What your first session really looks like (no lycra required)
Most people who get in touch with me have already had the same argument with themselves. They want to do something about their strength. They also have a picture in their head of what a first session with a personal trainer looks like, and they don’t like it. A test. Someone counting. Being the least fit person in the room.
So let me tell you what actually happens, using someone who walked in a few weeks ago.
Who turns up
She is in her sixties and still working full time, on an early train to London and home after seven. She had lost a good deal of weight, partly with the help of the injections everyone is talking about, and she had done what she set out to do. But she told me she didn’t like what she saw in the mirror. The weight had gone and taken some of her strength with it. What she wanted now was muscle.
When I asked how many steps she does in a day, she said probably under two thousand. That is not a criticism. It is what a long day at a desk looks like, and it is where a lot of my clients start.
First, we talk
The first twenty minutes or so are a conversation. Your body’s history: the knees, the back, the shoulder you’ve been told to be careful with. What your days look like. What you want the next few years to feel like. I’m listening for what your body has been asked to do and what it hasn’t, because that tells me where to begin.
There is no fitness test. Nobody is counting. You don’t need to prepare anything or wear anything special. Come in whatever you’d walk the dog in.
Then we move, gently
With her, the movement part was mobility and simple floor work: taking her spine and hips through ranges they hadn’t visited in a long while. One of the movements was a glute bridge, lying on your back and lifting your hips. She couldn’t quite get there. Not pain, nothing alarming. Her body simply hadn’t been asked for that shape in years and didn’t know how to make it.
That is a normal first session. The point of the first session is not to see how much you can do. It is to find out where you are, so that everything after it is built for you. I would rather you leave with an accurate picture than a sore back.
What happens next
A few sessions in, she moves with far more confidence, and the bridge is no longer a problem. Recently she showed me her arm. There was the beginning of a line of muscle there, and she was delighted with it. Early days, and she’d be the first to say so. But it was hers, and she’d built it in a handful of hours around a full working week.
That is the part I want you to hear. It doesn’t have to be a lot. A session or two a week, done well, changes how your body feels on the station stairs, getting out of a low chair, carrying the shopping in one trip. If you want the longer version of why that is, the Stronger for Longer page explains it.
Where to start
A free taster session is a good place to start. It’s relaxed and friendly: we talk about your body’s history, try some movement together, and there’s no obligation either way. Sessions are one-to-one at Horizon Guildford, and you don’t need to be a member.