You may have thought about getting a personal fitness trainer. If you have, you should first consider their philosophy. It is very important to make sure he or she is a good match for you. You should look through their brochure or website, specifically for their philosophy. If you cannot seem to find it, make it a point to ask to see it; it should be your first step in the pre-qualifying process.
Hanging out a sign and calling themselves a personal trainer, does not make them a personal trainer. You need to find out their qualifications. You need to have some proof that they are in fact more knowledgeable than you about the body and its development. You need to be sure that that person is certified and qualified to coach and train you. Most importantly, you need to find out if their personality and ideas for your health the same as yours.
Working with a personal trainer is a little bit like working with a therapist. You’ll find yourself confiding some of your deepest secrets in your trainer (i.e., I have got to get back into this dress before my class reunion or I will be the laughing stock of my class! Or, I cannot believe it, but I ate that entire box of donuts in one sitting!). But with an additional caveat: Your personal trainer will do a lot more than sit there and nod. A personal trainer will push you, pull you, work you, stretch you, exercise you, and advise you! A good personal trainer is not passive but active, and as such, if you don’t select the right personal trainer for you, you could be putting your health in jeopardy. Therefore, it is critical that you understanding that personal trainers philosophy before you start working together”or even consider that person for the job.
The important things you should know about a personal trainer before you hire them is their background and their approach which you would get from their philosophy. It would include details about their knowledge in the field of nutrition, exercise, fitness, physical anatomy etc. If they have been educated in those fields, you would be a good idea to find out by whom. Getting certificates from companies that supply vitamins is entirely different from credentials of someone who was pre-med in college prior to becoming a personal trainer. Find out how much experience they have in the personal training business, get some references from past or current clients and find out just what the program involves.
You will want to know if the program this personal trainer advocates is based on research and results or hit and miss methods of trial and error. You want to know the trainers track record, so to speak, and whether they follow a generic program or a customized program for each individual client. You need to find out if they are working with a system or just winging it!
A good way to see if your personal trainer is dedicated to helping you, is to ask them to see a copy of their philosophy and if they don’t have it in writing, then they don’t have one at all. It is very unlikely that that personal trainer will help you get the body you want.
The most effective personal trainers are the ones that take the time to write out their personal philosophy as a trainer. It shows they are organized and serious about what they do and it makes it evident that they are devoted to their methods with high success rates. They evaluate the clients results as a way to make sure that their methods are indeed effective. Someone that will deliver consistent results is not something that should be considered extra; it should be a top-notch priority.
Consider this: If someone who calls him- or herself a personal trainer hasn’t even taken the time to properly prepare a personal trainers philosophy before looking for clients”in other words, he or she hasn’t done the work necessary to ensure success as a personal trainer”what makes you think they have what it takes to help you work out to achieve your potential and realize success in meeting your goals?
