#113: Tips for Working with an In-Person Personal Trainer (when starting weight training in midlife)

If you're hesitant about starting weight training on your own, then a session (or more) with an in-person personal trainer can be a great choice.

In this episode of the podcast I go over some tips for how to get the most out of that session with a personal trainer - so you can get start getting stronger and build muscle effectively. 

Enjoy the show!

Transcript

#113: Working with PT Tips

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ fitness for women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach. And today, just a very short episode where I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the observations that I've made when people are working with a personal trainer. at their gym, because I think it is a wonderful way to get started on your weight training journey.
You know, obviously I have my online courses and that's a great way to get started. And then another great way, if you want some more handholding, you want somebody there showing you the machines and all these things. Or maybe like at my gym. If you've been around long enough, you get a free session with a personal trainer, so pay, take advantage of it.
But when you do that, here are some tips for getting the most out of your sessions [00:01:00] with a personal trainer. 
I see a lot of personal trainers working with beginner lifters who are in midlife and I think it is amazing.
I'm, I am always like, bravo, that you have decided to start weight training. and you know that you're getting some help because they do get a good basic program generally from these personal trainers that help them get started. 
The thing that I would pay attention to though if this is you working with the personal trainer is a choose somebody who weight trains themselves because I see too often that the personal trainer and it's generally a woman when this happens, I hate to say it, but it's often like a young woman, um, PT who clearly does not lift weights herself.
So when she's demoing an exercise for the client, It's like, uh, you [00:02:00] can just see from how she's holding the dumbbells and how she's moving the weights that this is not something that she has done often, right? She's watched the demo video and now she's demoing it for somebody live. And then the other thing that kind of bothers me about these PT sessions, so I would choose somebody that actually weight trains themselves.
And if you can choose somebody who is in midlife, then choose that woman, right? A woman who weight trains. who is a midlife woman, because when you're 20, your body is different. And you know, it's very hard to understand what it is like to be in a midlife body until you end up there. And I have a wonderful, um, PT that I work with who is a third, I guess he's probably around 30 year old guy.
And he's a Physio, a physical therapist, as well as a personal trainer. And I've talked to him about Dr. Stacey Sims and about midlife weight training and all that [00:03:00] kind of thing. But still, every time he trains me, it is very clear to me that he doesn't quite get what it's like to be in my body. So, so try to find somebody who is a woman who understands this stage of life.
And then the other thing that kind of bothers me with the, or what I feel like is missing when you work with a personal trainer is that they don't go through all the theory. You know, the stuff that I'm teaching you here about why you need to apply progressive overload, how you apply progressive overload, how do muscles actually grow?
What are the other factors you need to be paying attention to? All those things. Like they're not teaching that part at the same time. And then a lot of times they're doing all the setting up of the equipment for the customer, for the client. And so the client herself doesn't learn to adjust the seat back, [00:04:00] adjust, you know, how the machine is set up.
She doesn't actually pick the weights and everything. And that makes it a lot. Harder to then go there on your own without the, you know, personal trainer, if you're used to them doing everything for you instead of you doing it for you. So when you go there with a personal trainer, tell them that, Hey, I want to learn how to set up my seat.
I want to be the one who picks the weights. I'm going to see where you've written down, you know, my weights and my sets and my reps and. And all this 
so that you can also train without them. I mean, I think it is a wonderful idea to have a live personal trainer or somebody check your form every now and again, bounce ideas off of, get the programming from, but these are the things that I would add to that experience to make it even better for you.
All right. And so I wish you all the best in [00:05:00] getting started on your weight training journey, be that with me or with personal trainer or some other program and until next week, I wish you happy training.