Do you know what a Personal Trainer does? And what do you need?

So I figured I'd jump on here and give you a bit of insight to things I've been thinking about a lot lately when it comes to my client journey. So put these thoughts down for you and let me know what you think about them.

The first one being when you go to hire a personal trainer, I think, what is the outcome or goal that the person is looking for? Because it's hard for you, the new client, to know how many sessions, how long the sessions need to be, how long the contract needs to with the Personal Trainer (forever? 3 months? Initially 3 times a week scaling back to 1 time a week?).

And why should you know? I know that your goal isn't to do personal training, its to achieve your goal through exercise and potentially nutrition instruction. Personal training is rarely the endpoint for someone, but the start of the journey.

If you are hiring a professional personal trainer, you obviously value expertise outside of your own zone of genius. Me personally, as the fitness professional with doctoral level university learning and 16 years experience, I want to know all of the factors of the new client (skillset, experience, goals, injuries, stress levels, available time) that will help to shape my expert opinion based on my expertise for getting you where you want to be.

Now we don't have in our industry a "regulation level of personal trainer" like "senior" or "head" or associate, and it's certainly true that years in the job doth not equal number of hours of experience, and courses completed doesn't mean a person knows application. All of these also don't necessarily wash together to make you the best personal trainer in the world. Because the best personal trainer in the world is the one that resonates best with the client. So that said, here are the some of

Spoiler alert, it's more than just telling you what to do. The amount that a personal trainer will charge per say, is typically based on the value that they bring to the session based on the courses that they've done, the experience that they've had, and also potentially the demand they have for the services.

So what that looks like is,

On one level, you've got someone who's holding you accountable and may week to week be able to say “you haven't been to the gym besides seeing me”, but you'll be more accountable with that person if you're going to that person, three times a week or more, because that's your required number of times to go per week and they will either know you did or you didn't go to the session.

A personal trainer leads you through a safe exercise session. They don't just tell you what to do, the exercises should be appropriate, have balance (front and back and sides of your body) and take into account what you actually want to achieve.

(bonus) there also should be some thought behind it that's linked to your goals and they should have done a movement screen and a health screen. So first, they're doing no harm. I've referred new clients straight to a doctor who referred them for surgery based on what I found out in a screening assessment.

(also bonus) and potentially creating some thriving experiences for your life and educating you a little bit more during your session as well.

Nutrition Coaching: On top of that, a personal trainer or coach might be able to give you some nutrition advice if they're legally allowed to do that (if they've got a nutrition qualification). It tends to be for me, I find when in a physical session with someone (because they're trying to lift a weight), then I'm trying to tell them about how many times to lift a weight, and what strength training is about, and why we use a certain weight for a certain amount of time, and why we do it a certain

So usually if someone wants extra nutrition advice beyond macros, that's coaching. If someone already has exercise experience and they've got really good technique, I'll suggest towards doing online coaching so that we can assess accountability for sessions that aren't held with me, as well as talking about behavioral strategies, mindset and things that they need to be aware of for health in their day-to-day, their week and also how to adjust based on what comes up for them.

It's a really good learning experience for you when you do coaching with me because then when you're doing check ins, things that come up such as holidays birthdays, weddings, that sort of thing. It's possible to address them on the go, sort of ad hoc which is a really nice learning tool and good way to receive the information. So clients get a lot of value from that.

That said that depends on the level of experience that the you have doing the technique. Personal trainers that have been in the industry for less than five years, and potentially 10 years if they've only been doing it for a part time for a long period of time. If they've been in the industry for less than that amount of time, training someone online is probably a poor experience for you. The online version should really be for coaches that have been coaching for long enough in a gym setting whe

Other things that personal trainers can help with is suggestions around how to overcome obstacles you have in your week. If you're unable to get in for exercise or if your sleep is diminished, or potentially you're going through some things like stress at work I comment on strategies that I've had with experience from other clients. So that can be quite helpful, especially if you're really stuck in the middle of something and you're being too hard on yourself. It can be really objective to hear