photo credit: briser50

So you’ve decided you need to lose a few pounds. You’re getting a little bit soft around the edges and your heart starts racing when you climb the stairs to bed each night. But you’ve tried the gym before, you’ve tried going for jogs in the morning and none of it worked. Light bulb! I’ll get a personal trainer. That will solve my problems. But will it? Are personal trainers really necessary in order to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals? In this post I am going to look at that very question.

Not all personal trainers are created equal

Before we delve too much into the personal trainer debate I want to make something quite clear. Not all personal trainers are created equal. There are good ones and bad ones. In fact, there are some very bad ones. It is important to make the distinction between the two, however, because you don’t want to go around thinking all personal trainers are experts or phonies. Some of them are very good, some of them are not.

So how do you know whether a personal trainer is good or not? Well there are no hard and fast rules but here are some suggestions that you might want to take on board:

• How long have they been a personal trainer?
  If your personal trainer is very new it might mean that they don’t have the experience to guide you, especially if you consider yourself to be quite experienced. Of course, this is not always true.
• Are they qualified?
  In my opinion you shouldn’t have anything to do with a personal trainer unless they are qualified. There are many stories going around about people who trusted a trainer through a health issue and the trainer’s advice just made it worse for them.
• Is the qualification a good one?
  Not all qualifications are great. In fact, some of them are pretty shocking. Just do a two week course and you are able to tell people how to do dangerous exercises like the dead lift and make dietary programs for them even when they are diabetic. Not good enough. Make sure their qualifications are respected.
• How fit are they?
  This is a big point of contention between my brother and myself. He reckons that it doesn’t matter what a trainer looks like as long as they know their stuff. I reckon that is bullshit. If a personal trainer doesn’t have the body you want to get, the fitness levels you want to achieve, etc. then walk right on by. You would never go to a financial planner who drove a 1982 rickety VW Beetle. Trainers should live and breathe their trade.
• Are you making progress?
  If you have been with your trainer for more than three months and have not seen drastic progress then it is time to move on. Why? Because a personal trainer should be always thinking about you. Their goal is to give you the power and knowledge to look after yourself and go out on your own, not keep you down and unfit so you will keep paying them. The best trainers at my gym have big turn over rates. Not because their clients hate them but because they all get so fit so fast. And this is the best marketing exercise they can do for themselves as well.

Make sure you address these questions before you sign on to any trainer. If you are already using a personal trainer then sit down and take a look at these issues now before your next session. You should not take any chances when it comes to someone who is involved with your health.

The positive: why you SHOULD hire a personal trainer

photo credit: mark_donoher

I thought we would lead off on the positive. Let’s take a look at why I think you should hire a personal trainer. These points might not appeal to everyone but hopefully it will give you something to think about while you are making your decision.

1. Certainty
The first reason that you want to get a personal trainer is because they provide you with certainty. You get to stop worrying about whether you are doing the right or the wrong thing. They can point you in the right direction and help you through any questions. This is actually quite a big deal because I know a lot of women who really worry about whether they are using their small amount of exercise time efficiently.

2. Injury prevention
If you go to the gym by yourself it is fair to say that at some point you will get an injury. Sometimes you just get unlucky but more than likely the cause is improper technique or lack of warming up. A personal trainer can help you dodge these issues as they will usually make sure your technique is perfect before letting you do the exercise at full weight. This is a very big advantage. In fact, this is the best reason to hire someone.

3. Faster weight loss
Let’s be honest here. Unless you know what you are doing you are going to make a lot quicker progress having an expert help you out. The most important thing when losing weight is knowledge and hard work – a personal trainer can help you with both of those things.

The negative: why you SHOULDN’T hire a personal trainer

photo credit: B Rosen

Now we can take a look at some of the reasons why you should not bother with a personal trainer. If there are any PTs reading this article I am sorry if this section causes you offense. Leave and comment and let me know if you disagree and I’m sure we can get to the bottom of the matter.

1. Its expensive
Just like the title of the post suggests, personal trainers are expensive. Some of them are reasonably expensive and some of them are just plain out of control. If you live in up state New York or Hollywood chances are your personal trainer is going to charge more than I pay to rent a house. And that is fine if you like throwing money down the toilet but, to be honest, it is completely unnecessary. Most Hollywood celebrities use personal trainers that other celebrities use, not personal trainers that are good for them. The best personal trainers are not always the most expensive ones.

You also have to look at whether you are getting value for money. Are you making progress? Would the money be better spent on buying fruit and vegetables? Could you put the money to better use by buying equipment? All of these questions are important to ask yourself.

2. Its lazy
A lot of the time people hire personal trainers because they can’t motivate themselves. Now I’m not saying that everyone does this but a lot of people do. If you are hiring a PT because you need education and advice then you are on the right path. But if you are hiring one because you want someone else to motivate you every time or because you can’t workout unless someone is pushing you then a PT is a bad idea. That issue is something you need to work on yourself. That is a mental block and not something that a PT will necessarily solve.

