These days so many people have a Personal Trainer, and if you have only ever had one, how do you know if they are good? How would you know if you are getting your money's worth? Here are a couple of tips for finding the right Personal Trainer for you:
1. What are you paying for?
Many people get confused between what you do (the process) and the outcome that you want. What you are really paying for is the result. If you loved exercise that much you probably would be doing it without a Trainer? So the question is, what do you want to get out of your training? What result do you want? For most people it is statically "body shape change" (lose weight, tone up etc). If that is the case, did your Trainer take measurements at the start and do they check them regularly to see that you are making progress? Is your training plan specifically designed around the outcome you want? Or is it just all the Trainers favourite workouts and exercises? Or worse, is it 'hard' but not getting the result?
What other things are important? Other than results, what other things matter to you? Do you want to have a laugh? Do you need someone who will listen to you? (Trainer/Therapist) Do you want to be in a world of pain after each session? (We'd hope not!) Do you need some accountability for your actions during the week or weekend? Do you only want to do a specific type of training (consider that it might be counter productive), How much of your results depends on your food/drink intake? Are you getting the help you need in those areas?
If you want a result and some of these things you are either wasting money, time or both!
2. What are you using to judge your success?
Get specific around the progress you want to make. If you want to get fitter what is your definition of fit? I bet it' s different from mine. Have something that is specific. If you want to change body shape, where? How much? Great Trainers work with you to find out what metrics matter and regularly measures them to make sure you are on track and what you are doing is working.
3 . Other than training, what other help are you getting to improve your health?
So many people think that going to see a Personal Trainer for a few hours a week is all they need to get amazing results. Often you can get some result from a few hours of training but the real results come from what you do when you are not with your Trainer. That doesn't mean you have to change your whole lifestyle, but if your Trainer doesn't discuss with you what you are prepared to change and then help you make those changes with tools that keep you accountable to that change then you are missing a key component of what will make your training a success.
At Vision Personal Training, we go as far as giving a 100% money back guarantee on results. How we do that is by being well prepared, setting up and defining success and making sure you are progressing every week. That is why we are Australia's largest and most successful Personal Training business.
