It’s the new year, and you’re feeling motivated and ready to kickstart your healthy regime. You’ve already decided that you are going to find the perfect personal trainer to help, but Google has 10 pages of options, you’re completely overwhelmed by what’s available, and you can’t be sure that what you read on a website reflects what you’ll get in real life.

Finding the right personal trainer is a challenge. No question. Here are a few tips on how to approach the search.

Consider your high level requirements

When you hire a trainer, you’re paying good money to fulfil a need that you have. It’s all very well to say that you want to get fit, but to get the most out of the personal trainer experience, you need to know what your requirements are before even beginning to look at the trainers in your area.

Do you have a preference for the gender of your trainer? Do you want to train at home, at a gym, or outside? Are you looking for someone who has a no pain, no gain approach or someone with a gentler philosophy? How often will you be able to train? What are the high level outcomes you’re looking for? Perhaps you want to learn how to lead a healthier lifestyle day to day, perhaps you are preparing for a big life event like a wedding, or perhaps you are already in training and need a trainer to help you to advance to the next level. These are all examples of things that you should consider before beginning the process of looking for your trainer, because this will help you to focus your search.

Request a meeting

There are LOTS of trainers around. Each trainer is a person, and we are all different, so you are likely to connect with one trainer differently to another. Don’t be afraid to shop around and arrange initial meetings with the trainers that you think might be a good fit for you, just so that you can spend a bit of time with them and gauge how comfortable you are with them.

Finding the right personal trainer is all about gauging how you connect. It's difficult to predict who you will click with just by looking at a website. You’ll be spending lots of 1:1 time together, so that sense of feeling relaxed and comfortable in a face to face scenario is vital. When you meet the right trainer, you’ll know! 

It's personal!

Remember, you are hiring a “personal” trainer. You are paying good money for that personal element. It’s vital that you feel comfortable. You must feel that you can trust your trainer, that they are invested in you and your progress, and that you are able to speak to them openly about where you are and any challenges that you are facing. Finally, you aren’t looking for a trainer who will apply a pre-packaged one-size –fits-all programme to you (you can save yourself lots of money by finding a programme online if that’s what is on offer). You’re looking for a trainer who will create a programme for YOU, accommodating all of your requirements, quirks, and goals. Ultimately, that’s what you’re paying for.

Take your time

When you get the urge to kickstart a healthy regime, the tendency is to jump in, join a gym, hire a trainer and spend loads of money on new workout gear immediately. This is often quickly followed by guilt and regret when the money is going out of the account but the gym membership card is nowhere to be found, the clothes are gathering dust, and you’ve stopped seeing your trainer because you always found a reason to cancel. This is often due to impulsive decision making and a sense that getting things done and bought quickly will yield the best results.

When it comes to your health and fitness journey, you’re making a long term lifestyle change. Make the most of the energy that you have to drive forward, but there’s no need to make rash decisions. In the long run, they will hinder you.

Take your time to choose a trainer. You can gauge a lot from the way that a trainer interacts with you on the phone or via email. From that, you can decide on whether you want to set up an introductory meeting. From that meeting, you can make a decision on whether you feel that you will benefit from having that trainer in your life. Don’t put yourself under pressure to make a decision too quickly, and definitely don’t allow anyone else to make you feel obliged to decide before you’re ready.

Remember the purpose of having a personal trainer

Ultimately, you want a personal trainer because you feel that you need someone to keep you on track with your fitness aspirations. You want someone who will make sure that you get your workouts done every week, and the assurance that the work that you are doing will pay dividends. Most of all, you want to feel that your trainer cares about you and your progress, and is willing to put the effort into training you that you expect for the price that you are paying.

If at any point you are speaking to a trainer and you are unsure that they meet any of those basic points, stop and assess whether they are the right fit for you. Every trainer has their own approach, and every client has their own requirements, so the perfect trainer for you is out there. It might just take a bit of time to find them!

Hopefully these suggestions will help you on your search, but if you have any questions that you’d like to ask on the topic of how to find the right personal trainer, I’m happy to help! Just use the contact form HERE and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

To your success!