Hiring a Personal Trainer – Do or Don't?

It’s very easy to find a ‘professional personal trainer’ at any gym nowadays. These trainers are paid a large amount of money to provide you with a few hours per week. They guarantee results regarding your physical fitness. But how professional or certified are these trainers?

The answer usually is not so much. There are trainers that are both well-equipped with knowledge and physically fit themselves. However, most of them will only be present at your local gym to make some money off of your goals. Since most training services are likely to cost an average of $75 per hour, you will expect your trainer to be highly qualified in both training and nutrition guidance.

Not all trainers are experienced

Wearing a uniform or a fancy tag does not make your trainer a professional and experienced one. Most of these trainers have a personal training license that is fairly easy to obtain. Just by learning of only some very basic and outdated information regarding training techniques and workouts. Due to this, almost anyone can become a ‘certified’ trainer, whether they even have the knowledge or expertise to be one or not.

This is a cause of great concern for people who head to the gym looking for results. In most cases, even if you pay such a huge amount to hire a personal trainer, it may not be effective at all if the trainer himself is not trained enough. Then why would you even hire a personal trainer? With only a few hours on the internet conducting research, you can learn almost everything that your local trainer will tell you.

Where to seek for help and advice

Our website has a range of valuable tips and knowledge regarding these topics. Niches like fitness training, its types and complexities and even nutrition or supplements – everything can be found very easily.

There's also a variety of valuable information on youtube or books. We suggest learning these things yourself rather than paying each session.

Risks that come with hiring a personal trainer

If your trainer isn’t well qualified and experienced himself, he is only going to overburden and overwhelm you with the thought of becoming fit. This could include forcing you to adhere to an eating plan that makes your life extremely stressful. This can be demotivating and sending you far, far away from reaching your goal of physical fitness.

Another reason why most people don’t see any significant results within themselves despite training for weeks is that their ‘certified personal trainer’ isn’t even in good shape himself. If your trainer couldn’t guide himself towards physical fitness, how can you expect him to guide you? As harsh as it sounds. Perhaps they do have an understanding in theory, but it's the actual experience that makes the difference.

Although it is understood that looking fit is not an ultimate determinant of physical fitness, but it surely adds to it. If you are paying someone to help you out at the gym, make sure that they are in shape themselves first. Since it is very rare to find a personal trainer who is in impressively good shape himself, you’re likely to never find a good enough personal trainer at all.

They are not all that bad, but you got few a things to consider

If you decide to hire a personal trainer for your fitness regime, here are a few rules that you shouldn’t compromise on:

If your professional trainer begins the conversation with promises of unrealistic results within weeks, just walk away. Physical fitness is not a pill that can be taken 5 days a week to show results. You will actually have to work hard towards your goal in order to achieve and retain it in the long term.
Always ask your trainer about the exercise routine he is going to follow. If he starts naming an intense, 4-5 day per week workout with any advanced training techniques, this probably isn’t the place for you. As a beginner, your effort will be minimal, and a personal trainer should know that. Unless, ofcourse, you are not a beginner and that is exactly what you are looking for.

Also, ensure that cardio isn’t over-emphasized, and your trainer does not tell you to run on the treadmill alone while he enjoyably uses his phone. You can run on a treadmill by yourself, you don’t need to be charged hourly for that.
Any extremely difficult, hard to maintain and ‘only eat clean’ diet plans should be avoided. This is outdated nutritional advice that will not only starve your body of the important nutrients that it needs to become fit, but also make it very difficult for you to retain these habits in the long run. If you are a beginner, you need to gradually change your lifestyle, not immediatelly. One step at a time. A good personal trainer should understand this.