I have had four personal trainers over the last five years, I would have kept any one of them ad infinitum except that they all moved on to other jobs and or got married and moved to new cities etc. I had each of them for at least a year so I got to really know them, and they me after working together 2 or 3 hours a week.

I started with a trainer because although I knew all the logic and a lot of the exercises I realized that I would not have the self discipline to really push myself continually or as hard as I need to be pushed. Plus each of them had a slightly different approach, 2 were former mariens so we did a lot of military type sets, while one was a part time fireman who rode mountain bike and preferred a lot of quick muscle stuff, alternating with balance and weights combined, but all of them were extremely knowledgeable about nutrition, exercising, cardio and stretching as well as taking care of and preventing injuries.

Everyone of them sat down with at the beginning and had me outline my goals, more muscle? where and what type?, coordination?, balance? weight loss? lean muscle gain vs fat loss etc. Not in specific numbers but more along the lines of where are you now and hwere would you like to be?

All of them were aware of my bicycling goals as well as my weight loss and cardio goals and kept an even balance of increasing difficulty and weight, variety of exercises and dietary goals.

The routine is that the trainer weighs me and takes circumference measurement and skin caliper measurements once a month and then we take time to reasses progress and goals for the whole month.

Without working with trainers I wouldn't know be half the woman I used to be. Bur I would be the first to admit that it works better for some than for others and a lot depends on the trainers'' skill and his ability to foster a good working relationship. with an empahsis on working.

marni