What Is Online Training Anyway And Will It Work For Me?
You might have been hearing a lot about online personal training over the past year, and with good reason. Most personal trainers in April 2020 found themselves having to shift their services to online personal training when their gyms were forced to close because of the pandemic situation across the globe.
Online Personal Training – I’ll be honest, when I first heard of it, I thought it would never work. Where would the accountability be, if your PT isn’t waiting for you in a gym? How would you know you’re getting your technique right? Would you be able to follow a written workout, or would the whole thing put you off because somebody isn’t doing all of the thinking for you? Just how many zoom workouts with frozen screens will it take for you to give up entirely? Will it be just as expensive as personal training for less value?
It turns out that all of these questions in fact are very much worth answering, and the answers are quite surprising.
- Accountability – nobody is waiting for you in the gym, your home gym or your re-opened gym HOWEVER, your trainer is awaiting your feedback on the workout you’re about to do so that they can make your next workout a progression of the one you’ve just done. Something too easy? They’ll make it harder. Something too hard? They’ll break it down for you. Either way, every workout counts.
- Technique – technology is such now that any good PT should be able to send you detailed instructional videos of how to do exercises, and should know what to ask you to send in a video of you completing the exercise (what position the camera should face or what aspect of the movement they’re looking for) so that they can ensure that you’re doing it properly.
- Written Workouts – there is a specific format PTs use to explain how many sets and reps to do – if we can understand it, so can you 😉 Plus, and this is by far the best thing to come out of you being able to follow a written workout, you will start to see patterns of how things are put together and how they progress. You’ll learn things. You’ll be more able to create your own workouts and from that comes ownership of your training. This is an active process, rather than a passive one. It’s a skill for life.
- Ok Zoom (other video calling platforms are available). Zoom training sessions alone are not an equivalent to in-person training. There is too much potential for connection difficulties and lost time moving the screen around for different angles. Zoom calls do have a place in online training however – you still need to have a connection with your trainer. A zoom session once a week is your chance to ask each other questions, share wins and address concerns. It’s a chance for you to work on technique in real-time, without it taking up valuable workout time and to allow your trainer to plan your next week’s training with as up-to-date and well-explained feedback as possible.
- Online Personal Training is then in fact a great way for people who might not before have had access to Personal Training for financial reasons to receive a personal training plan and all the support and real-time guidance and instruction that goes along with that. Not to mention the life-changing progress and life-changing habits that are formed when something is made an enjoyable and tangibly beneficial part of your life. There’s a proverb that says when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I personally believe that there is a Personal Trainer out there for everybody. The connection and understanding is what’s important, and with the more virtual and online our lives have become, the world really is our oyster when it comes to finding the perfect PT to suit your needs and budget.
So, in short, I’ve come to love Online Personal Training and have welcomed a fantastic team of clients into my training world, in a combination of entirely online and with face-to-face sessions in my studio when location allows.
As an example of what’s in store for one of my client’s this week, here is a link to their personal training plan:
file:///C:/Users/Home/OneDrive/Online%20Training/JJ/JJ%2041120.pdf
To go along with this, we text each other as often as we need to check-in and make sure everything is going smoothly and we meet once a month for a technique (and overdue catch-up about kids and work!) When things need adjusting because home life gets busy, we simplify sessions. When she has a week off work to catch-up on life, we plan daily sessions. We plan mobility and rest to ensure no niggles appear and that her body adapts optimally to the challenges. When she has a new aim, we pivot her training plan to meet that aim.
It has truly opened up a whole new world of possibility for people’s health, fitness and wellbeing and it’s something that everybody can now benefit from with a little bit of research into the right Personal Trainer for them.
For more information on Online Personal Training with Juno Fitness, visit xxx and enquire today to see if it’s the right match for you!
