Like most people, I had a gym membership and I had one thing on my mind, how to work out in the gym without a trainer. Just because I couldn’t afford a personal trainer doesn’t mean I have to compromise on a fun workout. I am writing this article to help you work out better and get results without a personal trainer because it’s not only possible but it’s also really amazing.
How to work out in the gym without a trainer? So most people think that it’s impossible to be able to work out and get in shape just because they can’t afford to hire a personal trainer. But the truth is that there are ways that don’t require a personal trainer to be involved in your journey to health. You can do almost anything and everything and make the best of it all by yourself. All you need is patience and an open mind.
Working out without a trainer can boost your confidence and make you feel self-sufficient, due to which also helps deal with your anxiety. Working out alone gives you the time and space to reflect on life and to clear your head which results in you becoming a better decision-maker and an organized thinker. It is a meditation that not only helps you achieve physical fitness but also provides mental peace.
Table of Contents
Benefits Of Working Out Without A Trainer
- Learn to keep ourselves motivated
- Learn to keep ourselves energetic
- Learn to deal with failure and how to keep going
- Learn to set goals and achieve them
- Learn about our bodies and how it responds to certain workouts
- Learn how to have an organized fitness regimen
How Many Calories Will Be Burnt By 5 Minutes Of Various Types Of Workouts?
| Activity | Calories Burned in 5 Minutes |
| Light yoga/stretching | 20 |
| Dancing | 29 |
| Weight lifting | 30 |
| Step machine | 34 |
| Rowing machine | 43 |
| Running | 49 |
| Jumping rope | 49 |
| Rock climbing | 54 |
| Biking on a stationary bike | 56 |
| Elliptical | 56 |
Important Things To Keep In Mind While Working Out Without A Trainer
Set Realistic Goals
To be able to work out without a personal trainer, you’ll spend your first session finding out about yourself and your body. During this first step, you should clearly define and write out your goals. It’s good to be motivated and feel energized, but make sure that you are being realistic about your goals. When you hire a personal trainer, you go through this humiliating fat-pinching session, this has a purpose: knowing your beginning point is the best way to start.
Believe it or not, this is the most important component of the plan to get fit. Use this to track your progress as you stick to your routine. This isn’t limited to weight loss only, it applies to other strength-oriented workouts too.
Keep Yourself Encouraged
No one needs an overly enthusiastic personal trainer yelling at you from the sidelines for you to finish the workout. Nonetheless, we all benefit from a little motivation. If you don’t want to spend money after a mere cheerleader of sorts, use the encouragement that radiates off of a friend who has now become a workout buddy, and makes a coordinated workout schedule so you can hold each other accountable and cheer each other on.
Learn To Meal Prep
It’s very important to have a healthy meal prep. Most personal trainers and nutritionists stress healthy eating by following a schedule. Meal prepping isn’t that difficult with a little planning. You can try pre-cooking meals for the entire week on a Sunday, which will make the rest of your week easier. A lot of people think that weight loss happens in the gym, but a very important hero of a game is a healthy diet. Every diet is based on a basic principle.
Nor do you have to give up your favorite foods, neither do you have to starve yourself, but some changes are required. You need to make sure that you get enough protein and carbohydrates that you need to get fit while also managing your calorie intake. Start by writing down a plan which includes everything in detail and by putting it up where you can see it every day. This will ensure that you stay on track and will not let you deviate from your goals
Make Sure To Do Your Stretches
Stretching after a sweaty day at the gym feels amazing. But did you know that stretching is a very important part of a workout since it helps you keep your muscles flexible and helps prevent injuries? But if you don’t want to pay a personal trainer to help you with that, you can just follow a regular stretching routine and make sure to do it every time after your workout. You can use a foam roller when you want to target specific areas.
Download A Good Workout App
If you don’t want to hire a personal trainer and still be motivated and work out consistently, a workout app is a way to go. A workout app will notify you with motivational quotes and tips and tricks which ultimately help you get fit and do it all by yourself. It also helps you find out what exercises do you have to do to fulfill your specific needs
Other Factors That Can Help You Learn How To Workout In Gym Without Trainer
The World Is Your Gym
No matter what you heard you don’t need a trainer to tell you how and what to do or even have access to a gym at all. You can use everything that’s around you, use benches for exercises like box jumps and elevated push-ups. You can go to a nearby park and do some yoga or practice handstands, you can also use the monkey bars in a park to do pull-ups. And most important of all is to have fun. If you enjoy your work out you are more likely to stick to it and be consistent. Find something that you love and enjoy and be creative with it.
