How Personal Training Teaches You Long-Term Health and Fitness Lessons

Personal training helps you get in shape, become stronger, and increase your quality of life. Working out also helps you outside the gym, so you can contribute more effectively to your workplace and home life. A stronger, healthier, more confident you means you’re able to be a better parent, friend, spouse, and neighbor. When you work with a personal trainer, you also get the added benefit of having a guide who helps you every step of the way as you get fit.

Life Lesson #1: Setting and Achieving Goals
Anytime you work with a personal trainer, one of the first questions they will ask is about your goals, so they can help you create a plan to achieve them and provide guidance and adjust along the way. The skill of goal setting transfers outside of the gym just as easily as it’s used inside of the gym. Many people set goals but creating a plan of action and sticking to it (even when things go awry) is where most failure happens. Personal trainers help teach you how to bridge this gap, which can be applied to goals you set outside the gym, too.

Life Lesson #2: Accountability
Accountability simply means doing the things we say we’re going to do. Oftentimes we say we are going to start something on Monday or the first day of the month (which could be several days away). A personal trainer will help you realize today is the best day to start working towards your goals, not next Monday. Personal trainers tend to check in several times per week with their clients to make sure they’re knocking out their homework workouts or answer any questions that may pop up between sessions. For clients, this keeps the goal in sight and ensures you’re doing the work to achieve your goal, even when it gets tough, or your motivation is waning.

Life Lesson #3: Valuing Hard Work and Embracing Discomfort
Getting stronger, improving your cardio, or improving your quality of life requires you to do things that are hard. This doesn’t mean pushing through physical pain, but more so pushing through the physical discomfort, mental discomfort, or self-doubt that can occur when the going gets tough. As the sentiment goes, all good things must be earned, not given—and fitness is the same. Think of your workouts as an investment in yourself that will pay long-term dividends, which requires a little sweat equity. Luckily, having your personal trainer by your side will help you get used to doing uncomfortable things more often, ultimately making “hard” or “uncomfortable” tasks easier. And if you can do hard things in the gym, your ability to do hard things outside of the gym will also improve!

Personal training is an investment in your future self. Yes, you’re going to be sore; yes, you’re going to learn a lot; and it will all be worth it when you’ve achieved your goals and are living a healthier, stronger, more confident life. Learning to love discomfort, achieve your goals through hard work, and creating personal accountability will not only help you become a fitter person, but also make you a better person who can better support your friends, family, and community.

Learn more about VASA Fitness’s certified personal trainers here.