Every week, I pay a lot of money to be tortured. There is a small, boutique gym in my neighborhood called Serious Strength, where I am forced by a trainer to lift very heavy weights in very slow motion with the intent of exhausting my muscles to the point of tearing. Although this type of workout may sound a bit barbaric, it has actually kept me in great shape and relatively healthy for the past two years. At this point, I can easily do most of the exercises myself, so why do I persist in using a trainer? Two reasons. Discipline and technique.

Like most human beings, I am inordinately lazy. My house is littered with exercise balls, free weights, and at one time even a treadmill machine. Somehow I never find the time to use them. There is always a good excuse to postpone doing what is necessary. I am trading. I am helping my daughter with her homework. I am sleep deprived and in need of a nap. The reasons are endless, days turn into weeks, weeks into months and the equipment gathers dust -- another victim of good intentions.

If this sounds familiar to you, don’t worry -- it’s natural. We are all human and we all procrastinate doing painful, unpleasant things. And there is no doubt that exercising when done correctly is painful. Otherwise it would be of little use. So every week, I clench my teeth and drag myself to the gym to my weekly regular appointment with my trainer. In short, I am forced to do the right thing and exercise.

My trainer Eugene is not only a great guy, but one if the best physical therapists I know. I nicknamed him the mechanic because he is the master of technique. He can tell me to move my wrist a few millimeters to the right, or press my back into the padding just so and with those simple incremental adjustments make the exercises inordinately harder to do. That may not seem like fun while you are pressing three hundred pounds of cold, hard steel, but the benefits afterwards are enormous.

I was thinking about Eugene the other day as I was staring at my bullet-riden chart full of red stop out circles and concluded that it would be great to have a trainer for trading. Trading, like exercise, requires discipline and technique and I realized that it is more than a bit ironic for us to believe that we can master trading all on our own while fully acknowledging that we would never lift more than a six pack of beer if we weren't forced by someone else to work out.

A trading trainer could be invaluable not because he could instantly show you how to become profitable, but because he would force you to become accountable to someone other than yourself. Most of my losses weren't the result of my setup failing but were due simply to me trading no setup at all. I lacked the discipline to stay out of the market when I had no edge, but if I had a trainer who would scrutinize my actions, maybe I would think twice about doing stupid trades.

A good trainer can also help you with technique. Just as Eugene can often make a small suggestion that results in a much better exercise routine, a good trading trainer could help you to make some subtle changes in your entries or exits that could improve your bottom line markedly. Trading can be a very solitary and frustrating pursuit. As you struggle to master the markets, consider using a trading trainer. And before you ask, no I can't do it.

Boris Schlossberg serves as director of currency research at GFT, and runs bktraderfx.com.