Is a personal trainer necessary for beginners at the gym?

If you’re a working adult with a full-time job, a family, and have bills to pay and other responsibilities, you’ll benefit the most from getting a personal trainer. But if you’re still young and have plenty of time to devote yourself to fitness by figuring out how to exercise correctly, how to eat properly, and how to track your progress, then it’s not absolutely necessary to get a personal trainer.

Introduction

In general, I'd say having a personal trainer is not necessary at all when you're starting out at the gym, but (and there is always a but), there are some circumstances where having a personal trainer would be more convenient for you then starting out your gym journey without one.

In my opinion, these circumstances usually relate to which point in life you're currently in.

Concretely speaking, I found that adults from the age of 30-35 and over benefit the most from getting a personal trainer.

Why? You can read that below!

What life stage are you in?

Before we begin, If you want to understand my take on whether it's beneficial to get a personal trainer or not, then I need to describe two stages in life that I differentiate between.

Disclaimer:
Note that there is no scientific theory behind the discussion under this section, but it’s rather things I have experienced and seen in daily life among my friends, co-workers, and people in daily life in general.

When asking around and talking with all kinds of people of different ages about gym and working out, at some point you'll see certain patterns in the vast amount of answers you'll get.

The two stages I'll describe are based on these patterns that I've noticed in their answers.

Because in general, people under 30-35 are still finding their way in life or working toward their adult life, while those over 30-35 probably already have (started) their careers and have settled, maybe also have (started) a family to take care of, and usually have many more responsibilities and obligations such as a mortgage, different kinds of loans, maybe elderly parents that require being taken care of, and so on and so forth... again, generally speaking.

This means that folks under 30-35 usually have more free time and their actions have less sever consequences that those over 30-35. And when you have more time and less responsibilities, you can devote yourself to things more easily.

(Please note that the above is - and I cannot state this enough - generally speaking, and there are always exceptions.)

Is it necessary to get a personal trainer?

Strictly speaking, getting a personal trainer is not necessary to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve in the gym and in your fitness journey.

A personal trainer can help you work toward your goals, but you can also do that by yourself by educating yourself about fitness, about nutrition, and staying motivated and disciplined to your journey and your workout plan.

Personally, I have never had a personal trainer in the regular gym until I started weightlifting (I do that in a weightlifting gym seperately from the regular, commercial gym, about once a week where I get professional weightlifting training and coaching). Still, when I workout in the regular gym, I do that without a personal trainer.

Despite not having a personal trainer, I'm still making progress and have my own plan that I follow (after all, I've been working out for over 15 years with some off periods in between).

Anybody will know how to approach their fitness journey and workouts after this many years of working out, as the experience and knowledge of fitness and nutrition have accumulated over the years for those who are actively trying to improve their results in the gym.

You see, working out isn't difficult. It doesn't require a degree, and it's certainly not rocket science either. Most of the professional bodybuilders started their careers alone in the gym, without a trainer guiding them.

If you are determined to get better, get stronger, build more muscle, learn the proper technique of fitness exercises and learn proper nutrition, nothing is holding you back. All you need to do is spend time learning about those aspects using the internet. Hopefully in the future this blog you're reading will be your source for all that information.

The point is, anything a personal trainer teaches you, you can teach yourself, because the internet contains all the information you need. But without a personal trainer, it all boils down to your own motivation and your will to learn more and become better in the gym.

I'd say no, not at all... but it can be helpful in certain situations.

Which situation(s)? I'll describe that below.

When is it worth it to get a personal trainer?

Usually, I'd say for most people that are over 30-35 and have never been to the gym before, it can be very beneficial to get a personal trainer.

Why?

It's not because they can't make the proper progress and learn the right technique for different exercises otherwise, but because it all boils down to lack of time.

If you're over 30-35, as I described earlier, you have probably already settled yourself in a location and have a career, and likely have started a family, or are expecting a (first?) child. You have obligations, such as a mortgage to pay monthly and a householding to do.

If you already have kids, then you have even less time for yourself.

