It seems every woman and her (French bull) dog has a Personal Trainer these days so how exactly can you identify and pick one that actually has your best interests at heart and will get you the best results?
We all know the typical attributes of a good Personal Trainer.
A good Trainer will be encouraging, punctual, attentive and motivating. A good trainer will know how to develop a program that is:
- efficient to execute in an increasingly time poor society
- taking into account any postural or mobility limitations and past injuries
- effective to each individual client’s end goals based on their current fitness level, physique, mobility and flexibility.
A GREAT Trainer however, will do all of the above PLUS take into account a client’s lifestyle, recognising the best training session in the world won’t account for much without it’s consistent execution. A client needs to be educated in the essential tools on approaching their health, fitness and nutrition, for the other 167 hours of the week in order to achieve long term results.
A GREAT Trainer will take into account a client’s mindset and motivations to their goals. Everyone wants to lose weight…but why? When your Trainer asks you this, it’s a good idea to be honest as your true incentive provides us with how we approach your journey to success. Personally, I approach my client’s heath and fitness goals from a performance-based perspective rather than an aesthetic approach. This leaves my clients feeling empowered with more satisfying, long term results. More on this here. By ingraining this performance based mindset into their fitness aspirations, it reinforces having measurable and tangible goals that address how a client’s body functions rather than what it looks like, promoting greater self worth whilst keeping both client and trainer accountable and motivated.
A GREAT Trainer will make it their mission to delivering an outstanding level of service. If your current Trainer is skipping some of these, I’d start thinking about parting with your hard earned pennies elsewhere.
- The way your Trainer greets you and general report with you. This doesn’t mean you need to be buddy buddy, but a level of mutual respect and trust is crucial.
- Their level of professionalism. Your Trainer should be approaching your sessions with the objective first and foremost to get YOU results. Friendly banter is okay, but if it impeded your or their focus or the goals of training, they should be keeping chit chat to the end of a set or session.
- The way they are offering set up, movement cues and corrections that resonate with YOU so each movement makes sense and you’re getting the most out of each exercise, especially if you want to perform this later yourself.
- Starting each session prepared with the correct equipment set up prior to the session so there is no wasting minutes trying to gather the right props and equipment.
- Dedicating their full attention to you for the entire duration of the session. This is probably the most overlooked point. This means no checking phones, phone calls, flirting with the reception girl or staring blankly at a wall whilst you are performing any exercises. A good Trainer recognises that nothing else matters except you and their commitment to you.
Here are my top three tips when picking a GREAT Personal Trainer within the Fitness Industry in 2016;
- They will provide you with tools within the three pillars; training, nutrition and mindset to empower you in navigating you own health and optimising your fitness, especially when you are not together.
- Holding a strong working knowledge of coaching correct muscle activations, utilisation and technique unique to your specific needs. This streamlines your results, saving you a lot of time especially if you’re a beginner and/or not seeing results or getting constantly injured from performing poor quality, generalised workouts or not addressing any tightness/mobility restrictions/weaknesses.
- Approaching your fitness journey holistically. Not just counting your reps but addressing all aspects pertinent to your success such as your underlying motivation, goals, lifestyle, nutrition and general approach to health. This means going above and beyond, identifying with you how to navigate real life situations like eating out, drinking alcohol and how to incorporate all of these into your current lifestyle.
As always I welcome your thoughts, comments, suggestions and feedback on any of the topics we cover so please feel free to comment in the blog posts, let me know directly and if not already, let’s be pals on Facebook, twitter and Instagram!
Yours in health,
Anna x