I'm coming up on 30 years old and am considering hiring a legit personal trainer for a few sessions. I've been working out for a little over 10 years; I feel I'm in great shape, but I've never been able to attain my goals since I've started working out. My system is basic, but I know is flawed. I usually go into the gym and target certain muscle groups; back/bis, shoulders, chest, etc and that's basically what I've been doing. I did do a 6 month stint of Crossfit (i know, i know), but there, I was first exposed to olympic style lifting. My body felt better and I felt a lot stronger, but it still was a bit overkill at times and the scheduling was a bit chaotic so I decided to quit Now I want to be a lot more effective with my time in the gym and really strive for the results I want. Even for the first time developing diet and sticking to it. Before I would eat anything I wanted and get away with it. Could anyone give me input on the best ways to move forward. Choosing a trainer? Where to start with a diet plan? The type of lifting I should be more geared to? Currently I play tennis relatively competitively and train Muay Thai, so my goals are to improve physically in both of these areas. I would also like to develop my physique more than it currently is.
Read the FAQs here and over in Diet&Supplements, then go from there. There are many personal trainers not worth the oxygen they breathe, but you can probably find a good coach at any decent Oly/PL/S&C-gym.
You said you wanted your time to be more effective. Effective towards what? To improve your tennis game? To look better? To get stronger? It would help to know that. As far as a trainers I hate to shit on them in general, but out of the umpteen gyms I've been to every single last one of them that I have seen in person are absolute dog shit and dont give a fuck about helping you improve yourself. Save your money and research what you want on your own. You can basically find the cure for cancer on the interwebs, so I'm sure you can find a more 'effective" routine. Anyways to start Id use a 3 day full body routine using compounds.
You need a coach, not a trainer. There is pretty much nobody in this world that can help you in a reasonable price range that refers to themselves as a "personal trainer".
Coach, trainer, same thing. Where are you located? There are a lot of knowledgeable trainers in various training demographics. Start by asking for referrals and references from people that have been trained, and have attained their goals, recently. You can definitely start by focusing on training movement, rather than body parts. Or... contact me.
It starts to get hard when you aspire to be better at tennis, muay thai and involve bodybuilding. You need to also consider rest days and genetics. People normally work by weeks or months. You only have 7 days in a week and about 30 days in a month. Very hard for the average person to become good at 3 demanding activities in the one go. You either give up one or focus more on particular activity. I am not an expert but reading the stickies here, different energy systems are involved as are different muscles etc... The base training is almost the same (e.g: Squats/deadlifts for weight lifting, correct diet etc...) for everyone but when you want to become really good at one activity, you will need to focus on the training for the relevant systems. Unless you have all the time in the world and have good genetics, it's a very difficult task and it's not like you're getting younger. Might need to be realistic. All the best though!
I"d assume you train Muay Thai at a MT gym? with MT coaches? what are their suggestions? same with your tennis. If you want to get better at a specific skill, in your case, MT & tennis, I'd suggest finding people that are really good at MT & tennis and mimic their training regiment. be very careful of who you choose as your PT. The vast majority of PT's at the typical chain gym seems more trained at getting you hurt and looking silly in the gym than producing results. as with anything else educate yourself as best you can, reading the FAQs is a good place to start, and shop around for your PT. you can always go at it on your own like many of us here do. plenty of knowledgeable people on here willing to help out.
The biggest problem you have is conflicting goals. Ever heard the expression "the fox that chases two rabbits catches neither"?, or, alternatively, "you can't ride two horses at once"? Come up with a concrete set of goals, and a hierarchy. (e.g. is it more important to improve at tennis or MT or bodybuilding?) And what do you mean improve your physique? Do you want to add mass, lose fat, or both?
Well, I don't see why you can't have a little of each. If you compete in tennis, get a coach in that. If you just take Muay Thai, then take classes and be happy with that. If you want to build a physique, then you need the appropriate periodization... including workouts and diet. You're not going to be great at any of the three (tennis pro, MT fighter with a great record, or competitive body builder) but you can be a good tennis player with a background in MT who looks good. Just think about whether or not you have time to work a full time job on top of your life, because that's what it's going to become. When I was bulking, I spent 3 hours a day between eating and preparing food. Consider stuff like that.
Find a legitimate powerlifting or olympic weightlifting gym, not a commercial gym. There will be real lifters and real coaches there. Find out who is a coach, and try it out. Even the shittiest real powerlifting/weightlifting coach is going to be 1000xs better than random commercial gym PT. Hell, I'm gonna be a certified PT. I know about enough to know that in reality my certification won't be worth the paper it's printed. Don't tell any of my future clients that though.
