Personal training is becoming a hot profession these days. As a matter of fact personal training is the fastest growing profession in the health and fitness industry! So it is a fair assumption that if you go to a gym, there will be at least one personal trainer offering his or her services. Now, if you are completely new to weight training and would feel more comfortable with hiring a trainer to guide you through the break in period, then you will be faced with the task of choosing the right trainer. it is crucial to make the right choice in this situation as the wrong person will end up giving you the wrong advice; advice that at best yields no results (which in turn gets you discouraged) and at worst gets you injured.

The fact that a trainer holds a certification is not a good indicator on whether the trainer is a good trainer or not. The reason for that is that most certifications are very easy to pass and besides that, most use outdated information. If you don't believe me then read the article on the following link to see what is behind most training certifications. If the trainer has some sort of college degree that is somehow associated with the fitness realm, that only means that such trainer has some brains to him. Such a degree alone does not qualify the trainer as a good one. Also, the fact that the trainer has the body that resembles the one that you have as a goal does not necessarily mean that the trainer knows what he/she is doing. The reason for this is that some people have good genetics (or are on steroids) and whether they know what they are doing or not they end up looking good.

So what should you look for in a good trainer? In my opinion, below are the qualifications of those people that are good trainers:

1. The trainer really cares on whether the client achieves good results or not. In doing so, the trainer needs to get to know the client's personality, goals and limitations. From there, create a program that would fit best the client's needs. In order to do this, the trainer needs to create a guided discovery period of about six weeks where he/she finds out what exercises/foods the client enjoys the most as well as slowly finding out what the goals of the client are. (As we already know, when a person begins weight training, he/she may not necessarily know at that stage what their goals are.) From the information gathered during this discovery period, the trainer then creates a personalized program that the client can stick with (as you can see, programs should not be generic "one size fits all" formulas). The trainer should also teach the client how to vary the program in order to avoid staleness. By the end of a 12 week period, a good trainer would have taught his client all that he/she needs to know in order to do this on their own.

2. An easy way to weed out good trainers from bad ones is that the good trainer will always ask for your doctor's clearance to start an exercise program and the trainer will not provide any services until such clearance is given. This is a great practice as it not only legally protects the trainer, but also it also protects the health of the client as this is the only way that the trainer can get good information as to the client's health and possible limitations. For example, if a client is an insulin-dependent diabetic but neglects to inform the trainer about it, this could have serious implications later on. That is why it is better to get the information from the client's doctor.

3. Throughout the workout, the good trainer will pay more attention to the form of the client and proper breathing throughout the exercise instead of just being a glorified certified counter (I mean, anybody can count from 1 to 10). Needless to say, the trainer's only focus should be on the client.

4. The trainer always needs to be on time.

5. The trainer should have the type of personality that motivates the client and makes the client feel comfortable. Some trainers have an intimidating and bossy personality that makes it more like torture to train with them.

6. The trainer constantly keeps up to date with the latest information.

7. Last but not least, the trainer practices what he/she preaches (Leads by example).

Conclusion
So remember, as usual, be analytical and don't reach conclusions based on looks or the letters at the end of a person's name alone. Such factors alone do not qualify the trainer as a good or bad one. Look beyond that and based on the additional data determine if the trainer that you are about to choose is the right one for you. Remember, it is your health and your wallet the ones that will suffer if you make the wrong type of decision.

Posted 3/5/06