7 Things to Look for in a Personal Trainer

 

A new year, a new you! Everybody should be putting their health as #1 on their list of resolutions for 2014.  Finding the right person trainer to set up a program that will guide you and push you to meet your goals in a healthy and realistic way can be challenging. Here are a few important tips to keep in mind!

1. Attention to your form

Not only is proper form essential in preventing injury, but it’s also essential in achieving optimal results. You’re paying for your trainer’s expertise to notice those minor nuances that completely change the effectiveness and safety of a given exercise; if your trainer isn’t watching you closely and adjusting your movement patterns, you deserve more for your money!

2. Do you have 100% of his/her attention?

We get that it’s an electronic age with a million things calling for our attention at any given moment; however, you paid for those 55 minutes/that hour, and not for your trainer’s twitter updates. Bottom line: it’s unacceptable for your trainer to give you/your group anything but their full attention.

3.  Proper progression

Typically you crawl before you walk, and you walk before you run, right? Training is no different. When you first begin a training program or you haven’t been doing resistance training on a regular basis, there is no need for your trainer to whip out Cirque de Sole moves your first visit. The first four to six weeks of a new training regimen, your body is simply adapting to being trained on a regular basis. Workouts shouldn’t consist of more than one set of 15-20 repetitions of each exercise with a very manageable weight, and shouldn’t exceed one hour. Remember, fitness is a lifestyle; to continue that lifestyle, you can’t be too sore to move.

4.  Stabilization training is included

Your body mainly consists of two muscular systems: a stabilization system and a movement system. Stabilization is one of the most important and overlooked aspects of a workout regimen. For the shoulder joint, examples of exercises to target this system would be sub-scapular push-ups, internal/external rotation, “Y’s” and “T’s”. Glute/hip stabilization, with a focus on the rotators, and core/lower back stabilization are other often neglected areas.  If this sounds completely foreign to you, most likely your trainer is missing this; again, you deserve better!

5.  Working muscle groups in a balanced fashion

Outside of motivation, the main reason people seek out a trainer is that they’re unsure of which exercises to do, in what order to do them, and how frequently they should be performed. Unless you have decided upon a split routine, a full-body training session should include just that – an exercise for each major muscle group. If your trainer issues only abdominal, chest and glute exercises, not only are you not getting your money’s worth, but more importantly you’re creating imbalances that will become full injuries if not corrected.

6.  48 hours rest between functional resistance training workouts

Muscles don’t actually grow while you’re training. The training process actually causes miniscule tears in the muscle; it is only during rest following resistance training that they repair and grow. If your muscles are not given that time to repair, you continue to breakdown the muscle tissue, eventually leading to overtraining and injury. Again, unless you’re following a split routine and therefore only training a couple muscle groups at a time, your muscles need at least 48 hours rest between resistance training workouts. If your trainer prescribes four to five consecutive training sessions per week, you’re in the wrong hands.

7. Variety in your workouts

If your training session is exactly the same each time, or looks eerily similar to the client training before and/or after you, you deserve better! After all, every body type, itsimbalances, and each client’s goals are different; your session should pertain to you. In the event of major injuries/restrictions, exercise variety is limited; however, at least some variety is necessary for you to continue to progress. For obvious reasons, this is somewhat limited in classes and semi-private sessions.