Why should I hire a coach?
Personal training can seem very expensive, with value can be difficult to quantify. Because of this, so many write it off completely before they truly consider what having a fitness coach can offer. And while there are a ton of mediocre coaches out there, a great coach can completely transform your life. How is that possible? There are essentially three main avenues: efficiency, support, and guidance. At the end of the day, when you hire a coach you are putting your physical health in their hands, which can be incredibly liberating. Imagine not having to worry about what you should be doing to be healthy or to make as much progress as possible towards your fitness goals. How much bandwidth would that free up for you to focus on the other priorities in your life?
Let’s start with efficiency. Every coaching program at Woven starts with our onboarding process where we ask you to fill out our intake form and are taken through a battery of physical tests that give us the information necessary to create a training program customized specifically for you. I cannot overstate just how impactful this. Everyone’s goals are different and moving closer to your goals requires a fitness program designed with them in mind. I like to equate this program as Google Maps. You could just start running in a random direction, wasting a lot of energy, but without a destination in the app there is no guarantee you will actually move any closer to where you want to go. Hiring a coach is like putting your destination into the app; now you have precise directions towards where you are trying to go.
Having the destination in mind is essential, but wouldn’t you also want to know which route is going to be fastest? You may be able to walk somewhere in theory, but when you can cut the trip time in half you would probably rather take the train. The reality is that shortcuts don’t generally exist in the fitness industry; it’s still going to be a journey. But at the very least, when you hire a coach you have a realistic understanding of how long the journey will take. You have a clear destination and step by step directions.
Now the reality is most fitness goals are more like driving from New York to LA rather than Cobble Hill to the East Village. You don’t generally get any where meaningful very quickly. So you understand that you have to drive across the country; you’ve planned out your route and you have step by step instructions. But you can’t just drive straight for a week, you’ll burn out. You have to stop for gas and take breaks strategically. This is where your coach comes in. Your coach is with you every step of the way, making sure you’re not pressing the gas paddle down too hard. If a check engine light comes on? Your coach is helping you decipher what it means and getting you to the right mechanic. If you’ve got 10 more miles to drive that night before you get to your hotel for the evening, your coach is there to push you to get it done. If you are trying to achieve something meaningful in your fitness, it is simply not a 6 week process. You have to think long term. The program your coach writes for you is a crucial part of keeping you moving in the right direction long after that initial burst of motivation is gone.
The program your coach writes for you is just one of the many benefits they offer. Accountability is another obvious benefit. So many people join the gym when they are feeling motivated, but struggle to implement this new habit into their life in a sustainable way. If you know that you can’t make it to the gym without someone there to keep you accountable, stop reading and go hire a coach right now. The benefits you get from simply showing up to the gym regularly will transform your life. A coach whose only job is to get you to show up is worth it on that basis alone.
But a coaching relationship can also be so much more than that. Your coach is a partner in your health, and without stepping outside of their scope can be someone to help pull all the different components of your fitness and health together. Having someone to pull together a plan for you on which days you should do cardio, weights, or your favorite group fitness routines all together is invaluable. Your coach is going to make sure you are not overtraining or doing conflicting exercises on back to back days. In an ideal world (like what we are building at Woven) your coach would even coordinate with your physical therapist, dietitian, and your general practitioner. Your coach is someone who might not know all the answers to your questions, but knows enough to connect you to the professional who would.
And when has something ever gone completely to plan? Your coach is going to help you navigate the different challenges that life will throw at you, changing your plan accordingly. Maybe your goals change, or you realize you can’t fit into routine the number of workouts you originally committed to. Maybe you are going through a really busy period of time at work or relationship difficulty. Not only is your coach going to adjust your workouts accordingly, they are there to support you through the difficult times you may face. It’s a running joke that many personal trainers end up becoming their clients’ therapists. While offering psychiatric advice is certainly outside of our scope, our job is to give you whatever you need in the time that we see you each week. On some days that’s an intense workout and on others it might be simply listening to what is going on in your life.
And while we rely so much on our coach for support, we also rely on them for guidance, which will take many different forms. I view educating my clients as central to my mission, helping them understand not only what we are doing but why we are doing it. I believe the more educated someone is the less likely they are to fall victim to the misinformation rampant in this industry, and it’s my goal as a coach to empower all of my clients in this way.
Additionally, the language of exercise is a very difficult one to learn and understand. Not only are there often different names for the same exercises, often the name of an exercise alone is not enough to understand how it should be done. What is a ‘squat’ really, when everyone will coach and execute the movement slightly differently? At Woven all of our coaches have a clear understanding of the goal of each exercise that we can tailor the movement specifically to you to get the most out of it.
And even when you have a clear understanding of what and why you are doing something, it’s not always going to go to plan. What happens when your body starts trying to communicate with you? That communication is incredibly important, but it can be very difficult to decode. Take the feeling of tightness. A muscle can be ‘tight’ because it's in a chronically short state, think your hip flexors from sitting for too long. But it can also feel tight because it’s in a chronically lengthened state. A muscle can feel tight because it’s chronically being overworked and isn’t getting appropriate recovery, but it can also feel tight because it’s chronically underworked and is weak. It can be tight because you have too much movement in and area or too little. How is someone who is not a movement professional supposed to take this feeling and understand exactly what they need to do to fix the issue? Your body does not come with an instruction manual. It’s your coach’s job is to take your feelings, decode them, and provide specific solutions, which often requires some trial and error.
So do you need to hire a coach? I would use the following questions as a guide.
Do you need a base level of accountability to make it to the gym?
Are you working through any current or former injuries?
Do you understand why things in your body are happening to you? Do you know how to proceed with that information?
Are you confused about what you should be doing? Or do you know exactly what you should be doing on a day to day basis to move closer to your goals?
Are you currently seeing the best results you could be seeing with your current routine?
If you felt like the answers to these questions stirred something in you, it might be time to finally make the commitment.
