Whether you’re a competitive athlete or a regular gym-goer, having a personalized program may be the best approach to reaching your fitness goals. The benefits of having an individualized program are endless, but today we’re going to cover 5 reasons why you may want one.

The question you may be asking yourself is: “Why pay for an individualized program when I can just follow a blog of my favorite athlete’s workouts?” Well, if you’re a competitive athlete, or a competitive hopeful, your biggest concern should be addressing and attacking your weaknesses. This raises a red flag when thinking about following a generic blog of your favorite athletes’ workouts, or another templated program. The reasoning behind this is that blog likely isn’t going to align with your weaknesses. The idea behind a blog is to be generalized and help everyone get better - not just you. The same goes for your favorite athletes’ workouts. That athlete is focusing on what they need to improve upon, so unless your weakness and theirs align perfectly, they will probably never be addressed. Attacking and improving your weaknesses is precisely what an individualized program will do for you. Your coach will run you through an assessment and, through that, they will find out what needs to be addressed. After doing so, the coach will come up with a plan that can turn these weaknesses into strengths in the most efficient and effective manner possible. This, of course, will make you become a much more successful athlete.

The next question I would ask you is: “do you find it hard to find a gym that has a class schedule that fits your lifestyle?” We all have so much going on, between work, kids, and our social life, it’s hard to find a consistent schedule that can line up with a class. This is where individual design comes into play. Since you have your own coach, you no longer need a class. You just need to find the time on that day to get into the gym - according to your own personal schedule - and get your work done! Think about the time and stress this can save you on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

There’s nothing more frustrating than working hard and not seeing results. I have seen many athletes work their tails off and, at the end of it all, see no results. There are many reasons why this could occur, but the most typical reason is that the athlete was doing too much and not progressing properly. The coach’s job in individual design is to continually communicate with the athlete and see how they’re feeling. Just by having that conversation alone, it's easy for a coach to tell if an athlete is handling the program well or not. If that athlete is constantly tired, feeling beat up, or getting injured, odds are they’re doing too much, and not adapting to the plan very well. This feedback will allow the coach to adjust the plan so that the athlete can not only keep improving but stay injury-free in the process of doing so.

Injuries suck and at some point, there is a chance one is going to occur. There’s nothing worse than going into a class seeing the workout and realizing you can’t do any of the movements without an excruciating amount of pain. Then, you have to approach the coach and have that awkward conversation about how you need to have everything modified for you right there and then. This whole process can easily be avoided with an individualized design. The coach will be able to program around your injury so that you can go into the gym anxiety-free and get in a killer workout that is right for you and where you’re currently at, and still progressing you toward your goals.

What many athletes don’t realize is that they can work out as hard as they want, but if they don’t move well, it will only get them so far. This becomes a bit of a concern for athletes who are following a blog or templated program. There’s no one that is going to tell you how you can improve your technique and become more efficient at that movement. I’ve seen this time and time again with many athletes. They struggle with the same movement year after year when all they needed was a simple cue or some specific drills to change their technique. The coach in an individual design is going to watch the videos that you post for them and analyze what can be done to make you better; constantly fine-tuning technique is what allows athletes to progress the most. In my opinion, this may be the biggest advantage of them all.

Like I said earlier, the benefits of the individualized design are endless, but I believe these stand out as among the most important. If you feel as if you connect with one or a lot of these scenarios, I’d recommend giving the individualized design a try! Learn more about Conquer’s Individual Design program by clicking the button below. Email help@conquerathlete.com for a free discovery call to find out more, and find a coach who would be the best fit for you!

By Coach Tommy Pomatico