Have you ever used a personal trainer?

[SuperChief]

Long story short, my wife and I are both starting a new journey w/ fitness and food. We're seeing a dietician soon to get some help with the food part, but we've also been considering getting a personal trainer (either one for both of us or separate - either option is on the table).

Does anyone here have experience with one? What are some good questions to ask to make sure I get the "right" one? Any tips to set us up for success in this process?

[LiveSteam]

Everyday for 33 years.
Mr. YANKEE HILL

[Holladay]

A bit off topic from the OP.

A thought has me a bit puzzled. Everyone says they have a: back day, leg day, arm day. I guess that one, they don't wanna get bored, I get that. Two they don't want to over work a muscle group. Additionally, I am not going to enter into a body building competition.

In the Army, we did a bajillion pushups everyday. Was that bad? I am thinking same for the bench, within reason. Can you plank everyday? Can you run everyday?

I say within reason. If you max curls to extreme failure, ya, not everyday.

I want to max efficiency, all body exercise with the least amount of time. The main goal is to lose weight and tone. I understand diet is an important factor. Input and output. I am in the losing weight stage. Once I reach my goal, then it is maintenance. For life. If your occupation requires a lot of movement, then there are not a lot of issues. I fly a desk and getting older.

A work out buddy of mine told me today that after 60 yro, you are screwed as to building muscle. Thus I am getting ready to be screwed soon. Though I am not into building muscle anymore, but more muscle = greater fat burning machine.

I am ready to commit to 30 min/day for the rest of my life. It might be tough at 90 in a wheel chair though. Racing?

Key is mental. Just open the gym door.

With that in mind and 30 min timeline, what are your thoughts.

[Holladay]

I have been eyeballing the Concept 2 for a while.

"Engineered to last a lifetime, it's low impact enough for use in physical rehabilitation centers, and intensive enough to be used by the world's fittest athletes."

Yep, that is the one I use. I don't have the fancy dohicky underneath the PM5 display. The PM5 is a must.

That is a good price...~$900. I bought mine used for $400 years ago. You will never wear it out. I could prolly sell mine for $400 now.

Get the seat pad.

OOPs. That is the newer version. This the older version, used @ $400.



I would suggest getting one with the wooden handle. Might not seem like much, but it is. Might look at getting an older version, and cheaper. PM me if you have questions. Basically, my gym has both. I used the newer one once. Never since. The older one is better.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Holladay

A bit off topic from the OP.

A thought has me a bit puzzled. Everyone says they have a: back day, leg day, arm day. I guess that one, they don't wanna get bored, I get that. Two they don't want to over work a muscle group. Additionally, I am not going to enter into a body building competition.

In the Army, we did a bajillion pushups everyday. Was that bad? I am thinking same for the bench, within reason. Can you plank everyday? Can you run everyday?

I say within reason. If you max curls to extreme failure, ya, not everyday.

I want to max efficiency, all body exercise with the least amount of time. The main goal is to lose weight and tone. I understand diet is an important factor. Input and output. I am in the losing weight stage. Once I reach my goal, then it is maintenance. For life. If your occupation requires a lot of movement, then there are not a lot of issues. I fly a desk and getting older.

A work out buddy of mine told me today that after 60 yro, you are screwed as to building muscle. Thus I am getting ready to be screwed soon. Though I am not into building muscle anymore, but more muscle = greater fat burning machine.

I am ready to commit to 30 min/day for the rest of my life. It might be tough at 90 in a wheel chair though. Racing?

Key is mental. Just open the gym door.

With that in mind and 30 min timeline, what are your thoughts.

I'm no expert, but it's a matter of endurance training vs maximizing muscle growth.

A million push ups won't get you Arnold's chest, but of course will still grow some muscle and will be high on endurance (included cardio, I'd think). If you wanted to max out muscle growth though, you would bench press with a weight that only allowed for anywhere from 3-12 reps (the standard I think is like 3-6, but there's a lot of overlap as 8-12 is still perfectly ok for good muscle growth).

Solely on the basis of muscle growth, the science says anything beyond about 5 sets in one day for one muscle group probably won't matter (wasted reps) as you're just annihilating that muscle, and you can do anywhere from 10-20 sets per week per muscle group.

That's why people do the arm day, leg day, etc... they want the most bang for their buck, which means doing 5 sets for biceps two days a week, 5 for triceps, 5 for chest, etc. They say twice a week is optimal so you aren't going a full week between working out the same muscle group. I'd think the more full body stuff would be good multiple times as you're not hitting one area hard (such as rows), where doing curls everyday or more than about 10 sets per week would probably be a waste for muscle gains.

I personally have three workouts a week where I concentrate on a couple major groups per day... sort of an arm day with a lot of arm stuff, but I do some arms on another day as well.

I work in some endurance/lower weight as well... it amounts to about 3 hours per week not including stretching, plus a few walks/jogs a week that are about 35 minutes each.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by SuperChief

Long story short, my wife and I are both starting a new journey w/ fitness and food. We're seeing a dietician soon to get some help with the food part, but we've also been considering getting a personal trainer (either one for both of us or separate - either option is on the table).

Does anyone here have experience with one? What are some good questions to ask to make sure I get the "right" one? Any tips to set us up for success in this process?

Feel like they are kind of a waste of money in this day and age of YouTube and easy to find info on the internet. But if you need them for actual in person encouragement then they are probably a good investment.

[SupDock]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I'm no expert, but it's a matter of endurance training vs maximizing muscle growth.