Do More Bodyweight Workouts
Exercises like air squats, pushups, and burpees work wonders on your body because not only are they effective at using your entire body at once, you can do them anywhere. Bodyweight exercises don’t require any complicated heavyweight equipment, which means that the chances of injuries are very low. You can also modify them as you move up the scale of your fitness level.
Create Your Fun Workout
Personal trainers develop a workout that targets muscles you didn’t even know you had before, but that doesn’t mean you can not work out every muscle in your body. You can combine cardio and strength training and make your fun workout.
Motivate Yourself And Stay On Track
Just like anyone you will have your bad days, days when you will feel like giving up days when you won’t feel like it’s worth it. You will just have to rely on your goals and keep going and not give up. You will have to learn how to keep yourself motivated.
Use A Foam Roll
These days a lot of personal trainers make you go through a foam rolling session after you are done with your workout. Doing this helps minimize the soreness that you get post-workout and keeps you away from injuries. But if you’re wondering, then yes, you can get the same results by doing it yourself. You can try rolling out your sore muscles and areas 3 to 5 times a week or you can also do it after every workout session for maximum results.
How To Lose Weight At The Gym Without A Personal Trainer
Include Veggies In Your Diet
Most personal trainers will tell you the same thing about nutrition and tell you how important it is to consume enough vegetables regularly. You can keep track of that all by yourself. Make sure you get at least 2 to 3 cups of veggies every single day, which is the recommended amount.
Push Yourself A Little More
You hire a personal trainer to help you push yourself beyond your comfort zones, which ends up with you sweaty and tired on the floor and your trainer yelling ’10 more to go!’ Channel that energy and motivate yourself to push yourself further. Pushing yourself for a mere 5 extra minutes can burn up to 60 calories. Check out the chart of calories burnt with just 5 minutes of exercise to pump in that motivation.
Don’t Do Crash Diets
All the good trainers and nutritionists will advise against doing extreme or crash diets. Crash dieting doesn’t work and causes more adverse effects over time. Although it is completely okay and intact better to follow a gentler and more consistent diet plan. The best way to do that is to follow the 80/20 rule – eat healthy 80% of the time and give yourself a little more liberty in that remaining 20% of the time.
Swap Long Workout Sessions For HIIT
A personal trainer may be able to motivate you and push you out of your comfort zone, but did you know that you can get a similar or maybe even better kind of motivation all by yourself. Swap out that moderately-paced long workout session with high-intensity interval training. Doing this will help you get fitter than ever in a much shorter amount of time. All you need to do is to work hard and keep pushing yourself.
Jump Rope
With a jump rope, you can do your cardio no matter where you are.it will cost you less than $10. So skip the treadmill and try your jump rope with some single jumps, double under, or high knees.
Do These 6 Essential Stretches After Every Run
After an intense run or cycling, your muscles may scream for some love. Here are six moves to target all the tight muscles in your body, it also helps increase flexibility, prevent injuries, and reduce soreness.
- Butterfly
- Half Wheel
- One-Armed Camel
- Open Lizard
- Seated Straddle
- Tipover Tuck
Free Weights
Advantages
- They provide a fuller range of motion
- Unlike machines, you are not locked into a position
- Full body stabilization is promoted and encouraged by free weights
- They are affordable and can be easily used at home
- They provide an approximation of moves that you would normally use
Disadvantages
- The learning curve is one of the biggest disadvantages
- Paying a lot of attention to your form will help minimize this disadvantage
- Having a poor form can lead to injuries
- A poor form will make it difficult to isolate the muscle that you want to target
- Injuries related to lifting very heavy free weights which require the support of a machine or a spotter is a big con
Machines
Advantages
- Using machines will ensure that your weights don’t fall.
- They provide extra safety measures to new users or to users who use heavyweights
- The step by step diagrams in the machines make it easier for the users to learn and improve themselves
- Machines provide the user with more stability which makes it easier to focus your training on large groups of muscles simultaneously
Disadvantages
- Users may feel safer lifting heavier weights which increases the chances of injuries.
- You should make sure to lift based on your current strength level and ability
- Unlike free weights, machine weights must be adjusted according to your body size and strength
- Make sure to do a test run using lower weights
- Focusing on larger muscle groups may result in injuries owing to the neglect of smaller muscles and tendons
Your ideal weight training plan will include combinations of free weight and machine weight exercises. If in case that turns out to be impossible, you can resort to free weights for a well-rounded training plan with all the benefits of weight training included. Choose a plan that is the best fit for you, your lifestyle, and your fitness goals, all this will do is ensure that you stick to it.
