Review - Online Personal Training with Terri Walsh

Online Training with Terri Walsh

TW Training is headed by Terri Walsh, a certified personal trainer who trains people both at her gym in NYC and online. Sign up and you have several options to choose from. At $75/month, the Personal Coaching package includes 2 weekly phone consults with Terri, unlimited emails, and 1-4 programs. The Email Coaching includes unlimited emails and 1-4 programs and costs $45/month. With the Solo DIY you create your own workouts. Choose from 3, 6 or 12 month packages.

Whatever package you choose, you'll have access to many features and resources including fitness articles, an exercise library full of a variety of exercises, a nutrition database, workout calendar, premade workouts, workout log, meal log, progress charts and fitness calculators, just to name a few.

Once you log in, you'll find links on the left side of the page that take you where you need to go. Your first step is to enter your personal information in the 'My Account' Section. Here you detail your goals, vital statistics, schedule, available equipment, cardio exercise preference, fitness level, lifestyle, and health history. Navigation is straightforward and easy, although it would be nice to see the workout and account links closer to the top of the page so you don't have to scroll.

Once you've filled out the paperwork, Terri emails you (you get an alert that you have an email waiting for you) to talk about your goals, workouts, schedule, etc. before creating individualized workouts for you. Terri obviously knows her stuff and is very engaging, enthusiastic and available

The workouts cover strength training, cardio and flexibility and you can also create class-based workouts like yoga and pilates. When you log onto the website, you'll be taken right to a calendar that shows the workouts for the week. Simply click on the icon and the workout will open in .pdf format listing all your assigned exercises. For each one, there is a picture and a description as well as details about reps, sets and weights.

Once you complete a workout, you can log it with feedback by clicking on 'Log Workout' and choosing the workout you want to log from the list. You also have the option to log your own exercises if you chose to do something else. For each move, you can log sets, reps, weights and comments so Terri can make changes according to your feedback. The logging process requires you to record each exercise separately, which can be a bit tedious and confusing. Once you've logged each exercise, there's no way to see what you've entered unless you scroll down to the bottom to view the details.

The other main part of the program involves logging your meals. The nutrition database has all the major food groups along with most brands you'd find in grocery stores. To log meals, you simply choose what you ate from the database and enter the amount which allows the system to calculate the calories of each meal. You can also enter new foods that aren't in the database. Like the workout portion, logging meals can be a bit tedious, especially if you eat some of the same meals each day. It would be nice to be able to copy those regular meals rather than having to go through the database each time.

The progress reports are based on your workouts, meals and body measurement logs. By updating your measurements on a regular basis, you can view charts that show your progress as well as a calorie tracker

Overall, the site is easy to navigate with many extras that will keep you entertained for awhile. Terri is engaging and enthusiastic, taking the time to get to know you so she can create the perfect workouts for you. She answers her emails quickly and checks in if she hasn't heard from you. She has an extensive background in fitness and exercise and knows just the right questions to ask to suss out what you need, where your obstacles lie and how to structure your workouts so you enjoy them and get excited about them.

The prices are reasonable (certainly cheaper than one-on-one training) and, for experienced exercisers who have at least some basic knowledge of strength training, this can be an excellent choice for being accountable and getting individualized workouts to do on their own.

The only minor drawback is the process of logging workouts and the meals. As mentioned above, this is confusing and time consuming. There are a few glitches, occasional error messages and there are some functions that won't work in some browsers (like Mozilla), so users are better off using Internet Explorer. These problems are minor and don't interfere much with user experience.

Bottom line? Highly recommended!

Updated 11/9/2005