’t expect the people we train to do some of the elements we use in our own personal training but the smart coach drops what’s risky, useless or too time consuming to teach because it’s simply not the best use of the clients time.

Get a plan that takes into consideration all of the above and if you need help putting it all together then contact us today.