As a personal trainer, I can attest firsthand to how important an open, communicative, and honest client-trainer relationship is. Deep satisfaction, gains in fitness and exercise confidence, increased motivation and accountability, and overall enjoyment result when the client and trainer really “click”. Read on for 5 tips to find a trainer can help you meet your goals!
Tip #1: ALWAYS INTERVIEW!
You’ve made the commitment to work with a personal trainer. Great! Now, educate yourself on your options. You should always, ALWAYS interview a potential trainer. Even if you’re training at a big box gym, don’t let yourself get administratively assigned to someone based on your availability. Don’t rely on someone else vetting your trainer. You need to be actively involved in selecting someone who can work with and inspire YOU!
To get a good sense of a trainer’s approach, you’ll have to ask a lot of questions. Ask your potential trainer to meet face to face – virtually or in person. Ask about her experience, her motivation for working in this field, her coaching philosophy. Your trainer is delivering a professional service and you should be confident in her knowledge, her skillset, and her communication. Ask how she continues to grow as a professional – does she attend fitness conferences? Work with other health and wellness professionals? Ask for feedback from her clients? Personality is also important. Do you get along well with the potential trainer, and does she seem genuinely interested in helping you?
Pitfalls: If your potential trainer charges you for an interview, or you get the sense that she throws together workouts based on what she sees scrolling through Instagram, it’s time to move on to your next candidate.
Tip #2: YOUR TRAINER’S STYLE SHOULD SUPPORT YOUR GOALS
Choosing a trainer who has mastered an approach that works for you is paramount. This is where clients need to challenge themselves to consider the outcome they want in working with a trainer. How do you envision your sessions – do you want a Jillian Michaels-style drill sergeant? A soft-spoken and encouraging friend? A cheerleader?
The beauty of personal training is that it’s personalized. I tell my clients all the time – YOU are in charge of choosing your goals. My job as your trainer is to help target and refine those goals based on your involvement, your abilities, and the length of time we have committed to working together. Then I design sessions to keep you motivated and help move you incrementally closer to your goals. Ultimately, for you to be successful, your trainer’s approach and coaching style needs to support your goals.
Pitfalls: Pay close attention when interviewing a potential trainer – Does she tell you what metrics you should be at for your age, gender, or activity level? Does she assume you want to perfect a certain yoga pose, hit a certain number on the scale, or look hot in a bikini? If so, those biases will crop up in how your trainer selects exercises, how she teaches and uses language, and ultimately, how effective your sessions will be.
Tip #3: FIND A TRAINER WITH AN AGENDA
No one gets to the Olympics by accident – these athletes have worked for years, under the direction and supervision of highly trained coaches who help find tune their diets, workouts, sleep, and training to achieve peak results exactly when they need it. Athletes train this way in seasons – they have a pre-season, which is focused on building the fitness base, in-season, which is focused on keeping the fitness base while continually building skills, and post-season, when they ideally peak in both areas for the best performance of the cycle. If you are training for an event, your workouts will fit into this cycle. Even if you are just trying to get fit, your trainer should have a thorough understanding of how a fitness program works as a set of building blocks towards a goal, so you are appropriately challenged and successful along the way.
Working expertise of building a fitness program and developing a plan for your sessions might be the most important consideration when choosing a trainer. Someone who enjoys working out may get a personal training certification and share their favorite exercises with you – that’s a good start. But a true fitness professional is a systematic thinker who is always incrementally nudging you towards your goals. Your workouts should never be a random collection of exercises, but rather a base upon which your health should develop over time.
Today’s cardio workout should set you up for a deep and restorative stretch, an energetic and focused afternoon at work, a restful night of sleep, and an effective strength-building session on Friday. Your trainer needs to be able to guide you in mastering basic and fundamental movements before progressing to more complex or heavier lifts. If your trainer offers packages, ask how they are designed – how is each session used as a building block for the next? What outcomes can you expect by completing the program? What is your investment of time, effort, and money along the way?
Tip #4: A LEGITIMATE PERSONAL TRAINER CAN CUSTOMIZE
Your potential trainer should be professional and set clear expectations. For your sessions, you should know when and where to meet, what to wear, how long it will last. Cancellation and payment policies should be clear and concise. You should know how and when to contact her, and how quickly she will respond.
But here’s where a consummate planner meets real life in the world of fitness and wellness – where expectations intersect with reality. Your trainer needs to be able to meet you where you are at, every single time you interact. If your trainer designs an immaculate 45 minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, and you show up with low energy recovering from a sleepless night, she should be able to modify the plan or change it completely. If you call to let her know that weird step you took during your last session left you with a swollen ankle, she should be able to advise you on what to do now and how to modify the rest of your day or week.
As a client, you should be challenged to do your best, but always leave the sessions and interactions with your trainer feeling successful. Even if you are tired or sore, you should feel accomplished. Your trainer needs to have the experience and expertise to pivot and create a customized experience for you.
Tip #5: FIND CLARITY ON AREAS OF EXPERTISE
A fitness professional can use a variety of measurements and assessment tests to establish your baseline fitness, help you set challenging but realistic and attainable goals, and guide you in completing safe and effective exercises. She may be an expert on joint movements in the human body or an expert on how force exerted on a muscle increases strength. But unless she is also a dietician, your trainer cannot write you a detailed diet plan.
Any fitness professional worth her salt will be continually building a network of other professionals to consult with, refer to, and to be educated in other forms of intervention. She will be well aware of her scope of expertise and readily do research to find peer-reviewed, evidence-based information to answer your questions. She will refer you to another professional when your needs are outside her area of knowledge. Any trainer who claims expertise in a dozen areas is suspect. Ask your potential trainer about the years of experience she has working with clients, and her expertise in working with people with special needs, limitations, or health histories that mirror your own.
If you remember one thing, remember this – you are the expert in your own body. YOU live in it – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your trainer should always honor your expertise in your own body. Her job is to teach you how to listen to the cues your body is offering, connect with the exercises you are completing, and challenge you to get stronger.
Moira Johnson Customized Fitness 