Personal Trainer Questions

[DesertMouse82]

Hi guys,

I have a few questions that I was hoping you could help me with.

Before I get started with my questions let me give you a bit of background (feel free to skip). I'm not going to lie, I am a obese woman. That being said, lately I have been working on changing my lifestyle. So far it's been going pretty well. I started at the end of April and have been able to keep it up, so I'm pretty hopeful that I will be able to stick with it. Yes I am working on my eating, but more then that I have been working on exercising daily. There are days that I've missed but for the most part I get atleast 20 mins in 5-7 days a week. I don't belong to a gym, everything I do, I do at home. I live in a very small town and don't drive so it's hard to get to the gym (no buses here). Honestly even if I did, I probably wouldn't go, I tend to be very self conscious. My favorite thing to do exercise wise is walk the dog in the morning. That might sound very low key, but when I started I had a hard time walking half a mile, I am now up to 3-4 miles (though it can take a hour and half or even two hours). In fact it's gotten to the point where the dog can't walk with me anymore (he is a small breed and after a mile and half he keeps trying to lay down). Because I am so self conscious I don't feel comfortable walking without a dog, though I'm in the middle of a adopting a larger dog to go walking with. The reason I bring this up is that because of this I've been working on finding other things I can do (in the house) to get in some exercise. I have gotten the wii fit, which tends to work well, but doesn't seem to really be a workout. I also got this thing made by Gold's Gym. It hooks onto the door and is made up of resistants bands. I also have two five pound dumb bells as well as one ten pound. But the thing that I've found to help the most is a walking at home video. So I feel like I have tools to get in shape here.

Alright so onto the questions.

I honestly don't have the money to cover having a normal personal trainer, but I have been wanting to hire one for a one time session. There are personal trainers who do that right? What is the normal rate for something like that?

What I'm looking for most is someone to show me what to do and make sure what I am doing is right. Honestly I am a bit afraid and do tend to hold back when it comes to anything that works with the weights or trying new ways of strength training. I am always afraid I'm going to lift it wrong or something and hurt myself. It's probably mostly in my head, I have just heard alot of stories about people doing that. Is this even something that I need a personal trainer for? Do you think I should just watch more videos and examples of people doing these type of things and do it myself?

Ideally I would love to have the personal trainer explain a few things to me (mostly about calories and how much exercise to do a day and how many times ect.). This isn't something I have to have, there is alot on the net that talks about it, I have just gotten a bit confused by all the different info and it would be nice. Is this even something that would fall under a personal trainer's job?

I don't mind going to a gym to meet with the personal trainer, but it would be nice to find someone who could come to the house and show me what to do with what I have, if that makes sense. Is this something that is common for a personal trainer to do? Would it cost more?

I have seen someone in the local paper talking about how she has a background in fitness and advertising that she will work with you personally for a month for $500. Now this isn't what I'm looking for, but it made me wonder just how important is it for them to have gone to school? When I look for a personal trainer, what questions should I ask? Do I need to look for someone who has worked with obese people? I know that personally I can't do all the things that people in shape can (atleast I don't think I can). I feel so over my head....

Thank you for taking the time to read this and any advise you can give me.

 

[HyungJun]

Yes, there are trainers who will take you on, even if it is for 1 session. Prices vary from trainer to trainer.

Make sure you do a bit of research into the trainer. I am a trainer myself and have seen many 'dodgy' trainers. I would also suggest getting a trainer who has a nutrition background to help you with food.

Having a personal trainer to come to your house are generally more expensive.

When hiring a personal trainer, make sure they are setting goals, taking baseline measurements, giving you their full attention and ask them questions based around nutrition and exercise and see what answers they give.
If they are talking on the phone, looking around while you are performing exercises, walking off, talking nothuing but about what you did on the weekend etc then I personally wouldn't hire them.

 

[fitxpress]

Hi Desertmouse,

First, congratulations on your progress so far that's terrific! I am a personal trainer and I am certain there are personal trainers who would, as HyungJun said, accept you. One avenue you may want to research is online trainers. I tried to get that going a while back and scrubbed it but I do know they are out there using Skype. I do want to say that I and most other trainers do require a medical release for people with certain health risks, obesity being one of those. They are for the benefit of both parties and so you may need to get this from for physician.

In the mean time, may I suggest a possible improvement on your current walks? Don't know why I asked that because I am going to anyway LOL. Walking longer is one way of improving your fitness level as you have found out but since you are currently limited by your pooch, you could do more intense walking. I don't know your environmental situation but how about walking to a place where you could tie up your dog at the base of a hill and walk up and down it several times, then return home. Along the same lines, you can do the same thing with a set of stairs. This "interval training" is a way to put hard efforts into an easier work out which increases the training intensity. Very simply put--if you exercise twice as hard you get approximately twice the results but since this harder effort cannot be maintained long term it is limited.

For example; sprinting burns twice the number of calories as jogging but one can only sprint so far! But by jogging say, along the straight away on a track and sprinting the corners and then returning to a jog, you can keep going much longer and get the benefits of both jogging and sprinting.

You can do the exact same thing using a hill or stairs. Start slowly though by perhaps doing this for just one of your walks at first--once a week and do just one or two climbs. For the next couple of sessions, try adding another one or two climbs. later you can add another climbing day and/or begin returning to your old, longer distance and add in the climbs to the longer walks.

In my experience, circuit style training is the best overall way to lose weight (combined with sound nutrition of course). If you can only hire a trainer for one session perhaps you can ask them about designing a circuit program using the weights you have. Circuit training is a weight training method that increases strength and improves cardio at the same time. Basically, instead of doing an exercise, resting, and then do another, circuit training is done by doing one exercise after another, not resting until your whole body is trained.

Anyway, good luck and keep up the good work!