The Death Of Glasgow Personal Training

Glasgow personal trainers often stress the value of one to one training, suggesting that by having a personal trainer you are somehow more likely to succeed because you are getting individual attention. The truth is for the vast majority of people while training is definitely required, personal training is not. Personal training provides the illusion of exclusivity, the idea that you are privy to training methods that no one else has access to.

In reality all personal trainers are governed by base training rules when devising training programmes for their clients. Firstly, for every basic human movement type there are a limited number of good quality exercises to choose from and the further a Glasgow personal trainer strays from these exercises the more of a disservice that personal trainer does to their clients. Secondly, the principles of exercise prescription don't change based on the person they are being applied to. This means that if your training goals and health screening forms are similar to another of your personal trainer's clients it is a good bet that your personal trainer will (and should) be giving you very similar programmes. In a lot of cases exercise load may be the only variable that varies from client to client but exercise selection and session structure may not be that different. A Glasgow personal trainer who constantly chops and changes your personal training plan is probably doing it to keep you interested and not to help you reach your goals. Individual attention is a very overrated aspect of progress and should not even be mentioned in the same breath as the "big four" of efficiency, effort, quality and persistence.

Another mark against personal training is that it is very expensive. Most Glasgow personal trainers charge between 30 and 45 pounds per 1 hour session with no guarantee of the level of expertise you are paying for. When you consider it is likely to take many weeks to reach your goal personal training suddenly becomes a serious financial investment where you could be spending anywhere from 700 to 1000 pounds for a couple of sessions a week for 3 months.

Personal training means passing the entire cost of a session to a single client but group training allows the group members to pay much less because they are not solely responsible for the cost of the session. Personal training can also be quite restrictive in terms of when you can train because a personal trainer can only work with one client at a time. If the Glasgow personal trainer you want to hire is working with another client at the only time you can train then you will miss out but with group training is far more flexible as you can usually join the group that trains at the time you can make.

A common misconception about group training is that you don't get to get as good a session as you would during a personal training session because you are sharing the attention of the trainer. In addition to this people tend to think that training at the same as other people time means less time training for each person. This is not true because everyone needs to rest during training sessions, even personal training sessions, and a good trainer will be able to organise group sessions to ensure that there is no time wasted and no one is left resting for excessive periods.

The best example of the effectiveness of group training compared to personal training is seen in the training of elite professional sportspeople where it is the norm to train in groups, not in isolation. This does not only apply to elite players in team sports like football and rugby, even sports stars like Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt that dominate individual sports still train in groups. If better results were to be had training on your own that is how professional sports would be organised but they choose group training because it is the fastest way to success. If someone like Usain Bolt does not need a personal trainer it is fair to say that no one needs a personal trainer. People just need to find a training group that fits their needs.

Another big advantage of group training over personal training is the camaraderie that comes from training with a select group of people all working to overcome the same issues to reach the same goals. This is a degree of support and assistance that personal training can never provide. Having this built in support structure means increased motivation during training due to the cumulative energy of the group. Group training also generates a level of consistency that personal training does not. Group training members routinely make more sessions, work harder in sessions and therefore make faster progress to their goals than personal training clients do. Being committed to set training times prioritises your training as you have to plan things round your training, rather than your training around other things. This contrasts with personal training where, if you have a forgiving personal trainer, you can normally reschedule personal training sessions at the drop of a hat and this degree of flexibility makes it a lot easier to miss sessions. Missing sessions is a big reason people fail to reach their goals and group training can minimise this problem.

While personal training is often the first thing people think about when they decide that they want to make a serious commitment to their fitness goals it is clear that personal training is not the best option. Group training strikes the perfect balance between affordability, effectiveness, motivation, fun and ultimately gives you a much greater chance of success. So if you are determined to reach your goals you should not be looking for an expensive personal trainer, you should find a quality training group that gives you a much better chance of success. These ideas make sense to me, but what do you think?

Iain Smith (MPhil/CSCS) owns Standout Gym, an independent warehouse gym in Glasgow, focusing on weight loss. He offers small group training as an affordable alternative to Glasgow personal training. Iain is a former international decathlete with 17 years coaching experience. www.standoutgym.com.