Why I Love being a Personal Trainer

I've been working at my current personal training job for about 2 months; typically, I work early of a morning but I'm there of an evening about 3 times a week as well. Almost every evening I've been there I've taken notice of one man who is always there and appears to be giving it his all. I'm not really sure why he jumped out at me, as there are always multiple familliar faces.  Maybe it's because he always has a certain look of determination on his face as he goes through the selectorized machines in a circuit style. Maybe it's because he's always there in his jeans and boots, clearly having just finished a hard day's work at a physically demanding job. I can't really put my finger on why he has stuck out in my mind, but he definitely has.

About a month or so ago, I struck up a conversation with him one evening. I found out his name is Bill, and he'd been coming in for his workouts since February. We had a nice little conversation and he mentioned that he does the exact same workout 3-4 times a week. He said he would like to do something different he's just unsure what to do or how to do it. I asked him if he would be interested in a free personal training session with me and I could show him how to switch up his routine a bit. Bill quickly and whole heartedly agreed to this and we set up a session time for this past Thursday.

Our sesion was set to start at 5:00 pm. I got to the gym around 4:45 and Bill was there waiting on me with a big smile and told me he was ready to start! While he warmed up, I asked him a few basic questions. He said his main goal is to lose about 20 pounds and basically just stay in good health as he is starting to age a bit. I asked him if he had any experience using free weights and he got a sort of scared look on his face and shook his head no. I told him I would take him through a basic free weight workout just to see what he thought of it. Bill seemed a little hesitant; he had thought I would just show him a few of the machines that he had never used, but he agreed to try out a free weight workout. Due to his jeans being rather restrictive, we stuck to upper body for the workout. I took him through basic dumbbell exercises for chest, shoulders, back, biceps, and triceps and he loved it! When we were done he said his arms were spaghetti; he'd never felt that way from his other workouts. He couldn't believe how much he was sweating or how his muscles felt. We wrapped up the session and he thanked me and said "I can't believe how much better of a workout that was; I can't wait to do that again!" We sat down and I put together a new workout plan for his that would incoprorate the machines as well as the exercises he had just learned. He was thrilled!

Bill left the gym that night with a renewed motivation to workout and I left the gym that night with a great feeling that I had helped someone to better themselves. How funny is it that something that seems like such a minor thing, like showing someone a few new exercises can make such a difference? Not only do I feel good about helping Bill and hopefully putting him on a faster track to reaching his goals, but I also feel like I have made a new friend, and both of those feelings are simply priceless.