The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Finding the Ideal Personal Trainer

Introduction

Finding the right personal trainer can be extremely tedious, but it is necessary in order to get not only your money’s worth, but the results you’re looking for. The right personal trainer for you should be an investment that is worth it.

In your fitness journey, you will surely make a lot of investments and a lot of sacrifices to improve your health and well-being. The personal trainers here at DX3 Fitness have shared their tips so that you are well equipped with the right knowledge to make the best decision.

Things to Look for When Researching a Potential Personal Trainer

With that being said, how do you actually find the right personal trainer for you and your goals? We have compiled a list of five things you should look out for when researching potential personal trainers.

The Correct Qualifications

It shouldn’t have to be said, but the most important factor in hiring a personal trainer is ensuring that they have the correct qualifications to ensure you will receive the best results without harm or injury.

Before you hire a trainer, be sure to ask what they are qualified in. The bare minimum of personal trainer qualifications would include a certificate III and IV in fitness, as well as First Aid and CPR training. But if a trainer is truly worth it, they likely will try to broaden their skills and qualifications by doing more than just the legal requirements to do the job.

You want a personal trainer who is passionate about their work and treat your training as a business, so ensure that you ask them what further experience and qualifications they have achieved.

It is also important to check that their qualifications and experience align with your personal goals. For example, if you want to run a marathon, a trainer with experience in body building might not be right for your fitness goals.

How They Present Themselves

While it is not important that your trainer is a body builder, it is important that they are fit, in shape and they know their way around a gym environment.

Your trainer may not be extremely buff but this is not actually a factor in how good of a trainer they are. However, the way they operate in a gym and whether they are fit and healthy are good signs of whether they will be a good coach.

If the trainer you are looking into can’t keep themselves in shape, it is likely going to be difficult for them to help you reach your health and fitness goals.

Past Results and Positive Recommendations

Whatever your goals; body building, running a marathon, posture correction or fat loss, it is integral that you check a trainer’s recommendations and ask for proof of results from previous clients they have helped achieve similar goals.

On top of this, their social engagement is important nowadays. No, they don’t have to be an Instagram star with hundreds of thousands of followers because if they have time to post all day every day, it is likely that they aren’t training others or they don’t have time to focus on your goals.

Despite this, it is good if they have a website, Facebook or other social media platform that showcases their work and promotes the results they have helped others achieve. This is an important part of any business.

Their Assessment and Contractual Agreement

Before you start doing any form of training, it is important that your personal trainer conducts a full posture and mobility assessment and discusses their contractual agreement thoroughly with you.

This assessment is more than your trainer just assessing the way in which you move so they understand how they can assist your goals without causing injury, it will be a discussion of previous exercise or illnesses you have experienced, the goals you’re hoping to achieve as well as the concerns you have.

This is an important step that any coach must take before beginning training to ensure that you are kept safe. If they do not do this, and begin training immediately, this is a red flag.

Whether Their Personality Matches Your Personality

On top of all the qualifications and ensuring they assess you before training, you should like your trainer. Most of the time, you’re not going to be motivated to train, and your trainer will be responsible for ensuring you’re doing your part in the process. Just because they have the qualifications necessary and great experience does not mean that you will like them as a person, and this will make it a lot more difficult to stay disciplined and motivated. For instance, you might not be motivated by a coach who screams at you, instead you’ll need one who nicely encourages you or vice-versa.

Your trainer should be like a friend, as it makes training significantly easier and more exciting. Do they ask you about your personal life? Do they check in on you outside of your sessions? Be sure that you hire someone who not only fits your goals but fits your personality.

By being friendly with your coach, over time they will have the ability to read you. This means they will be able to understand when you need to be pushed and when to step back and lighten the exercises without any words spoken.

You also have to put in the work. Personal training is high-energy, high-demand and tiring, so your personal trainer should be in the job to help others. But if you don’t put effort in, it is a waste of time and energy.

Key Tips to Help You Choose the Ideal Personal Trainer

Looking for a personal trainer to give you the one-on-one attention you need to reach your fitness goals? Good for you – a personal trainer can provide you with the extra motivation, professional guidance and training variety that you need to find success.

But you need to choose your trainer carefully, especially if you are after an online one. The internet is full of them but not all online trainers are equal. It takes more than a pair of bulging biceps and a six pack to do the job.

