PERSONAL TRAINING: TO HAVE OR HAVE NOT?

PERSONAL TRAINING---TO HAVE OR HAVE NOT?

BY Elite Ziegelman, CFT

The field of personal training is built on a basic fundamental fact that we as humans are intrinsically social creatures, and usually have to have that comraderie aspect as the dangling carrot before us.

A personal trainer, by nature ends up wearing more than one hat in addition to being a skilled professional that brings to the table a wealth of information that their client can either embrace or dismiss. Truthfully if the entire population would be able to summon up the incentive to workout on their own, a good amount of personal trainers would find themselves out of work.

The gym, for the novice can be a terribly intimidating place, full of people whom may or may not have superior bodies to them. A personal trainer then becomes "the barrier"  to insulate their client through the awkward transition of working out in front of others.

As life comes fully packed with other commitments, the priority of fitness and personal health can wane form time to time, the trainer becomes "the cheerleader"  and gently but enthusiastically, creates a ceremony to keep the client motivated and in consistent routine. Not always easy, and not always successful.

As other aspects of the day and person can bleed into the session, the trainer can transition into the life coach/social worker role, all of which can be benign if the client sees it as well meaning advice, and DOESN’T substitute that training session for actual therapy in the true sense. That’s where the waters can become very murky for the client as well as the trainer.

 To recap,  the many hats a trainer may have to wear to induce, maintain, and motivate a person toward good health, the human factor will always keeps this a field, that cannot be outsourced or mass produced in the sense that they will ever become obsolete. Even with the economic malaise of the past two years, those with the ability STILL saw their trainers even if it were a reduction in frequency, it was still present. So here’s to the social creatures. Cheers.....

-Elite Ziegelman is a certified personal trainer and a founding partner in The Bridal Body Shop – www.TheBridalBodyShop.com