8 Things I’ve Learned In My 8 Years Of Training

By Jamie Botti, personal trainer

This past September marked my eighth year in the fitness industry, and recently, I’ve been reflecting back on the big lessons I’ve learned since I became a personal trainer.
I started my journey at a private training studio in Chelsea, called Titan Fitness Studios. At the time, I had just graduated from college, dropped out of a fellowship that I thought I wanted to be in (to become a high school science teacher), and decided to work at a restaurant as a waitress while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

One of the chefs at the restaurant I worked at saw that I would always come into work with this big gym bag and he also always heard me talking about how much I loved training, even though I was always sore. After some time, he told me he had a cousin who was a personal trainer, Sam, and he set us up to chat so I could pick his brain about training.

During my meeting with Sam, I got some great information about personal training as a career, educational resources and some tips on training myself. At the end of our meeting, Sam asked if I wanted to train with him, but as I mentioned, I was just out of college and waiting tables, so I wasn’t in the place to afford his services. Instead, Sam asked me to become his intern in exchange for personal training. And of course I took him up on his offer, and that’s really where it all began.

I started my journey folding towels, shadowing other trainers, and soaking in all the information I could. Since then, I’ve trained hundreds of people, worked in several gyms all over the city, got certified as a Yoga Instructor and a Health Coach, and have improved my relationship with my own body tremendously!
Here are 8 big lessons I’ve learned over the last 8 years of training both myself and my clients:

1. Don’t compare yourself to anybody!

   Not your body, not your program, not your abilities, not your weights…none of it! STAY IN YOUR LANE. You have no idea what anybody else has gone through on their journey or what it took for them to get to where they’re at now. So keep your focus on you and how you can improve a little bit at a time, starting from where you’re at.

2. Be patient and trust the process.

   There 1000% will be a process- nothing you want will happen overnight. Avoid looking for quick fixes or programs that promise you your dream body in 12 weeks. Train in a sustainable way and be consistent and your process will lead to your progress.

3. Train to honor your body, not to punish yourself.

   Even when you feel like you’ve “fallen off’ or “been bad,” YOU NEVER NEED TO PUNISH YOUR BODY! EVER! We’ve all had those times when we feel like maybe we went overboard or overindulged a little too much. In those cases, as soon as you can, get back to regularly scheduled programming! Don’t add anything extra. Just focus on getting back to your sustainable routine as soon as possible and be kind to your body.

4. Manage your lifestyle.

   There are so many factors that could be affecting your progress in your training. If you feel like you’re not progressing, consider what else is going on outside of the 3-10 hours you spend in the gym. Consider where you have room to improve in areas like nutrition, stress management, sleep, mindset and water intake. A big reason I became a health coach was because I wanted to help people with those other areas of life because that’s where we spend most of our time.

5. Take notes.

   I can not stress this enough! It is so important to keep record of everything you do when you train. The more specific you get, the better! Keep track of your weights, your sets and reps, your RPE (rate of perceived exertion), how your form felt, and anything else that will help you track progress over time. Don’t rely on memory! The more you track, the more efficiently you can progress in your training.

6. Know your why.

   From my experience, there generally is a deeper reason people want to hit aesthetic based goals, so if that is your driving factor, ask yourself why? I have been there, but I felt that wanting my body to look a certain way often made me feel stressed out and like I was under pressure. A few years ago when I decided to set performance-based goals, that really changed the game for my mindset. It has been really empowering to set goals to see what my body is capable of, and achieving those goals through hard work. Think less about how you want to look and more about how you want to feel!

7. Challenge yourself appropriately .

   In all my classes, I always tell my students to pick weights that will feel challenging, maybe even uncomfortable, but to also tame their ego. It’s about finding that sweet spot between babying yourself and ego lifting. You’ll need weights that are challenging, but by no means do you need to be hitting max numbers or personal records every time you train. Keep in mind, there are so many other ways to progress aside from increasing your weights.

8. Understand the difference between pain and discomfort.

   This one goes back to my last point. It’s okay to be uncomfortable, in fact, it’s beneficial to be a little uncomfortable at times. But, know the difference in your own body between discomfort and pain. Discomfort means proceed mindfully and with attention to detail. Pain might be telling you to back off a little (lower your weights, decrease range of motion, regress the movement, etc.).

My passion and love for training has only grown in the last eight years and I know that I am just scratching the surface of what there is to know in this field. I’m looking forward to many more years of being a student and learning from my own body and experiences.

What are some things you’ve learned in your own training journey?

Contact Jamie today!

@neighborhoodtrainer