Personal training in Krav Maga
Coach Paul Grey addresses some of the common questions regarding personal training in Krav Maga.
Paul is a highly experienced Krav Maga coach and explores whether personal training is right for you, costs and how to save money when booking personal training in Krav Maga.
Personal Training in Krav Maga
As a professional Krav Maga coach, and qualified Personal Trainer, I often get approached about personal training in Krav Maga or fitness.
So today, I thought I would spend a few minutes discussing what personal training in Krav Maga can achieve. The principles we discuss can be applied to Krav Maga, Martial Arts or indeed any type of personal training or coaching. I also wanted to cover what you can expect and potential pitfalls in the process.
In simple terms, Krav Maga is not for everyone, indeed, it may not be for you so lets take a look at what personal training in Krav Maga or any other physical discipline can offer.
Understanding the coaching process
What are the benefits of personal training
In simple terms, you learn better and progress much faster with personal training. The main reason is that your training is personalised to you – not the entire class.
Sticking points can be identified immediately, (something that is really difficult to do in a busy class environment) and addressed. Sessions can be geared to what you want, what you need and run at a pace perfect for you. You’ll usually get ‘homework’ to – a series of skills to practice as part of your program.
Your Instructor will typically offer a personal Program of training for you. This is ‘sheer gold’, for you. An experienced Krav Maga Instructor assessing you and your goals, then drawing up a personalised program of training based on it. It’s hard to overstate the value of this to you as a Kravist.
With personal training, you get a skilled Krav Maga Instructor to look at you and help address movement issues, teach content or simply drill the correct movement to develop power and fluidity.
Is personal training right for you ?
Personal training is not right for everyone. Now, to be clear we are looking specifically at personal training in relation to Krav Maga or Martial Arts. Technically speaking this is not personal training but personal coaching – but that’s another article altogether. We will stick with ‘personal training’ as it is the term most people use when they approach a coach or Instructor.
Personal training is not a panacea for all coaching issues. Personal training is not a quick answer to personal apathy, poor fitness, lack of regular attendance or physical imbalances within your body. Personal training can make a dramatic improvement in your ability but only if you are committed to training and disciplined about practicing what you have learned between personal training sessions.
If you have existing physical issues (weak glutes for example), no amount of personal training will get you to round kick correctly. Diagnosis of physical issues is a specific and highly skilled job best done by a sports physio with years of specialist training. Invest around £35-40 and get a physic assessment for issues like this. Then you can address the issue and gain benefit out of personal training.
If you don’t have a game plan, training objectives and make a commitment to an agreed programme of personal training, then it is probably not worth starting the process.
A program of training could be quite modest and very training specific geared to your goals. For example, to learn how to throw jab cross hook or to learn some basic ground reversals (reversing a position of disadvantage) could be done in 3 or 4 lessons.
To become fluid and able to react instinctively requires more time and regular practice, but 3 or 4 personal training sessions would be a great starting point and enable you to work at home or in class on those skills.
Another good example of a training program is preparing for a grading by covering a specific level of krav maga skills.
How often and how much
You should look at committing to perhaps 4 -10 regular sessions with a clear set of training objectives. This can be repeated as long as you have clear objectives and feel you are receiving value from the training. Ideally, 2 sessions per week for a limited duration are a cost and training efficient way to go. Due to time restrictions, many prefer one session per week. This is not ideal as the rate of forgetting between sessions is high and personal training taught like this tends to lose much of their benefits as the Krav Maga coach is having to reteach the previous lesson before progressing.
Prices vary dramatically based on the reputation of the krav maga instructor and their location. Successful instructors are busier and have greater demand for their service pushing prices up. A newly qualified krav maga instructor in a rural area may charge from as little as £22 an hour. An experienced instructor in central of London may charge up to £90 an hour.
Typically an experienced Krav Maga Instructor outside of London would charge in the region of £35 to £45 an hour plus travel. Remember, the price you pay covers planning, travel time to and from your location. In 2012 I was providing a program of personalised training in central Bristol. The client commented that £40 an hour seemed like a lot of money to train.
Each session delivered at the clients convenience cost me 1hr 40 minutes travel (return), around £6 in fuel before session planning and actually delivering the session. For this reason I prefer to teach locally now.
Where can I have personal training?
In the UK, Krav Maga instructors predominantly based in leased venues. Leased venues cost in the region of £20-£80 per hour. As a result, Krav Maga Instructors will typically use your home location, public parks, a home gym rather than charge venue fees on top of an hourly rate.
Training usually requires a minimum of kit, focus pads, and an area of at least 4 square meters depending on what training you have requested.
What personal training can't achieve - efficiently at least...
Less cost efficient: Like any type of training, Personal training is a specific tool for a specific job and has it’s limitations. By far the largest drawback of personal training is cost. With Krav Maga lessons costing around £8-10 for 90 minutes and personal training in the region of £40 an hour, you could buy 4 regular lessons per personal training session. Though obviously the personal training session will promote faster skill acquisition and faster progress.
Can’t replicate stress: It is pretty much impossible to replicate stress and scenarios with personal training – this is better replicated in class. Personal training should focus on skills and corrections.
Saving money - Block booking and joint personal training sessions
If you block book 8 -10 lessons you can usually expect a discount on the normal sessional price – typically of 10-15% depending on the trainer and location. Two sessions a week for 4-5 weeks would be an example of a typical program of training. This could be repeated or a one off depending on your objectives.
You can also look at reducing personal training costs by training with a friend. This is popular with trainers and students as its’s easier to coach 2 people than to coach and train one and saves money.
Summary
Personal training in Krav Maga offers a flexible method of coaching. The net effect of personal training is that it offers faster acquisition of skills, personally focused training and can be geared to address specific training goals or areas of weakness.
About the Author
Paul Grey is the Head Coach at British Krav Maga and teaches regularly in Bristol and North Somerset. Paul is available for personal training in krav maga, group classes, and seminars. Paul can be contacted at Krav Maga Bristol
Links
Personal training in Weston Super Mare
