You want to change your body and your life. There’s just one little problem: you aren’t sure where to start. Or perhaps you’ve been sweating away at the gym for months or even years with little to show for it except for some dynamite ZUMBA moves. How do you actually go about losing those extra pounds, training for your first 10k, or building some swoll muscles that will make the girls do a double take at the beach? The answer is simple — you need to hire a personal trainer.

Is a personal trainer the right option for you? They can be expensive (between $40 to $70 an hour on average), but you aren’t just buying their time. You’re buying their expertise and, more importantly, the results they can help you achieve.

If you aren’t sure whether a personal trainer is worth the cost or whether you even need one to finally climb out of your fitness rut, check out these ten big benefits a personal trainer can offer.

1.      Help You Define Your Fitness Goals

What do you actually want to achieve when you hit the gym and pick up a barbell? Many exercisers only have a general idea. They want to “lose weight,” “look better,” or “get stronger.” These overly-generic goals aren’t going to cut it. How will you know when you “look better”? And what does it mean to “get stronger”? Generic goals make it hard for you to see and measure real progress, which might be one reason so many people never achieve their fitness goals.

When you first sit down with a personal trainer, they will ask you about your personal health history, your current fitness level, and your fitness goals. If you don’t have clear goals, your trainer will help you establish them. Want to lose weight? How about losing four pounds each month for the next three months? That goal is defined and measurable. Now your trainer can design a fitness plan targeted toward weight-loss and track your progress each week.

2.      Offer Expertise

A personal trainer isn’t just a gym buddy you pay for their company. Instead, you are investing in a fitness expert who has studied human physiology and has been tested and certified in order to work with you.  

Most personal trainers possess some level of certification. The most popular certifying bodies are:

•         NASM: National Academy of Sports Medicine
•         ACE: American Council on Exercise
•         NCCA: National Strength and Conditioning Association
•         ACSM: American College of Sports Medicine
•         NPTI: National Personal Training Institute

Some certifications are more rigorous than others, but each certification requires a personal trainer to show competence in a wide variety of topics related to health and wellness, including subjects like:

•         Anatomy
•         Kinesiology
•         Biomechanics
•         Foundational movement patterns
•         Nutrition
•         Fitness program design
•         Nutrition
•         Progress assessment

This experience means your personal trainer isn’t just guessing when they put you through a workout. They are using scientific knowledge as well as their own experience and intuition to help you see faster results. Make sure you ask a trainer about their certification and experience before you begin working with them.

3.      Create a Customized Fitness Plan for You

The problem with buying a cookie-cutter workout program or following a video is that the instructor or trainer doesn’t know who you are, what your fitness level is, and what you want to achieve. One of the biggest benefits of a personal trainer is their ability to design a workout plan just for you.

An experienced personal trainer will create a plan that takes into consideration your current fitness level and is tailored to move you toward your goal. After all, there’s a big difference between training a 65-year-old sedentary female who wants to lose weight and a 31-year-old athletic male who wants to become a professional bodybuilder.

Your trainer will also take into account any injuries, disabilities, or other physical challenges you face when devising your workout plan. Customization is key, and it’s what will help you see results much more rapidly when you begin working with a trainer.

4.      Ensure You Have Correct Form

Working out with poor form can dramatically slow your fitness progress, and that’s the best-case scenario. Poor form can also lead to strains, pulls, tears, and other painful injuries that can quickly put you on the sidelines.

A personal trainer will guide you through every movement of their prescribed workout and help you develop the correct form. Good form allows you to directly target the correct muscles and stay safe and injury-free. You’ll also discover that you can lift more weight, hold an isometric position longer, and perform better when you do the movements the right way.

5.      Keep You Motivated

Many exercisers struggle with motivation. You can find a thousand-and-one excuses not to get up early and go to the gym, or to skip it after work and go straight home. Knowing that you’ve paid money for a trainer who expects you to show up can be the mental push you need to stick with your exercise training.

More importantly, each time you decide to go to the gym instead of grabbing some extra winks or binging on old episodes of Friends, you build a positive habit. Over time, you’ll get used to going to the gym, especially as you develop a bond with your trainer and start seeing results in the mirror.

