Okay, so you've kept to your New Year's resolution.  You joined a martial arts club but you see that a lot of students are also training at the gym.  So you go to the fitness centre closest to your house (for convenience)... and you join. 

You are kind of excited the first day, but not quite sure you have all the latest workout gear.  The staff seem really nice and friendly but when you get to the fitness room (with all the machines, weights and mirrors…lots and lots of mirrors)….you start to second guess your decision to join the gym in the first place.

A trainer approaches and explains that you can make an appointment with him to design a workout schedule.  This sounds like a good idea so he spends an hour showing you the machines, does a tour of the gym and makes an appointment for the next day.

You show up the next day ready to get your workout schedule.  The trainer teaches you how to do all sorts of lifts and pulls with the weights and then writes down on a chart what you are to do every day for your workout. 

You leave the gym tired and exhausted but feeling accomplished.  The next day you skip (you are in too much pain) but the next day you are off to the gym again.  You sit down at the first machine listed on your schedule but you have forgotten some of what you were taught.  You look around for the trainer (you think his name was Guy) but you don't see him.  You're embarrassed to ask someone else so you do the work out by yourself. 

A few months later, you have reduced the times you go to the gym from 4 times a week to 2 and you don't even feel like going on those days.  What happened?  You wonder how you could lose interest so quickly.

Motivation.  Not many people can muster the motivation needed to train by themselves.  That's where a personal trainer comes in.  This is what they do best.  They push you to be all you can be.  YOU know you can do it but you lose confidence and the momentum as time goes on.

The pros and cons of going to a health or fitness club vs customizing your training with a personal trainer is vast.  There are crowds and sometimes a line at the machines in a club but you never wait when you train with a PT (personal trainer).  You could feel alone or not confident in a fitness club but you receive one-on-one training guidance in your PT workouts.  An aspect that is not often thought of is that in a gym, although they originally demonstrated correct exercise techniques, you rapidly forget and fall into a pattern of bad exercise techniques while at home with a PT you are watched closely to make sure no injuries occur.

At a gym there is loud music, uneven temperatures, sweaty showers, parking problems, lines at the equipment and to top it off you have to get "dressed up" to go to the gym (because everyone else does) while most of these issues won't occur in the privacy of your own home or at the gym of the PT.

So with all this in mind, you might want to re-consider joining the gym in the first place and find yourself a Personal Trainer.  And maybe next time you see Guy, you can challenge him to an arm wrestle.