personal trainer -progression too slow

seefin

Female here. Been doing progressive weightlifting at home for over a year and built up decent amount of muscle, especially in upper body. Because had pulled chest muscle a few times and plateaued with adjustable dumbbells, decided to join a gym and get personal training sessions. This guy has a good reputation and has definitely built up my core but he is neglecting chest press and rows-I might do them every 3 weeks. Most of work is accessory work to build up my weaker muscles. I'm losing alot of strength in compound lifts though ( I try them every now and again at home and every week can lift less weight for less reps). Have said this to him and he said I have to build up a baseline first and get all the muscles working but it's killing me to lose strength even if I do build it up again in the long term. Been a few months now and I'm still only working out twice a week( before I used do 3 upper and 1 lower session). Is his reasoning correct? If I'd never lifted before I'd be happy out but hate losing all my hard work in the medium term
Also Im replacing the 3 weightlifting sessions I used to to with cardio( I love to exercise every day) so concerned I may be losing muscle

Alf Veedersane

I don't think you should be neglecting compound work just to work on weaknesses. They're not mutually exclusive.

Tenigate

He has a good point about building up other muscles.. i wouldn't be concerned about losing strength as once you know you lifted something before, it's easier to get back to that level relatively quickly.

Why are you doing all the cardio? If that's his idea, I'd be annoyed as your goal is clearly different. The obvious option is to ditch some cardio and work a bit more weights into your personal training or gym sessions..

If you have issues with weaker muscles it may be you were lifting more with worse form and it was all going to topple down like a stack of bricks at some stage anyway.
you do need to build the weaker areas and build up a solid foundation to work from
but if he hasn't said specifically 'hey you need to stop because xyz' then it's a bit mad. he could be completely useless.
it's hard to know without knowing you or him or what the whole thing is

seefin

bluewolf wrote:

If you have issues with weaker muscles it may be you were lifting more with worse form and it was all going to topple down like a stack of bricks at some stage anyway. you do need to build the weaker areas and build up a solid foundation to work from but if he hasn't said specifically 'hey you need to stop because xyz' then it's a bit mad. he could be completely useless. it's hard to know without knowing you or him or what the whole thing is

He said it's because I need to build up strength in weaker areas and I need patience. The extra cardio was my idea-I guess Im worried about gaining fat because I'm not lifting as much as I used so was compensating. Also I just like to exercise most days - I'd replaced cardio with lifting a few years ago but balance now is back towards more cardio than weights. I'll wait a till new year before raising the issue again.

Mellor

Why have you dropped lifting days from 4 to 2?

If I was working on weakness 2 days per weak with a PT. I'd probably continue to work on strength the other two days. Focusing of training volume to maintain base strength rather than increasing load and risking injury.

seefin

Because I never know whether he's going to focus on lower or upper before a session and he won't tell me in advance. He might do mainly upper with a small bit of lower thrown in, or squats on lower day and that also kill my traps. I've asked him to do either upper or lower but he just said I'm doing enough with 2 sessions. He's good if I was starting from no base but I might squeeze the sessions closer so I've time to do my own extra sessions in between.
All I want to do is maintain my press and row , so if I just throw in extra sets without increasing weight(assume that that what you mean by volume?), I'll be safe enough

Mellor

seefin wrote: »

Because I never know whether he's going to focus on lower or upper before a session and he won't tell me in advance. He might do mainly upper with a small bit of lower thrown in, or squats on lower day and that also kill my traps

In that case do you own volume sessions the day after your PT sessions. Work around them.

Say you pulling with PT on Monday, do your own squats on Tuesday. Then presses with PT on thurs, your own rows on Friday. Just adjust on the fly to do something complimentary to the PT sessions and leave a day rest after.

seefin

Mellor wrote:

Say you pulling with PT on Monday, do your own squats on Tuesday. Then presses with PT on thurs, your own rows on Friday. Just adjust on the fly to do something complimentary to the PT sessions and leave a day rest after.

But if he has some lower thrown in on upper body day then I don't want to work lower again the next day? Or if the lower body exercise he did wasn't high intensity or volume, maybe it's ok to work lower body again the next day?
Often he will do some exercises to strengthen forearms as these are particularly weak- can I work chest or back the next day?

Mellor

seefin wrote: »

But if he has some lower thrown in on upper body day then I don't want to work lower again the next day?

If he does that, then you pick something else for the next day. That 's the point. The PT session is always first so you can work on what ever you didn't do the next day.

If he does upper push and lower. Do upper pull.
If he does push/pull. Do lower body.
If he does lower and upper pull. Do upper push.

seefin

Mellor wrote:

If he does upper push and lower. Do upper pull. If he does push/pull. Do lower body. If he does lower and upper pull. Do upper push.