6.      Hold You Accountable

It’s not enough to just show up at the gym. You’ve also got to put in the work, and your trainer will make sure you do. Each and every session with your trainer will include a challenging workout designed to get you one step closer to your goal. Your trainer will encourage you to push yourself a little harder each time. Maybe that means lifting a little more weight, doing an extra rep, or trying a more complex movement, like a barbell back squat or deadlift.

Of course, one or two sessions with your trainer each week won’t be enough to completely change your body. You’ll need to keep up that momentum between sessions. That includes working out on your own and taking a good long look at your nutrition. Many trainers ask their clients to document workouts and their eating each week, so you’ll have more than enough incentive to follow through.

7.      Work with You on Nutrition

When it comes to transforming your body, the biggest factor that affects the way you look is what you eat. Nutrition accounts for the vast majority of weight loss, and it also plays a huge role in muscle development and how visible those muscles are. (No one will see your six-pack if it’s hiding behind a layer of fat.)

Besides putting you through tough workouts a few times a week, your trainer will also work with you on dialing in your nutrition. That might include rebalancing your macros (carbs, fat, and protein) or giving you a calorie count to shoot for each day. Your trainer may ask you to keep a food journal and then help you discover new, more healthy meals that can keep you full while also giving you the nutrients you need to see real change in your body.

If you have specific dietary restrictions, alert your trainer. They can likely work around them and still help you adopt a healthy eating plan.

8.      Give You Support and Positive Energy

Certain weight-loss reality shows like to depict personal trainers as unyielding drill sergeants who push clients to their limits (and sometimes beyond those limits). That’s not how the vast majority of personal trainers work. After all, they know you won’t keep paying them if they make you cry in every training session.

Instead, most trainers believe in creating positive and empowering relationships with their clients. Your trainer will certainly push you and may raise an eyebrow if you try to whine, but they truly want to see you succeed. They got into this business to change lives and help their clients live healthier, which means they are rooting for you. That translates into motivating, energetic, and supportive trainers that will make you feel great after each workout.

With your trainer at your side, you may discover that you can push yourself a little harder and complete that last pushup.

9.      Help You See Faster Results

As we’ve discussed, personal trainers are experienced and educated professionals who have made a career out of helping people become stronger, faster, more fit, and healthier. They know exactly how to design a program to help you achieve your goal. If, for example, you want to build muscle, your trainer will devise a program with a focus on strength-training.

Whereas you may have no idea where to start on your own, your trainer will explain exactly what movements they want you to do, how many sets, and how many reps per set. They’ll show you the correct form, so you can target the right muscles. Your trainer will also give you guidance and tips on how to increase protein in your diet to help you build muscle, and may also program workouts for you to perform outside of your sessions.

What does it all add up to? Progress! With an expert guiding every step of your fitness journey, you’ll see change a lot quicker than you would on your own.

10. They Keep It Fresh

Even experienced fitness enthusiasts can get into a workout rut, especially after they’ve conquered their initial goals. It’s easy to hit the gym and do the same movements in the same order at the same weights. This may help you maintain your gains, but your progress will screech to a halt.

The beauty of working with a trainer is that they will continually adapt your personalized program based on your progress. Were you finally able to perform five pull ups on your own? Then it’s time to grab a weight vest or to work on a new movement you haven’t yet mastered.

Your trainer will continue to help you identify new goals, will measure your progress on a regular basis, and will constantly adjust your training program so that you never stop progressing. After all, fitness is a journey that shouldn’t have an endpoint. Keeping things fresh with your trainer will help you stay motivated, engaged, and looking forward to every day at the gym.

Time to Call a Trainer?

If you aren’t happy with your fitness results, it’s time to talk to a personal trainer. Not all trainers are the same. When you sit down for your initial consultation, make sure the trainer is certified and experienced. If you have a very specific goal, try to find a trainer who specializes in that area. For example, you may want to search out a strength-training coach or a personal trainer who works with a lot of runners. Likewise, if you face a particular challenge, ask if the trainer has worked with similar cases in the past.

Ask the trainer to discuss their personal coaching philosophy and make sure you feel they are someone you can trust. Finally, request a trial session. This will give you a feel for how the trainer works and whether their training methods and personality are the right fit for you. At the end of the day, your personal trainer needs to be someone you can connect with. If you don’t click, then ask to meet with another trainer at your gym or search out another independent trainer in your area.

Finding the right trainer can make a huge difference in your fitness journey. Happy hunting!