Finding a Personal Trainer: What to Look For and What to Expect
If you’re working toward a specific health goal, you’ve probably considered hiring a personal trainer at one point or another. Personal trainers are an excellent resource for accelerating your progress and keeping you on track throughout your fitness journey. However, not all personal trainers are created equally. To reach your goals, it’s important to find a trainer who has the expertise and qualifications to help get you where you want to be. For the best results, you’ll want to work with someone whose methods and personality mesh well with yours. Otherwise, you risk hindering your progress by working with a trainer who is unqualified or is just not the right fit for you.
We’ll tell you how to find a good personal trainer and how often you should see them for optimal results.
1 What Does a Personal Trainer Do?
The main job of a personal trainer is to design personalized workout plans and teach you to do each exercise safely and effectively. They also often help you with your nutrition and mental blocks, keep you motivated, and help you prevent injury during your workouts as you work hard on your fitness goals. Personal trainers also use their skills and knowledge to help you safely push
beyond your comfort zone to ensure that you are making measurable progress during your workouts.
2 How to Find the Right Personal Trainer
There are many personal trainers out there, but that doesn’t mean that every single trainer is right for you. Not only do you want to look for a personal trainer with the right credentials, but you’ll also want to consider their personality, training style, and experience with your individual health or fitness goals.
For example, if you are training for a bodybuilding competition, you may not want to work with a trainer who specializes in postpartum fitness. You’ll want to find someone whose expertise matches your goals to make sure you’re getting the best possible results.
In addition to their technical skills, it’s also important that your personalities mesh well. If you would benefit more from a laid-back, fun environment, chances are you won’t have much success working with a very strict, military-style trainer.
The best way to make sure you’re choosing the right personal trainer is to conduct a few interviews before hiring someone. Interview trainers until you meet one that you click with, who
understands your goals and lifestyle and uses methods that align with your needs. That’s how you’ll know that you’ve found the right fitness partner.
3 How Often You Should See a Personal Trainer
While it would be great if we could get away with only working out for a few minutes each day, the truth is that getting the results you want takes hard work and dedication. With so many distractions and our modern sedentary lifestyles, it can be difficult to pull yourself up off the couch for a workout. Personal trainers are there to motivate you even on the days you’d rather binge your favorite Netflix show with a lap full of snacks.
Deciding how often to see a personal trainer depends on your personal fitness goals. Generally speaking, experts advise seeing a personal trainer for 3 one-hour sessions each week for those who are just starting out. This will help you build a sustainable workout routine that is tailored to your needs, stay motivated, and reduce the risk of injury.
While working with a personal trainer, you can expect to start seeing results in just a few weeks. This is because you will be motivated to work much harder under the supervision of a personal trainer than you would be working out alone. They will help you safely push yourself out of your comfort zone to get results fast, without risking an injury that could delay your progress.
Finding the right trainer and seeing them on a regular basis will accelerate your progress and help get you where you want to be more quickly than if you were to try to do it all on your own. If you’ve been working out consistently and are fed up with not seeing results, or if you’re brand new to fitness and don’t know where to begin, working with a personal trainer may be the best next step for you.