Here we outline three criteria to consider when choosing a personal trainer, along with seven key questions you need to ask any prospective trainer. These criteria apply to both online and in person trainers.

Initial Interview

You should expect the personal trainer to provide you with an initial consultation free of charge. During this session, he should discuss your goals, motivations and your fitness background. The trainer should ask you to complete a medical background questionnaire and then spell out in concrete terms what he can do for you and what it will cost you.

This is also a time for you to interview your prospective trainer. Here are 7 questions that you can throw his way…

1. What does your workout involve and how often do you do it?

A good trainer will express passion when talking about his personal training program.

2. What is your personal nutrition plan?

The trainer should provide specifics and his plan should involve a mix of all three macronutrients.

3. Are you a smoker?

If he is, what are you doing there?

4. How will you assess me before you create my program?

You should expect a biomechanical analysis along with a movement assessment.

5. How often do you change a client’s program?

A good trainer will completely revamp a client’s program every 5-6 weeks to prevent boredom and keep challenging the body.

6. What is your most recent qualification?

Good trainers stay on top of industry innovations by attending courses at least annually.

7. How will you keep me motivated?

Expect the trainer to reel off specific techniques to keep you engaged and enthusiastic.

Knowledge

You should expect your personal trainer to not only be knowledgeable in such areas as anatomy, biomechanics and nutrition but also to be able to share that knowledge in a way that is easy to understand.

He should be able to tell you specifically why you are doing a certain exercise, explaining it from a biomechanical advantage point of view. If he can’t, he’s likely just giving you exercises for body parts based on gym lore – you deserve better than that.

The trainer should be passionate about staying on top of the latest trends and breakthroughs in the fitness industry. He should also have a history of working with people who have the same training goals as you.

The trainer should have a working knowledge of fitness nutrition. With nutrition being so important to your goal attainment, he should be able to answer any questions you have about caloric intake, meal replacements and post workout food intake. Ideally, he should also provide you with meal plans and shopping list suggestions.

Professionalism

All service people need to be professional but this quality is especially important when it comes to personal trainers. After all, they are dealing with you at a very personal level and there may be times when you are emotionally vulnerable in their presence. Maintaining complete professionalism when a male trainer is discussing the bum (glutes) of his female client is essential.

Before you sign up for a session with a trainer at your gym, observe the trainers there in regard to professionalism. Check to see that the trainer is giving 100 percent focus to the client throughout the session. He shouldn’t be staring at his phone at any time during the session, or chatting with other trainers. His whole world during that session should revolve around the client.

Check that the trainer’s uniform is clean and that he is properly groomed and looks awake and alert. Consider, too, the physical condition of the trainer. While you shouldn’t be swayed by an overly conditioned or muscular trainer, neither should you expect that a clearly out of shape trainer will be able to get you into shape.

A professional personal trainer will be a balanced trainer. If you notice that he is working crazy hours, he is inevitably going to be too tired to give any of his clients the attention that they deserve. More than likely he’ll end up giving the majority of his clients cookie cutter workouts that he hasn’t taken the time to individualize.

Observe what the trainer is actually doing when the client is exercising. Is he merely a rep counter or is he giving constant guidance regarding proper form and encouraging the client to give their best effort?

Personality

You will be spending quite a lot of time with your personal trainer so it is important that the two of you get on together. Having a trainer that you like and respect makes your sessions together something to look forward to.

The style of the trainer needs to match your workout style. If you are a person who thrives on the ra-ra pep talk style of training encouragement, then a trainer who is quietly encouraging may not be the best fit. Then again, if you’re a bit of a lone wolf who prefers to have minimum distraction when he’s training, the quiet motivator will be more suited to you.

The trainer should have the ability to make you feel safe and comfortable, especially if working out is a new thing for you. They should have the ability to tap into your motivational well and draw the best performance out of you even when you feel like coasting.

Conclusion

When you sign on with a personal trainer, you are, in effect, handing him the keys to the most valuable thing you possess – your body.

Personal trainers should love what they do; it is so important to find one that is the right fit for you and your goals to make it easier for you to meet your health and well-being goals.

Taking the time to choose the right person for the job will make sure that they are up to the task!