Yes, personal training is a different experience for everyone—gym novice and veteran lifter alike.
Personal trainers have different methods, strategies, and bedside manners, if you will, when they meet a new client.
But there are certain factors that should always remain constant. If your consultation with a fitness specialist doesn’t include these, you may want to get out of Dodge.
Never had a personal trainer before? Here are six signs you need to invest in one.
Andrew Schaeffer, C.S.C.S., is a personal trainer based in New York City
In the beginning, a trainer needs to know two things: if you have any health considerations and who are you as a person. Yes, really.
To cover the first question, expect to fill out some version of a health history form and get some baseline metrics: your blood pressure and resting heart rate.
With these formalities out of the way, you’re ready for the interview portion, which is where a solid trainer really sets themself apart. They’ll ask about your goals, of course, but the truly important part is learning more about you. What motivates you? What holds you back? Why do you have these fitness goals in the first place?
Commit to answering these questions as truthfully as possible. Consider it an introspective journey. Because, in the end, every good trainer is really trying to help you help yourself.
To assess your mobility and flexibility, among other things, your potential trainer could use something as sophisticated as the Functional Movement Screen or something as simple as a bodyweight squat.
And while you might think this is all about finding what exercises to avoid, it’s really about finding what you absolutely need to work on. If you can’t rotate to one side, for example, you should spend a little time every workout trying to improve that. If your hips are a little tight, you need to open them up so you can get to squatting properly. That’s how you progress—and progression brings results.
When you get a personal trainer, you’re seeking a service you can’t provide on your own. That’s a blueprint or a plan.
By the end of your first hour with a good trainer, they’ll have some insight as to who you are as a person and a basic assessment of your baseline movements (including weaknesses, imbalances, etc.).
Based on this, they should be able to give you a basic outline of what they want to work on now and how that’ll help you in the future.
For example, the goal might be to run a marathon. The journey to get there might entail loosening your hamstrings, learning how to hip hinge, and eventually deadlifting to build strength and help posture. All of this will prepare your body for that race.
Something as simple as a game plan will separate training from plain old exercise.
Of course there are a variety of additional tests and measurements, like body fat percentage, VO2 max, and one-rep max, just to name a few. However, these things are just tools. If your prospective trainer is using them to drive your experience, then your training might be missing the ‘personal’ part.
And that’s the thing you really came for, isn’t it?
