– What was your first time like?

How did you feel just before your first ever personal training session?

If you are a personal trainer and you can’t answer this question, do yourself a favour and read on very carefully – I am going to ask you to do something at the end of this post.

I’ve had two ‘first times’, and they were both very different.

My first ‘first time’, I was super excited.  I had just joined a gym for the first time ever and was looking forward to a physical challenge. I was in a great place mentally and physically and I was ready to find out just how far I could take myself. The personal trainer that I hired loved cardio so I didn’t learn anything about weight lifting, but that didn’t matter to me at the time 🙂

My second ‘first time’ was very different.

After having a motorcycle accident, becoming very inactive, gaining a lot of weight, changing jobs, moving to another country (and having to learn how to cope with Australians 😉 ), I was not in a good place. I was also a personal trainer, super stressed trying to learn how to run my own business, and very concerned that I was not a good role model to my own clients. I had chronic pain in my joints – left over issues from the accident, moving was hard, my fitness levels were non-existent, and focusing on ‘healthy eating’ was difficult.

So I asked for help. And I will never forget how I felt before that first session with my personal trainer.

I was terrified.

I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know whether or not I would be able to do what he asked me to do. I knew I wasn’t able to do any of the things I used to do in the gym, and I was so scared that it would all be too hard and I would fail.

Two very different reactions.  So I ask again, how did you feel before your first time? And was your first time anything like you thought it would be?

I  hired a trainer for my second ‘first time’ who understood me.  He looked after me, gave me the workout I needed rather than the workout I was frightened I was going to get, and who helped me rebuild my confidence rep by rep. He also showed me the pathway to heavy lifting, and I’ve never looked back 🙂

The trainer was Dave from Primal PT, and since then over the years I have trained with him off and on and benefited greatly from his mentoring.

If you are about to become a personal trainer and you have never had a personal trainer yourself, make this year the year that you put yourself out there, feel what your clients feel, learn from someone who loves what they do and who inspires you.  If you don’t know what it feels like to come into the gym not knowing what to expect or how you will cope with it – find out.

If you are joining a gym and you are apprehensive about engaging a personal trainer – take a deep breath and take the plunge. If you are really unsure if the person sitting in front of you will be the right trainer for you, ask them, “How did you feel before your first ever personal training session? And how was it?” The answers to those questions will tell you everything you need to know 🙂