It may surprise many of you to know this, but I have an online personal trainer.

You might be thinking, ‘if you write training programs and diets everyday, and claim to specialise in maximum body composition results, why do you need to hire someone?’

Well, one thing I’ve always thought is that no matter what field you’re in, everyone can benefit from having a coach. When you look at anyone successful, at some point they’ve had a coach, mentor or someone they’ve paid to learn off and better themselves. Examples include Leonardo Di Caprio, Serena Williams, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey, to name but a few.

I’ve always found it surprising how few personal trainers hire other trainers. In fact, most personal trainers I know have never paid for coaching. This makes no sense to me.

If you value the service a trainer can bring, and think personal training is worth the investment, why are you not hiring one?

If you say it’s because you know what you’re doing, or because it’s too expensive, then that’s probably the reason most of your prospective clients are hesitating to hire you! 

And remember, you’ll never know it all. Every good coach has a different approach that we can learn from and then apply to our own clients.

Since the start of 2016, the person who’s held the reins of my own training, diet and cardio is Derek Natcher, an excellent coach based out of Miami, Florida.

Why did I pick him specifically?

When deciding on a coach, there’s a list of criteria they need to meet before you hire them.

The two most important being: have they got a proven track record in clients with similar goals to you? Have they achieved what you’re after in themselves, i.e. do they practice what they preach?

Of course, the latter can often be down to genetics or luck, which is why you need both to see if they’re actually good trainers too, not just someone with a pretty physique.

Derek fulfilled these criteria, as he’s turned professional in natural bodybuilding with the IFPA federation, and he’s got a successful roster of clients who have competed at a high level in bodybuilding.

My training goals in the last 3-4 years have all been centred on bodybuilding, and taking it to the next level each time I compete. This made working with Derek an easy choice.

So what are the benefits to having a coach?

Learning To Be A Client

Working as a personal trainer can make it all too easy to see the lens from one end, and miss out on what the client is experiencing.

Being the client for once allows me to gain perspective, see what works and what doesn’t from a feedback point of view. I also learn what it takes to be a good client – with something as simple as checking in on the right day, at the right time each week.

Better Results

Ultimately, you want to hire someone so you can get better results. If you want to get better at the piano, you don’t want to sit there and figure out which key is which. You hire someone.

It’s the same principle with training. If I want to take it to the next level with my physique, rather than racking my brains into ‘paralysis by analysis’, I hire someone. There will always be an element of bias that creeps in when writing your own programs. Having an objective eye at all times to evaluate my physique and training needs is invaluable.

Accountability 

This is the big one. Of all the benefits of coaching, THIS is why coaching will always lead to better results.

Even if you know what you’re doing, having a coach ups the ante and increases your accountability to the process.

The financial and emotional investment you make to a coach means you don’t want to let him or her down. And yes, it’s an emotional investment because remember, if your coach gives a sh*t (which they should – a good coach should care about your results MORE than you), you will want to do everything he or she lays out for you, or feel bad for it.

For me, I know every Sunday morning I’ve got to email Derek with my weekly report and pictures. This keeps me in check all throughout the year, no matter what the goal is.

Learn New Things

Over the years I’ve paid for courses, consults, training sessions, phone calls and coaching all with the goal of learning new things to implement in my own and more importantly, the RNT members' training.

I see coaching as an investment into my knowledge with the goal of improving my level of expertise in a specific field, mine being body composition.

Confidence, Support, And Encouragement

An overlooked benefit to coaching is the confidence, support and encouragement you can attain from being pushed out of your comfort zone and working towards a big goal.

The most fulfilling part of coaching is seeing the client transform both mentally and physically over time.

During this time, there are going to be ups and downs the client will face, whether it be dips in motivation, a struggle to see the bigger picture, or even lack of confidence in achieving their goals.

A coach can really help with this, and be the constant support required to take you to the next level.

Less Thinking, More Time

Outsourcing your training and nutrition to a coach can reduce a lot of the stress, confusion and time often wasted when training yourself.

Hiring a coach means I never have to think about how much I need to eat, what I should do in the gym or how often I should do cardio. It takes all the thinking out for me, and this means I can spend all my time and energy focusing on optimising the plans of RNTers.

So, Is There Proof In The Pudding On What A Coach Can Offer? 

You only need to look at our transformations page to see but a few examples.

Are you serious about your training?

Do you enjoy learning about your own body?

Are you confused with all the conflicting information?

Are you spinning your wheels, stuck in no man’s land, and want to break the cycle?

If you haven’t experienced the power of coaching before and any of the above apply to you, it may be time…

If you want to take it to the next level, just like I have with Derek, and all our members have with RNT, maybe it’s time to invest today.