The verdict

My view is quite simple. Everyone should hire a personal trainer but only for a short period of time. Once you have learned the exercises properly, got a workout plan and made some progress it is important that you move out on your own. Personal trainers only have a limited use as far as I’m concerned. If you need one for longer than six months then perhaps you aren’t making the progress you think you are.

What do you think? Do you think personal trainers are a waste of time or something that everyone should be using? Leave a comment.

The latest video from our Free Women’s Fitness series is up on You Tube. This time we are talking about how to do a perfect lunge in order to get a toned butt and sexy tight legs. If you aren’t already subscribed, please head to our You Tube Channel and do so as we might not be posting all of the videos here. And if you have any suggestions please let us know.

Well here it is! Free Women’s Fitness has started filming our own instructional videos to help all of our fans and friends learn new exercises and better workouts. In this video Pilates expert Tamara will show you how to do a proper crunch. She also tells you how to engage your core muscles and pelvic floor so that you actually target the correct muscles.

This is a must see video for beginners and experts because it really highlights how tricky even just a basic crunch can be. But, if you master this you will be well on your way to a flat stomach and toned abs. Please subscribe to our Youtube Channel or email updates to make sure you don’t miss out on the next video.

If you have been doing abs work for a while now you will, undoubtedly, be looking for some new exercises to keep your abdominal workouts spicy. Today I am going to show you how to do a Swiss Ball Jackknife – a very powerful exercises for working your lower and upper abs as well as your back and arms.

Preparing for the Swiss Ball Jackknife

Before you do any abdominal exercise you need to make sure you have covered a few areas. These include:

• Ensuring you use the proper technique
  Make sure you always study the exercise well and learn how to do it with the perfect technique. If you perform any exercise incorrectly you run the risk of developing a long term injury that will haunt you for years.
• Ensuring you warm up
  Make sure you do a warm up before you do any resistance exercise. Again, this helps to prevent injuries.
• Ensuring you target the right muscles
  You would be surprised to know how many women do exercises that they think targets one muscle but, in fact, it targets something completely different. Before you do this exercise you need to know where your abdominal muscles are located and how they work.

Once you have these three things under control you will be ready to start the exercise. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to perform every exercise with the perfect technique. It will prevent injuries and help you get that sexy body a lot quicker.

How to do the Swiss Ball Jackknife for Toned Abs

Now we can move on to the exciting part! This exercise is an amazing way to target your upper and lower abs in one exercise. It also hits your arms and shoulders, your back and even your butt and legs. Many women find this is a great exercise to toned the whole body as it requires strength from a lot of different areas to complete properly.

Engage your pelvic floor muscles
It is very important when performing abdominal exercises that you engage your core muscles correctly. If you don’t you run the risk of completely missing out on the work that your lower abs should be doing. They simply won’t engage. To turn on your core you need to engage your pelvic floor muscles (the ones that you tense when you are busting for the toilet). You also need to tense your major abs muscles by pulling your belly button in as far as you can. Hold this throughout the exercise.

STEP ONE – Position Yourself on the Swiss Ball

The first part of the jackknife is done by positioning your body on the Swiss ball in the correct posture. Without the correct posture your whole exercise will feel unbalanced and weak. To do this you need to:

• Place your feet on the ball so they are balanced and stable. Close together is best but you can have a little space if you need it.
• Place your hands shoulder width a part and lock your elbows so you can support your body weight.
• Make sure that your shoulders are back by lengthening the distance between your ear and your shoulders
• Make sure your back is perfectly straight; not curved upwards or downwards. This is vital.
• Tense your abs and pelvic floor muscles.

Make sure you feel comfortable and secure. It will take some practice to get the balance correct but if you keep your posture as illustrated above you will find the stability comes quite naturally.

STEP TWO – The Actual Jackknife “Crunch” Movement

From the initial starting position you will now do the main jackknife or “crunch” part of the movement which is where the majority of the work is done. In order to do this correctly you need to:

• Very slowly bring your knees toward your chest by crunching your abs and rolling the fitness ball forward
• At the top of the motion you tense your abs again as you breathe out
• Very slowly return your legs to the original position making sure your abs stay tensed and firm

Repeat the above sets until your abs are too tired to continue. This is called “failure”. You should fail after about 15 to 20 repetitions if your technique is correct. Make sure you do not continue if your execution starts to get sloppy as you will not be targeting the correct muscles and you might do yourself an injury.

Conclusion

The Swiss Ball jackknife is an amazing exercise for toning your abs and getting a flat stomach. It is quite advanced so build up slowly by performing a regular pilates abs crunch. When you feel like you are ready get your fitness ball and go for it! You will see results in just a few sessions.