By Luke Olivier

MIT Recreation Assistant Director of Fitness

As a personal trainer, I notice a lot of common threads in what people are dealing with. Everyone has to deal with food; everyone has to deal with a lack of time to work out; many people these days have some sort of back pain.

One of the most common questions I get as a personal trainer, at the beginning of working with a client, is “how many sessions do I need to get where I want to be?”

Personal training could be the right choice for your fitness journey!

It’s a hard question—everyone is different after all—but I always give a similar answer: working with a personal trainer isn’t necessary. Not when information about fitness is so available, these days. But! As I’m sure anyone who’s reading this has noticed, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. There is just as much good information as bad about fitness on the internet, right now. So what working with a trainer can do is to help cut through the fat (figuratively), and help get you to safe, pertinent information, quicker.

What’s more, once you find a good source of fitness information, with everyone’s bodies and lifestyles being so different, that your fitness journey may become a long haul of trial and error. Sometimes it can take years of trying out different movements for a few months, then trying another, until you find something that works for your body, specifically. And that’s fine, and good, and is something that all of us get to contend with. But a trainer has the advantage of expertise and not being constrained to your own perspective. They can look at you from the outside and see how you’re moving, and assess. From there they can cut months to years off of trial and error time, for you and your journey.

Personal training is by no means a truly one size fits all experience. Everyone’s fitness needs and goals run the gamut, but, if you have that lingering question that you need answered that you’ve wondered for months about; if you have a movement you want to optimize; if you need a toolkit to get yourself started with; if you need external accountability; if you’ve graduated from Physical Therapy but still feel like there’s work to be done; if you feel a twinge in your back whenever you sit in a chair in just a certain way—Personal Training may make things easier.

So how many sessions do you need to get where you need to be? None, probably. But every session you get will help shorten that journey by two steps instead of one.

To celebrate Member Appreciation Day, we’re putting Personal Training on sale on September 13 – all day! If you sign up for personal training during the sale, you’ll get sessions at a 10% discount. Want to learn more about personal training? Check out our personal training page. Interested in our mobile app? Follow the instructions here to download for both iOS and Android devices.