Why online training can work for you – the best online personal trainer cuts through the noise!
The internet is a blessing and a curse in regards to the amount of information available at our fingertips. Researching ideas on training and nutrition previously required a trip to the book store or library followed by many hours of reading. Even in those days there might have been 100 different books telling you 100 different things, confusing eh?
Now compare the internet today where typing in ‘bodybuilding training’ brings up 31,700,000 results on a Google search. How on earth is someone supposed to decide what strategy to take with so many options?
This is where the role of the online coach comes in. Now it might be semantics but I prefer the title ‘coach’ as opposed to online personal trainer which is far too overused in the fitness industry today (you can call yourself a personal trainer after a 6 week course) and in my opinion has lost its value.
What does online coaching give you?
The role of the online coach is to give direction on your training and nutrition, trusting you to get on with it. The best online personal trainer will assess your progress and make adjustments to your training and nutrition as necessary to get you closer towards your goal.
Online coaching takes the thought process out of deciding on which programme to do, which diet to follow. With the information overload of the internet it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of “paralysis by analysis” in which you never really fix upon a strategy.
It’s common for a trainee to find themselves feeling insecure about the direction they have taken and thus switch strategies every week without every really trying out one idea for long enough to see if it has any validity. They fall into the trap of as I like to call it ‘training and nutrition Attention Deficit Disorder!
With online coaching you can be confident that you are in the hands of an expert who will do their best to steer you in the right direction and help you achieve your goals more effectively that you would otherwise if left alone. The coach cuts through the chaff and information that is blatantly wrong and saves you wasting time adopting ineffective strategies.
What online coaching is not?
Honest feedback and praise is important in the coaching process however it stops at trying to provide a trainee with motivation to achieve their goal. A trainee has to first have that goal clear in their head and then produce the drive to achieve it.
Even the very best online personal trainer is not there to provide motivation and discipline to a trainee. Motivation has to come from within, there has to first be a desire.
Discipline is misunderstood. I often hear people say “If only I had more discipline I would stop myself from eating too much” or “I must be more disciplined”. Balderdash!
Discipline cannot be implanted. Discipline is something that is developed with practice and reinforced positively with achieving goals. If you never start down the road of discipline then how are you supposed to nurture and develop it?
In my role as an online coach I often reinforce discipline, and help to maintain motivation with words of encouragement and positive reinforcement, but I can’t breathe down my online training clients’ necks 24 hours a day in quite the same way as if it were a “live” situation! That said, it is one of the most rewarding features of my job that the results I can help someone to achieve massively contributes to the winning, “can do” mindset that develops with trainees as they see and feel, often for the first time in their lives, their bodies changing and shaping according to their own specific goals and desires!
What does it take to make online coaching work for you?
- • Have the goal, and then work on it together with your online coach.
- Identify the best online personal trainer for your goals
- • Really commit to achieving those goals
- • Trust in your coach and let them guide you to success
Success comes from within
Building a body which is lean, strong and healthy is not an easy process and it often takes some time. It’s a self fulfilling process as the closer you get to the body you desire the more self respect and confidence you build, which in turn fortifies your will to not do things to compromise the results you have worked so hard to achieve.
I totally believe that living a balanced lifestyle and having great body go hand in hand. It does not mean needing to live like a monk and never eating out in social situations, having a glass of red wine or enjoying the odd ice cream on a hot sunny day.
It does however often initially take an extreme approach compared to what you have done in the past for a limited time to get you to where you want to be. If you have previously not looked after your health and ballooned to 18 stone over a number of years, and want to get down to 12 stone in 20 weeks, then it’s going to take a bit of extremism to make that change. But extremism is all relative – it does not mean starvation, far from it, but it will always mean a radical rethinking of the habits that dictate your day to day life.
If you have a mission, then be on the mission and attack it aggressively. Eliminate negative outside influences from your life and get on with it, be the captain of your ship! Don’t fall into the trap of wimping out and blame outside influences when you fail to get results. Today’s society is poisoned with the lack of taking personal responsibility. The beauty of weight training and exercise is that the results are tangible and the whole process is very self fulfilling as you see the results come more and more.
I love this quote by Henry Rollins-
“The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.”
In the long term maintaining a good body and great health is easier in the sense that it becomes about balancing your desires, and not letting certain parts of your lifestyle get out of hand for too long and thus compromises your results.
Ready to start achieving?
If you have reached that stage where you are ready to start attacking those love handles and want to regain some control of your body and your health, or maybe have loftier ambitions of stepping on a bodybuilding stage or getting in front of the camera then online training would be right for you. If you want to learn how to drive, you employ the expertise of a driving instructor, the same should apply to your body. Make that investment today!
By Martyn Sklayne, Senior Online Personal Trainer.