A million push ups won't get you Arnold's chest, but of course will still grow some muscle and will be high on endurance (included cardio, I'd think). If you wanted to max out muscle growth though, you would bench press with a weight that only allowed for anywhere from 3-12 reps (the standard I think is like 3-6, but there's a lot of overlap as 8-12 is still perfectly ok for good muscle growth).

Solely on the basis of muscle growth, the science says anything beyond about 5 sets in one day for one muscle group probably won't matter (wasted reps) as you're just annihilating that muscle, and you can do anywhere from 10-20 sets per week per muscle group.

That's why people do the arm day, leg day, etc... they want the most bang for their buck, which means doing 5 sets for biceps two days a week, 5 for triceps, 5 for chest, etc. They say twice a week is optimal so you aren't going a full week between working out the same muscle group. I'd think the more full body stuff would be good multiple times as you're not hitting one area hard (such as rows), where doing curls everyday or more than about 10 sets per week would probably be a waste for muscle gains.

I personally have three workouts a week where I concentrate on a couple major groups per day... sort of an arm day with a lot of arm stuff, but I do some arms on another day as well.

I work in some endurance/lower weight as well... it amounts to about 3 hours per week not including stretching, plus a few walks/jogs a week that are about 35 minutes each.

Strength training is around 5 reps to failure. Hypertrophy is in the 8-20 range. For time reasons I use 10-12.

[SupDock]

Originally Posted by Holladay

"Engineered to last a lifetime, it's low impact enough for use in physical rehabilitation centers, and intensive enough to be used by the world's fittest athletes."

Yep, that is the one I use. I don't have the fancy dohicky underneath the PM5 display. The PM5 is a must.

That is a good price...~$900. I bought mine used for $400 years ago. You will never wear it out. I could prolly sell mine for $400 now.

Get the seat pad.

OOPs. That is the newer version. This the older version, used @ $400.



I would suggest getting one with the wooden handle. Might not seem like much, but it is. Might look at getting an older version, and cheaper. PM me if you have questions. Basically, my gym has both. I used the newer one once. Never since. The older one is better.

It’s crazy what the prices on these are doing. I saw one the was 6 years old going for 800 on CL

[loochy]

Originally Posted by SupDock

Strength training is around 5 reps to failure. Hypertrophy is in the 8-20 range. For time reasons I use 10-12.

Indeed, but that's not absolute. You'll still get hypertrophy from low rep work and you'll still get strength from higher rep work. Also keep in mind that this means lifting to failure (or reasonably near it).

I just wanted to clear that up for noobs.

[loochy]

You wouldn't believe the moronic crap I see trainers have their clients do....ball balancing while doing curls, lunges while doing shoulder presses, etc. Thosebare very complex movements that take lots of coordination and someone new to exercise won't be able to get an efficient workout doing that kind of stuff. If you hire a trainer that has you do that, fire them ASAP and find someone else.

[TripleThreat]

I never used a personal trainer back when I was lifting but I probably researched the hell out of working out and all the different positions etc and I never tried to over lift what I should be lifting. I think I only went for my max bench twice in three years of lifting.

In all honesty, you'll see these smaller dudes trying to shoulder press INSANES amount of weight (leading to injury) and then you'll see some roided out dude shoulder lifting 15 lb dumb bells. IMO, with the internet and the amount of information provided to the public, just do your research online, LIFT SMART and eat smart...

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by loochy

You wouldn't believe the moronic crap I see trainers have their clients do....ball balancing while doing curls, lunges while doing shoulder presses, etc. Thosebare very complex movements that take lots of coordination and someone new to exercise won't be able to get an efficient workout doing that kind of stuff. If you hire a trainer that has you do that, fire them ASAP and find someone else.

One thing I saw recently online was cable rack squats where a trainer says to stand way back to get the weights off the rack, then do squats.... you're basically just pulling the weight towards you and probably not doing much in terms of squat resistance.

It looked dumb and I tried it that way and it was complete pointless outside of a little bit of balance I guess, if you have some decent weight on it. You can certainly do squats with the machine,, but have to stand in line with the pulleys so the resistance is (obviously) vertical.

So, moronic in the opposite sense that it's almost a completely pointless exercise... even a beginner could just do body weight squats or a light goblet squat. Horizontal resistance on a squat doesn't seem like it should be a thing.

[penguinz]

Originally Posted by Titty Meat

Just take Lews advice it's worked for me

You're such a dickhead.

[Eleazar]

I've done it once in the past. I learned a lot from that trainer but it was fantastically expensive even 10 years ago, and after a little while you'll pretty much know what to do. If you have never made a real effort at life change in that way it might be worthwhile to learn what's what but most of what goes into being healthy does not happen in a gym.

[Holladay]

muscle and will be high on endurance

Good point. I forgot about the endurance side of the equation. It seems I am doing a hybrid mix. Which what I want with my time contraints.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

One thing I saw recently online was cable rack squats where a trainer says to stand way back to get the weights off the rack, then do squats.... you're basically just pulling the weight towards you and probably not doing much in terms of squat resistance.

It looked dumb and I tried it that way and it was complete pointless outside of a little bit of balance I guess, if you have some decent weight on it. You can certainly do squats with the machine,, but have to stand in line with the pulleys so the resistance is (obviously) vertical.

So, moronic in the opposite sense that it's almost a completely pointless exercise... even a beginner could just do body weight squats or a light goblet squat. Horizontal resistance on a squat doesn't seem like it should be a thing.

I think the point of that is not to get resistance from the weight stack, but instead to use the weights on the cables as a counterbalance for your body weight so that you can easily sit back and down and go super deep without tipping over, which is one of the problems noobs have when squatting. The resistance in that case will come from the weight of your upper body and gravity.