Benefits of Hiring A Coach
Here at SFT, we believe that anyone can benefit from having a coach - and that’s not just a sales pitch.
The simplest reason for hiring a coach is to take the guesswork out of your workouts.
Your coach can handle programming, provide a new level of accountability, load the weights for you, and even do the “barbell math” because as coaches, adding 45+45 and getting 135 comes as second nature. Let me (or your coach) know if you don’t get it. When you’ve “tried everything” your coach can tell you what you haven’t actually tried or maybe just didn’t do quite right. Maybe you’re not sure how many days to workout each week, maybe you don’t realize you’re capable of working harder, or maybe you’re not sure what the heck your form should look like on any given exercise. Or maybe you didn’t know that there was also work to be done outside of the gym… Your future coach can certainly help with all of that.
Our mission as coaches is to help you achieve your fitness goals, but also to help our clients eventually gain the confidence to enter the gym on their own accord and get a good workout in even while we’re not there. We see people of all experience levels, and it’s not surprising that we work with a lot of people who are new or maybe even a little bit intimidated by the gym. If that’s you, and you can’t get over feeling awkward while sticking your butt out on a Romanian Deadlift, hire a trainer so everybody who sees you doing it will blame the trainer instead! Jokes aside, most people in the gym really don’t care what you’re doing… Except your trainer, of course. We always care (sometimes too much), and that’s just part of what makes it so valuable to hire a coach.
Some more advanced reasons for having a coach could be…
Training specifically for competition
Of course, you can do it on your own but it’s incredibly helpful to have the experience of someone who’s been on the bodybuilding stage, the powerlifting platform, the volleyball court, or whatever it is you’re training for, in your corner on competition day and the months leading up to it. It’s no secret that some of the most successful athletes in the world have worked with a coach at some point in time.
Working through plateaus
Plateaus in progress could be caused by a number of reasons, and hiring a coach to help work through them and get back to seeing results is not uncommon. Your coach can assess what it is you’ve been doing in the gym, outside of the gym, maybe look at nutrition or even previous injuries to get an idea as to why progress has stalled, and then formulate a plan to get the wheels of progress moving once again.
Adding variety to your workouts
The possibilities are endless when it comes to the vast amount of exercises you can perform in the gym, and it’s easy to get lost in the mix. Bored of the bench press but don’t know what else you can do to work the same muscle groups? I can’t speak for all trainers out there, but I can confidently say that any trainer here at SFT could come up with a multitude of different exercises worth your while without sacrificing the dividends paid from a heavy bench press.
All in all, many people can and will find success in the gym without a coach. Unfortunately, many more will give up before they even get a chance to see results, and subsequently never try again. I honestly believe one of the biggest pieces of value a coach can add to your fitness goals is setting realistic expectations. You won’t get there after one week, one month, sometimes even one year of training. As long as you stick with it and are realistic about the work you are (or aren’t) putting in, you’re one step closer to getting there eventually… And your trainer will be right there to guide the step that follows.
