Are personal trainers a waste of money? Do you use one? And if so, are your sessions a waste of money? Find out how to ensure your hard-earned money does not go to waste… and what to do instead!
Getting started in the home gym world can be extremely daunting, particularly if you don’t have years of commercial gym experience behind you.
Somehow, muddling your way through a commercial gym session is much easier: There is lots of shiny equipment around. You can look at what other people are up to and copy them if it looks like they’re doing something cool.
There are experienced gymgoers and gym staff who can answer your questions – and often give you pointers if you’re stuck. But in a home gym, it’s just you.
As such, as a home gym owner, I empathize with anyone feeling the urge to turn to a professional for help. There is no one single guide to working out on the internet – rather, warring camps of people angrily telling you not to do one thing but prioritise another.
Enter the personal trainer. The guide for the lost. The exercise guru who can help you on the path to wellness. Or so it should be.
Personal Trainers: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
It is relatively easy to become a PT in the UK. It takes just two weeks of full-time training to get a Level 2 fitness instruction course, and six weeks to get the Level 3 qualifications you need to work in most British gyms.
While there are a plethora of licenced academies out there that abide by the rules, in many cases, most gymgoers pay little attention to whether or not their PT has an Ofqual-recognised licence.
While it’s not quite the Wild West, the personal training world remains a relatively poorly regulated sector, despite the fact that it’s worth about £1 billion. Pandemic disruption aside, Brits have been spending more and more every year on PTs for the past two decades.
Although many personal trainers are upstanding folk, if you’re not careful, this sphere can get almost as shady as the world of aromatherapy practitioners, life coaches and nutrition experts.
Even if they have the “right” qualifications, when you pay for a PT – particularly one you don’t know from Adam (or Eve) – you’re essentially spinning the roulette wheel.
I’ve hired five or six different PTs at various stages in the past. And while one was amazing – a true scholar of physiology and exercise science – the rest were a saddening disappointment.
Then there’s the price. PTs in my area charge £50 and above for a 45-minute session, making it very easy to get burned.
It’s not my intention to claim that all PTs are evil and that every session you spend with them is a waste of money. There are great PTs out there. Like I said, I’ve met some. I’ve trained alongside some. I know some personally.
A good PT is priceless; if you find one, don’t let them go. But the world of personal training is also filled to the brim with charlatans. It is also full of well-meaning people whose fitness pointers are just, well… wrong.
Why Do So Many PTs Give Bad Fitness Advice?
Part of the problem with personal trainers doesn’t actually lie with PTs themselves, but in the way we interact with them. Most people hire personal trainers with very woolly fitness goals in mind. And when the PT asks to vocalise these goals, clients’ explanations of these are even woollier.
“I want to lose weight.” “I want to get fit.” “I want to look better in beachwear.”
These aren’t clearly defined fitness goals. They are just generic wishes that you might not even be sure are your own. That is why, upon hearing this, a PT could well serve you up with an equally generic programme that won’t really help or teach you anything.
In this case, the fault is squarely with the client. Avoid this: Create a more clearly defined fitness target.
Do you want to build muscle? If so, which muscles matter most to you? If you ask a PT to help you get bigger, they will throw a bit of everything in. But if you go to a PT and ask them to help your butt grow or get massive biceps, they will understand exactly what your priorities are.
Do you want to build strength? Do you want to get better at a certain sport? Are you trying to rehabilitate an injury? These are the questions you need to answer before you ask someone else to help you.
But in other cases, the fault can be the PT’s.
The Money Trap
Many PTs, perhaps catering to their clients’ woolly wishes and questionable motivation, seem to feel the need to inject scores of exercises and variations. These would boggle the mind of anyone with even a moderate amount of knowledge about programming.
Intermediate and advanced trainees shouldn’t need PTs to give them programming tips – they should have enough experience to create their own programs.
And beginners need simplicity, not complexity – to encourage them to make noticeable gains and stay in the fitness game.
But I have seen PTs encourage their beginner clients to return every month for a “check-in,” at which point they effectively tear up last month’s programme in favour of something completely different. This, to me, looks like a cynical attempt to grab people’s money and take advantage of their ignorance.
Such an approach to programming won’t get you strong or more muscular. It will just sap your money until you’re too frustrated to carry on.
A good teacher should do their best to teach their student to become knowledgeable enough to do away with them. As such, if your PT isn’t clearly telling you why you are on a certain program, or why that programme is changing, run away… you’re being scammed.
PTs Outside the Commercial Gym Space
Not all PTs work in commercial gyms. Some will train you in a local park or at your house. Others will train you out of a rented studio or even their own homes.
There is certainly something to be said for this approach. In the last case, you are paying them not only for their time and knowledge, but also for the use of their equipment.
Again, you are spinning the roulette wheel with this kind of trainer if you don’t know them personally or they haven’t been recommended to you by someone you trust. But, from a home gym perspective, it may be helpful to see how professionals set up their studios – before you decide if you want a home gym of your own.
What’s the Solution?
Thus far, I’ve done a lot of PT-bashing. But I would certainly not suggest doing away with PTs altogether. If (and it’s a big “if”) you can find a good one, try to get them to do the thing that will be most useful not three months from now on your Ibiza holiday, but three years from now, when you’re working out in your home gym.
And that thing is to fix your form on compound, free weight exercises. Get them to teach you how to squat, how to deadlift, how to press overhead. Maybe you can also get pointers on how to perform better callisthenic exercises like pullups, pushups, pistol squats or dips.
As a general rule, don’t ask them for programming advice. If you have no experience, insist that you spend your time on those compound lifts.
And instead of using their programmes, learn how to create your own. Yes, it will take some research and some trial and error.
But at least you will stand more chance of success that way.
If you’re totally lost, begin with goblet squats, Romanian deadlifts, pullups (or barbell/dumbbell rows if you can’t do a pullup yet), overhead presses and pushups.
All safe and difficult to injure yourself on. All totally doable with a pullup bar, a pair of dumbbell handles (maybe these), some sturdy collars and some weight plates (this kind of thing’d do).
You can build a home gym for £100. Just do the aforementioned exercises twice a week, trying to add weight every time, and you are already on a far better programme than most PTs would have you on.
Once you have all that mastered, you will start forming ideas of your own. And those ideas will one day transform into a programme created by the best personal trainer on Planet Earth: you.
So, Are Personal Trainers a Waste of Money?
If you are going to hire a PT at all, know how to make the best use of them – and how to tell the difference between someone who actually has your best interests at heart and a dud.
But just pressing fire on the first PT you can find and wishin’ and hopin’ for the best? You’re wasting your money and time. You can do so much better.
