- Health, Fitness & Weight Loss
- A Personal Trainer Changed my Life!
- Abdominal Exercise Myths
- Basal Metabolic Rate - Burn Fat while you Sleep
- The Benefits of Swiss Ball Training
- Corporate Fitness Boosts your Bottom Line!
- Corporate Health Tips
- Functional Performance Training
- Goal Setting for Fitness Results
- Guidelines for Body Fat Percentages
- How to Choose your Personal Trainer
- Introducing the BOSU Balance Trainer
- Motivated for Success
- Not All Swiss Balls are Created Equal
- Personal Training Studio vs Gym
- Recovery and Regeneration
- Sizing your Swiss Ball
- Training in your Target Heart Rate Zone
- Walk Off your Waistline
- Weight Loss - Why Weights Work
- Why a REPs PT is your Best Bet
- Why I Fell for my Foam Roller
- 5 Hot Tips for Beating your Winter Woes
- Sport Specific Performance
- Nutrition
- Training with Specific Conditions
- References
How to Choose your Personal Trainer
Hiring a Personal Trainer - your need to know guide.
A Personal Trainer is easy to find these days with an influx in the number of gyms and courses around the country pumping out qualified trainers. Every personal trainer has their own style and level of competence, the difficulty is determining which personal trainer will work best for you?
5 Things you Need to Know before you Hire a Personal Trainer
1) Are they Qualified? Research your potential Personal Trainer’s experience and education, as it is essential you find someone who has a proven track record in dealing with clients with similar goals. For instance, an ex-drill sergeant will be perfect for you if you are looking for a disciplinarian, however their expertise is unlikely to be as beneficial to someone suffering or recovering from an injury.
Having a personal trainer that understands what an exercise is trying to achieve, how it should be performed and where it should be placed in a programme, is imperative to your results. My philosophy is that your personal trainer should be able to perform any exercise that they prescribe with technical proficiency and a theoretical understanding which can only be gained through experience and education.
2) Do they Invest in Themselves with On-Going Education? The fitness industry is constantly evolving, with a steady flow of new information emerging on methods for improving your results. Unless your personal trainer invests in themselves by taking the time to stay on top of new research and training developments, they can quickly lose touch.
Being a Registered Exercise Professional means your personal trainer has met a series of standards set by New Zealand Registering body. Their responsibility is to ensure a high quality standard of service is maintained in our health and fitness industry.
3) Do they Personalise your Programme? Any trainer serious about helping you achieve your goals should ensure you undertake an in-depth assessment (such as a Body Audit Fitness Assessment) before they write your programme. From this, your trainer can design and structure a programme tailored to your body’s specific needs.
Imagine that you spend all day sitting at a desk with poor posture (rounded shoulders, forward head lean), which at the end of the day leaves you with shoulder and neck pain. Then you might go to the gym and do a programme that includes bench and shoulder presses as well as ab crunches. All you have done is reinforced the poor posture you have been in all day, so chances are you’ve done more harm than good.
Your programme needs to account for your age, injuries, work environment, activity levels as well as your current static and dynamic postural patterns. In most cases you are training to improve function and performance, not impair it. A full postural and movement pattern assessment would quickly identify any anomalies in your functional performance. Learn more about our Posture Perfect Programme.
4) Do they get Results? Isn’t this the whole point? Again regular and on-going assessments will help you determine whether or not your programme is working. With these results your personal trainer can fine-tune your programme to suit your rate of progression with respect to your immediate, medium and long term goals.
Make sure you ask your potential personal trainer if they have any background in working with people with similar goals or aspirations to yours. Any personal trainer with experience and confidence in their ability to help you achieve your goals, will have testimonials from clients they have helped in past. Ask to have a look at these and see if they reflect your goals and aspirations.
5) Will you get along? I know it sounds a bit cliché, but personality is important. You are going to be spending a lot of time with this person, so it’s important that you find someone that you gel with. Additionally, the traits that your trainer shows need to reflect your needs – for instance, if you need someone to provide you with support and encouragement, it’s important that this is one of your trainer’s strengths.
Picking a trainer doesn’t have to be like a game of Russian roulette. Taking the time and making the effort to research all the potential personal trainers out there may define the difference between reaching your goals or falling short. If you need more information to go on then read how a Personal Trainer will help you.
By Hamish Abbie BPhEd, BComm, CHEK L1, XLR8 Coach, REPs - 16/06/2007