Another New Year has started and all those New Years resolutions for getting to the gym, losing weight and getting fit have come and gone right? Relax. This is perfectly normal and it happens to 99% of people who make those promises. Most people start each New Year with the very best of intentions. They want to get fit and lose those unwanted pounds so they get their shiny new gym membership card and promise that they’ll go to the gym at least 3 times per week.

What happens to most people is they go to the gym, spend a few minutes on each of the machines they like the look of, head to the sauna and then go home feeling a bit deflated. There’s no structure to what they’re doing and because of this they consistently fail to achieve any kind of results. Definitely not the results they were expecting when they joined that expensive gym. And this is where the New Years resolution dies – the point of feeling like a failure. That you’ll never be good enough.

What will make the difference to your health and fitness goals is a personal trainer. Your body is an engine and a personal trainer can help you fine tune its performance so that you get the most from it.

But why would you want to use a personal trainer? Aren’t they’re just for celebrities and rich folks?

Not at all and you’d be surprised at just how many of your friends are using personal trainers but keeping it a total secret!

Hiring a personal trainer isn’t as expensive as you might think – it’s actually well within the reach of the vast majority of people. As for the “Why would I need a personal trainer” a good personal trainer provides you with a workout plan customized just for you. This ensures that you’re targeting the areas of your body that need the most work instead of just randomly working on different muscle groups or cardio fitness routines. They simply make sure you get the best results for the amount of effort you put in to your workouts.

Working with a personal trainer is a totally different experience to just using the gym and once you’ve worked out with one you’ll notice this almost straight away. The fact that you have somebody there to push you when you feel like quitting can and does make all the difference to your workout sessions.

Good personal training goes beyond just the mere physical side of things though. Working towards, achieving and maintaining fitness and weight loss goals is as much a mental process as it is a physical one. No you can’t think yourself fit or thin but if you have mental blocks and/or body-image issues it can make achieving these goals so much tougher for you. Having a personal trainer helps you overcome these mental barriers and helps you push yourself to new levels of fitness and personal excellence.

So what does each training session involve? The first meeting you have is to get a baseline for your fitness and weight levels and to get to know each other. Having a good relationship with your trainer is as important to the trainer as it is to you. Once your fitness and weight baseline have been set they’ll come up with a personalized training plan for you. From there on in it’s just a matter of scheduling your training sessions and enjoying the process of crafting that body you’ve always wanted.

The true goal of personal training is to give structure to your training, to push you and to help you establish and maintain best practices in terms of your physical and mental well-being. And once you’ve started down this road folks you’re going to be amazed at the results you see in just a few short weeks of working out.