If he does core,lower back and forearms, what can I do the next day?

Mellor

seefin wrote: »

Mellor wrote:

If he does core,lower back and forearms, what can I do the next day?

Chest, upper back, traps, shoulders, biceps, triceps, quads, hips, calves. Literally any other body part.

CastielJ

i think you should listen to you trainer, he knows better

Transform

seefin wrote: »

Female here. Been doing progressive weightlifting at home for over a year and built up decent amount of muscle, especially in upper body. Because had pulled chest muscle a few times and plateaued with adjustable dumbbells, decided to join a gym and get personal training sessions. This guy has a good reputation and has definitely built up my core but he is neglecting chest press and rows-I might do them every 3 weeks. Most of work is accessory work to build up my weaker muscles. I'm losing alot of strength in compound lifts though ( I try them every now and again at home and every week can lift less weight for less reps). Have said this to him and he said I have to build up a baseline first and get all the muscles working but it's killing me to lose strength even if I do build it up again in the long term. Been a few months now and I'm still only working out twice a week( before I used do 3 upper and 1 lower session). Is his reasoning correct? If I'd never lifted before I'd be happy out but hate losing all my hard work in the medium term
Also Im replacing the 3 weightlifting sessions I used to to with cardio( I love to exercise every day) so concerned I may be losing muscle

whats your current height, weight and age?

I can see no rational reason why someone with a chest injury could not do upper back exercises as in general they are the base hes talking about wanting to build especially rows in all forms and could understand chin ups might be limiting as it puts arms in an overhead position

Re overall training whats your mobility like? comfortably able to pass all these tests? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2fW2yvvVWw&t=3s this is something that should have been covered in the first session.

Cocksy

then find another trainer if you don't satisfied with your results

Brian?

seefin wrote: »

Female here. Been doing progressive weightlifting at home for over a year and built up decent amount of muscle, especially in upper body. Because had pulled chest muscle a few times and plateaued with adjustable dumbbells, decided to join a gym and get personal training sessions. This guy has a good reputation and has definitely built up my core but he is neglecting chest press and rows-I might do them every 3 weeks. Most of work is accessory work to build up my weaker muscles. I'm losing alot of strength in compound lifts though ( I try them every now and again at home and every week can lift less weight for less reps). Have said this to him and he said I have to build up a baseline first and get all the muscles working but it's killing me to lose strength even if I do build it up again in the long term. Been a few months now and I'm still only working out twice a week( before I used do 3 upper and 1 lower session). Is his reasoning correct? If I'd never lifted before I'd be happy out but hate losing all my hard work in the medium term
Also Im replacing the 3 weightlifting sessions I used to to with cardio( I love to exercise every day) so concerned I may be losing muscle

I'm very confused by his rationale. If you have imbalances, the fix them with accessory work. But you don't need to stop doing the compound lifts completely. The minimum I would expect is that you drop the volume on your big lifts and work on dialing in form. Once the form is good, the increase the weight.

I don't get this notion of baseline strength. You get the "baseline" strength for squats by squatting.

BadBannana

Brian? wrote: »

I'm very confused by his rationale. If you have imbalances, the fix them with accessory work. But you don't need to stop doing the compound lifts completely. The minimum I would expect is that you drop the volume on your big lifts and work on dialing in form. Once the form is good, the increase the weight.

I don't get this notion of baseline strength. You get the "baseline" strength for squats by squatting.

I think it's very odd he has what I assume to be a beginner lifter trying to bring up "weak" bodyparts. OP is a beginner, everything's week.

Sure if they have hip shift or bad posture that's fine, but like you said, you don't get a good squat by doing hamstring curls and leg press. You get a strong squat by squatting

Mellor

BadBannana wrote: »

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I think it's very odd he has what I assume to be a beginner lifter trying to bring up "weak" bodyparts. OP is a beginner, everything's week.

Weak in that case means relatively weak i.e. an imbalance and not overall strength level.
But it would have to be a large imbalance to ditch compounds entirely

Brian?

Mellor wrote: »

Weak in that case means relatively weak i.e. an imbalance and not overall strength level.
But it would have to be a large imbalance to ditch compounds entirely

Yup. If the OP can body weight squat, then that’s the minimum they should be doing.

seefin

Brian? wrote:

Yup. If the OP can body weight squat, then that’s the minimum they should be doing.

BadBannana wrote:

I think it's very odd he has what I assume to be a beginner lifter trying to bring up "weak" bodyparts. OP is a beginner, everything's week.

Not a beginner. Had been doing progressive compound lifts for almost a year myself and built significant muscle especially on upper body