The last thing you want to do or even have time for, is figuring out everything by yourself about the gym, about exercising, about proper technique, and about nutrition.

Although all information is freely available, it’ll still require precious time which you don’t have to actually search for that information (and beware, as there’s also a lot of plain wrong info out there!), and to actually study and read it… all while you're still new to most exercises and probably have many things to work on technique-wise.

You may also lack mobility and flexibility in some areas, making certain exercises difficult or impossible to do with a full range of motion and the right technique (for example, deep squats with tight hamstrings and insufficient ankel mobility, or proper overhead presses in the case of limited shoulder flexibility).

You may even have a tight back from sitting all day at the desk job, which requires strengthening your back and overall core before you can make progress in other exercises.

If you find yourself in such a situation, all that you want is to just have to go to the gym and have somebody tell you what you need to do and how to do that, which having to spend mental energy to figure that out all by yourself. You don't want to spend too much time on figuring out why you should do certain exercises and when to step it up a notch in intensity or volume.

You want someone, or something to take care of that.

And thát's where a personal trainer comes handy, because a good personal trainer will do that all for you. He or she will create a workout plan for you, designed for your needs and to work toward your goals.

Of course, you can also get workout and nutrition programs online, but regarding your technique, nothing beats having someone personally tell you what you're doing right and wrong (although you can also do that online by recording yourself and sending your videos to an online trainer, but it's more cumbersome and still isn't as the same as getting direct feedback in person during your workouts).

When is it not necessary to get a personal trainer?

Generally speaking, if you're still under 30 and don't have the responsibilities and obligations your older peers have, such as a serious career, a family to take care of, a mortgage and other important bills to pay, you can do perfectly fine in the gym without a personal trainer.

You'll probably have more free time available. Use that time to learn more about fitness by reading more articles, study proper technique for all kinds of exercises (there are plenty of blog articles and videos online available for that purpose) and try to make friends in the gym and in online fitness communities.

Get active in the fitness community, join online groups on reddit (such as r/fitness) and follow fitness blogs (such as this blog you're reading! :p ).

The knowledge will come slowly and believe it or not, you will get better at working out and will develop better technique as you gain more experience... all without a personal trainer!

It just requires time and motivation.

And if other people can do it... heck, if I can do it, then so can you!

As a matter of fact, if you join a random gym, I can bet both my hands that over 90% of the people you see there have never had a personal trainer before, and probably never will.

By not getting a personal trainer, I believe your fitness journey will be much more rewarding because all progress you see and make, are thanks to your own input, hard work, and motivation.

You did that, all by yourself!

Not only that, but you'll also save a lot of money you'd otherwise have spend on a personal trainer. And if you're unlucky, you end up with a bad personal trainer who isn't guiding you well, leaving you with more money lost than with one that knows his/her stuff.

But you need to want to get better though. You need to want to learn more about fitness and how to use the proper technique and form when exercising. You need to want to track your own progress and analyze areas you're weak (and strong) in.

You have to have the will to do that all by yourself.

And although it's very rewarding, you can easily feel lost at the gym if you don't have a goal to achieve or workout plan to follow (but I'll provide workout plans in the future via this blog, so I got you covered in that aspect!).

Conclusion

So is it necessary to get a personal trainer? No it's not, unless you're at a professional level working out or if you want to take up a strength sport, such as Olympic weightlifting.

Almost all things a personal trainer teaches you or manages for you, you can do so by yourself with the vast amount of information related to fitness that you can find online.

But doing it all by yourself does require time and commitment, and unfortunately, not everybody has that.

It's usually the people in middle adulthood and over (anybody over 30-35 years of age) that don't have the time to figure everything out by themselves.

If you fall under that category and you don't have the time to read up and learn about exercising and fitness, and if you just want to go to the gym and work out under supervision while being told what exercises to do and how to do them, then getting a personal trainer is the ideal solution for you.

In all other cases, I'd say you can do perfectly fine without a personal trainer, as long as you read up on exercise and fitness every now and then and have the willpower and motivation to improve!

What are your thoughts on getting a personal trainer (or not)?