Over 20 years of being a personal trainer I have come across number of trainers. Just like any other professions, there are great, good, and bad. Whatever the fitness goal you have, physique, strength, athletic performance, it is important to identify who you should work with. At the same time, any fitness goal that you may have cannot accomplished just by hiring a trainer.
In this article, I will share my input on what trait you should look for when you are hiring a personal trainer and what are somethings that the trainers are looking for you to do.
Benefits of Hiring Personal Trainer
Benefits of Hiring Personal Trainer
Let’s start with benefits of hiring personal trainer. Biggest benefit is you don’t have to think of what to do during the session. For majority of people this seems to be the huge benefit for they’ve got so much to think about during the day with family and work that it is pain to think of what to do at the gym.
Second benefit is guidance. Some people may already know what to do with exercise, nutrition, stress management, sleep and so forth. But some may not know if they are doing what they are supposed to be. Personal trainer can course correct towards what you should do or reassure you that you are on the right path but need to continue and be patient.
Third is knowledge. Just like any other profession, trainers should be master at his/her craft. We cannot know everything, but successful trainers are always educating themselves, not so much in newest workout trend but understanding what is happening to the muscles, organs, joints, hormones, metabolism, and so on.
Lastly, they can build your confidence. During the journey of achieving your fitness goal, there may be a plateau, there may be a pain from soreness or injuries, there may life challenge that may make you feel like you are defeated. Personal trainers should know what it likes to fail through their own training sessions, but they also know that it is ok to fail when you don’t quit on your goals. Because they understand these things, they can work with what situation you may have and help you keep on going with accomplishing your goals.
Before Hiring a Personal Trainer
Just like finding your doctors, hair stylist, plumber, or even finding your favorite restaurants, you want to know what you are looking for. Often, people come to the personal trainer with knowing what they are looking for.
Typical question that trainer will ask in the beginning is “what is your goal?”. Even if you do not have exact answer, you should have some idea of what you are wanting to accomplish by hiring a personal trainer. This could be, get stronger, get healthy, get fit, getting ready for beach, wedding, and so on. It will also help us understand what it means. Especially if your goal is healthy and fit, we kind of want to know what you mean. There are billions of people out there and everybody can have different understanding of what it means. Of course, we can guide you to help you find your definition, however, it is helpful to know what you really want.
Knowing what you are willing to commit to, including budget, time, and effort will also help. Personal training can be expensive and if you are planning on doing 2-3 times per week or 8-12 sessions per month, you should know how much you are investing.
Time is another important aspect. If you are planning to train with a trainer for 60 minutes, it is not just 60 minutes. You have travel, refreshing after the session, and may need to eat before you go back to your daily task.
Effort is something that people miss out on. Attending personal training is like an attending a class. You will have homework assignments like, nutrition, cardio, stretching, to do outside of session, which trainers can spend time on during the session if it is necessary, but they do expect you to work on it. Just like dentists expecting you to brush your teeth every day.
How to Find a Good Personal Trainer
When looking for a personal trainer, don’t just randomly choose one. Make sure you are asking questions and pay attention to what he/she is saying because you may be working with that person for long time.
First check point is their education background. Ideally you want the trainers to have a degree in kinesiology, exercise science, exercise physiology and so on. Master’s degree would be great because they will have research background. Reason why this to be ideal is because they have studied at least 4 years in that field. Certifications are fine but majority of time you can obtain them within 2-6 months, which means they do not have education background in anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, biochemistry, endocrinology, sports psychology and so on, which are foundation to the exercise and nutrition.
Even if the trainer only has certification(s), they can study on their own and can be a great trainer. To find this out you can ask questions like “what are somethings that you are studying in the past 2 years?". This is asking their passion towards training and has a growth mindset which you want with your trainer. We cannot know everything, but we can always learn more. If they are only watching YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Podcast to find workout routine or new trendy diet then they probably don’t qualify as your trainer. Social media is a search engine and not research. I use them to get some ideas, but I use actual research documents to find more in-depth information to see if it is relevant.
Second is applied knowledge. Is the trainer practicing what they are preaching? It is not rare for the trainers to have knowledge but not applying to themselves. There’s a quote “what you do speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you speak”. If the trainer has weight issues, eating disorder, out of breath all the time, cannot do basic movement patterns or suggested exercise, don’t waste your time on them. It’s not rare to find trainers, unfortunately, use sports enhancement drugs to look and perform great to attract their business. This is a touchy subject since it is difficult to ask but at least they should look like applying what they are preaching you to do.
Third check point is listening. Are they listening to you or just talking about how you can make a payment? As a trainer, I want to know as much information as possible about my clients if they are comfortable talking about it. What do they do? How their schedule like? What do they eat? How is their sleep? What do they like to do on the day off? Do they like to travel? Do they have any health issues? When is their next blood work? Do they have good relationship with their partner? There is a reason why our profession is called personal training. If they are not listening and just pushing a package to you, thank them for the information and leave.
Fourth check point is honesty and accountability. Job of the trainer is not giving you a workout. It is guiding you to create results that you are looking for. Therefore, we need to be upfront about what will work and what will not work. We sometimes may need to let clients know that losing 50lbs in 2 weeks before wedding will not work. Or technique you may have for certain exercises will need adjustment for better results. I have rejected my client due to their resting heart rate was too high and required medical attention rather than hiring me as a trainer. Honesty sometime is a tough trait to have as a trainer since we do need to make a living, but it is important trait to have, and you will appreciate it.
Accountability is more towards not wasting your time. You are busy. 60 minutes of training session is not 60 minutes. You need to drive to the gym, may be need to shower afterwards. 60 minutes session is really a 90–120-minute deal for you. If the training starts at 9am is your trainer waiting for you? Is the trainer focusing on you or staring at the phone or chatting with other people during your session? Is the trainer talking about themselves more than learning about you? Having conversation is great but I’ve seen training session for the trainee becoming consultation session for the trainer about their life, business, about their clients who does not listen to the trainer and so on.
Lastly is monitoring. How is the trainer monitoring your progress? Method can vary from trainer to trainer. Some use notebook, phone app, and so on. This is such an important trait especially if you are looking for results. I prefer to use notebook since it is easy and been doing it for long time. Sometimes minor improvement can be hard to tell. But, by recording it helps to understand what we need to work on next and become great communication tool. For example, if I see my clients not able to lift the weight they are supposed to be lifting, I can talk about their nutrition, sleep, or anything that might be going on in their life that causing the progress to hinder. As mentioned before, even with highly educated trainers we do not know everything. By collecting data, we get to understand your body better an implement it to the training session.
Conclusion
Having a personal trainer can be a great investment to your health and fitness. At the same time, as same as other professions, you will come across not so good trainers. When you know what you should look for it may help you identify who you should work with. Keep in mind that your commitment is also important. Even when you hire a good trainer, if you do not do your part, then you may not see benefit of having a trainer.
Take your time with finding your personal trainer. It is ok to switch trainers if you feel not right. It is your health and fitness goals. Make sure that is taken care of first. If you want to test your trainer after consultation ask for a complimentary session to try out.
Kota Shimada
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