So you’ve decided to take that step towards a fitter, healthier, stronger you and hired a Personal Trainer. Now what? We’ve already discussed how to interact with a trainer and which trainers to avoid, but we never spoke about what to look for in your personal training experience. Knowing what we expect from you is important, but here are some things that you should expect from us.

We give you exercises to do — This is the most obvious one. The question always comes to me from friends, family, new acquaintances — What exercises should I do to…? Now, if you really want to know, you would hire me (or another trainer) and let us give you those exercises 3-5 times a week. In fact, it may even make more sense to call us Personal Exercise-Givers. However, you can go on YouTube and get exercises and routines for free. This, therefore, is the least important of our responsibilities.

We become counselors of sorts — Yep, that’s right! The thing is that our clients often get close to us as they look to us as people they can trust. Even if you don’t intend it, it may happen, so maybe look for a trainer with some empathy, as well as some counseling qualifications. Exercise is, in itself, stress-relieving, so it’s natural for you to want to relieve more stress by talking, so we are (or should be) there for you.

We help you to set your goals — A routine without a goal is just wasted effort. You may want to improve cardiovascular fitness, get stronger, lose/gain weight, get a particular body type, or any number of things. It’s important to make this clear to your trainer. In my opinion, a trainer should, as one of your first conversations (either before training starts or before/after one of your first 2 or 3 training sessions) ask what your goals are. Then, we take you through the steps to get there safely. It’s okay if your goals change. If they do, tell your trainer and he/she is supposed to be able adjust your plan (training, nutritional or both) to help you achieve your new goal.

We need to check your form — This is my 2nd-to-last point, but I think it ties for first place in terms of importance of each role/responsibility. Bad form will, at best, prevent you from achieving the best results and, at worst, cause injury which may slow or completely halt your progress. We need to teach proper form (I personally take up to two weeks to do so, depending on the client’s aptitude) and then continually check it to ensure that the client’s form doesn’t slip. Sometimes, form degradation could simply be a sign of fatigue and that signals time to change that day’s routine.

We monitor your progress — This is the other number one responsibility of a Trainer. It can be as simple as counting the number of repetitions (reps) you do in an exercise or seeing how much weight you lift or it can be as complex as monitoring body fat percentage, muscular endurance and VO2 max (how much oxygen you can take in and use during exercise). If you are not checking on progress, how would you know if you’re getting closer to your goal? This is where we, the trainers, come in. We either do tests to see your progress or we guide you on how to conduct the tests yourself. We should subsequently record it somewhere so that it can be compared to your next series of tests.

If you haven’t hired a Personal Trainer yet, go on and start working with one as soon as you can. Now you have some more tools to help you along with your health and fitness journey as guided by an effective and competent trainer. Enjoy training 🙂