What to expect
If you’re considering some personal training sessions, your imagination might be conjuring up all sorts of things: endless jumping jacks, push ups, running until you drop, being shouted at to “keep going” by a scary, muscly trainer and generally hating every minute.
Conversely, you may have no idea at all what to expect and this is why you are not taking the plunge – the unknown is just too scary when you already feel vulnerable about your appearance or fitness level.
So, whilst every client’s programme is unique, we thought we would outline what you can expect so that you feel more comfortable about contacting us.
When you first get in touch, we suggest a consultation, either in person or on the telephone. That gives you the chance to ask us more questions and tell us a bit more about yourself so that we can advise you how best we can help. This first consultation is just an informal chat and lasts around half an hour. If you feel happy about what we suggest, we will book in your first session or first few sessions, depending on what, between us, we’ve decided is the best way to proceed.
In your first session, we take you through a series of movements which allows us to gauge the level of various aspects of your fitness, such as strength, balance and flexibility. These movements are quite low level and we can adapt them accordingly. Some are floor-based and some are standing up.
This first session is key to giving us the information we need to begin to formulate your subsequent sessions. Generally speaking, we will start you with some basic floor and standing exercises and gradually increase the complexity as you become stronger. There is no set timeline for this – each person progresses at a different rate. It is likely that we will ask you to practise your exercises on your own and we will plan this according to the time you have available – programmes can be as little as ten minutes, or up to an hour and a half. It really depends on the individual.
We invariably ask you to keep a food diary, at least for the first couple of weeks. Whether your goal is weight loss, weight gain or just improved fitness, whatever you are fuelling yourself with is important. We’ll talk through your current nutritional habits during your sessions to see if there are areas that can be improved to help you maintain a comfortable weight and give you more energy.
You won’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to do. Our role is to guide and educate you – the choices you make are down to you. You will be challenged; this is how you make progress. However, you will never be asked to do something that is not within your ability – this would serve no purpose at all!
If you have any more questions, please do feel free to drop us an email.