Signs of a good personal trainer
A good personal trainer is one who will help you achieve your goals and genuinely cares about you. Personal trainers are personal and they provide a relationship which is centered around you. Anyone can go online and find free workouts to do, but most people buy a personal trainer because they want someone to hold their hand and hold them accountable. Most of my clients tell me they hired me because they need someone to push them and tell them what to do.
A good personal trainer is attentive. They do not check Facebook, text messages, take phone calls etc. etc. while training a client.
They progress and regress exercises. You can make any exercise harder or easier and you need to pay attention to the way your client is moving and is they are struggling and compromising their form then you need to regress the exercise.
They listen to you and communicate. You can tell a lot by how a client is feeling or doing not only while working out with you but emotionally. Not everybody comes to the gym in a good mood and is chipper, there are many things which can give them a bad day and its the personal trainers job to figure this out and modify the workout accordingly.
Keep the clients goals in mind. Not everyone has the same goals. One person’s fat loss goals may not be the same as the other clients goals to run a marathon. The personal trainer should come up with exercises based on the individuals goals.
Keep the conversation flowing. In the beginning its easy to talk about the Science of exercise and why you should or shouldn’t do things. As well as what muscle groups this exercise is working and why it’s important. A good personal trainer should know how to hold a conversation and keep the client engaged for the 30 minutes, 45 minutes or, hour long sessions. If you keep your client talking then the workout they are doing won’t seem so bad and its better than staring awkwardly at each other for the whole session.
Keep it professional. A personal trainer is a professional and it should remain that way. If you need to touch a client to correct their form then announce it first. I would never talk about politics, religion, or taboo topics with any of my clients. They might have very strong beliefs and if they don’t agree with your beliefs then you might just lose yourself a client and worse they could tell their friends about you.
Keep your client's abilities in mind. If an exercise seems simple and easy for you to do, this does not mean it is simple and easy for your client to do. Have some compassion with your clients and reassure them that if they keep practicing then one day they will be able to do it.
Don't write impossible workouts. Our mind is our greatest tool and sometimes we think of the best workout EVER! Then when we have our clients do it they struggle and we don't understand why. I always like to do the workout myself before having a client do it, to see if it is too strenuous. I've made circuit workouts before which were way too advanced for a beginner client and I had to modify on the spot.
Now you know what to look for in a personal trainer, good luck in your journey :)
