Personal trainers: Providing the motivation to get going

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It's now almost three weeks since Jeff and Heidi began a specially designed three-month fitness program. Their recipe for success is taking time, effort, initiative and also the added help of a personal trainer.

We got it good. That little natural high, the rush of euphoria, the I'm-gonna-do-it-this-time (cue theme from first Rocky) that you feel when you first start out on a new fitness and diet program.

I know that I, Jeff, and probably Heidi, too, hit the ground running in the first few days of our program. It was easy to spring out of the locker room, jump on the treadmill and walk for the next 50 minutes, like a lab rat on its wheel, despite the TV in front of me showing images of flesh and bones in gorgeous clothes from glitzy Fashion TV.

It's also pretty simple in those first few days to take the healthy route when it comes to food. Bypass the Golden Arches, turn your nose up at the sweet-nothings left next to the office water cooler and go for a salad. Never mind that you have to spend Rp 15,000 on a taxi across town to find a good one.

And then, suddenly, the honeymoon ends and it gets harder. You no longer bound out of bed when 7:30 a.m. rolls around, and you have not got your shoes and fitness clothes all ready in your little exercise bag. When you see a manic someone bounding along the treadmill, racing to some unattainable prize in the distance, you just want to utter, "Screw you, showoff".

But if there is one thing that keeps you going, returning to the gym to do the weights and that treadmill, apart from your own depleted self-motivation, then it has to be the fact that someone is looking out for you.

For me and Heidi, that someone is Diding Winardi, recreation manager at Quantum Athletic Club in Menara Imperium, Kuningan, South Jakarta.

Diding is our personal trainer, and has put together our fitness programs for the three months. Although he said from the beginning that, "It's up to you if this program works, you are doing it for yourself, not me," I quickly got the thought in the back of my mind that I cannot let Diding down.

As he makes me do another set of weights, or butt-searing squats, all the while standing by and offering me words of encouragement or well-meaning reproach, his role is as drill sergeant, task masker, father confessor and friend.

"You have to be a coach, teacher and friend to your clients when you're a personal trainer," Diding said. "That means not just telling them what to do as a coach, but also explaining to them why it's necessary for their fitness. And you also have to listen to them as a friend to understand what will work in their program."

Diding acknowledged that there has been a boom in popularity in personal training, both in the gym and those called to the home, in the country in the last few years, changing the monotone and solitary activity of workouts of the early 1990s.

"I work at four different gyms, depending on the days and shifts," said "Iwan", a 10-year fitness instructor veteran. "I also go to homes, for about Rp 100,000 for a session, and I'll decide what they need, for instance a cardio workout."

In Indonesia, unlike in the United States, there is still a lack of real accreditation for personal trainers, although the recently opened Reebok University, located at Apartment Sahid Jaya, provides U.S.-accredited programs for fitness and aerobics instructors.

"A lot of instructors here are self-taught, through watching videos and reading. What we give is functional training, which is part of our mission to provide a 'university without walls', in which the fitness and aerobics instructor can implement the program anywhere for his client, as a professional," said the headmaster of Reebok University Etty Budhi.

Diding said he preferred to hire people with a degree in sports training. Personal trainers, he added, must have knowledge of anatomy, physiology and basic nutrition.

"And, of course, they must be able to communicate. If they cannot get across to our clients what they have to do and why they have to do it, then they're not much help."

Finding the right trainer can take time. Diding advises asking around about good trainers from friends who have been successful in their fitness endeavors. When you do find a trainer who seems to fit the bill, he said that prospective clients must not feel timid about asking for references from clients.

What if you find you and your new trainer just don't mesh?

"Don't gamble with it, because you're just wasting your time and money," Diding said. "Find the right person for you."