7 Keys to Hiring the Right Personal Fitness Trainer

Personal fitness training, along with the entire fitness industry, is changing. The past year has been one of serious disruption, with COVID-19 dramatically raising the bar for sanitization and health safety. Simultaneously, online fitness alternatives received a huge boost in popularity and have become a more widely accepted means of staying in shape. These disruptions have forced as many as 25% of commercial gyms to close their doors, and it has left many other fitness professionals in a tailspin of uncertainty.

History tells us that the future of personal training will be a tale of two groups: those that evolve and those that become history themselves. However, the demand for fitness is stronger than ever, with a recent study showing that more than 71 million Americans admitted to gaining weight during the pandemic. Still, finding a good personal fitness trainer has always been difficult, and these new industry changes have only made it more difficult.

Quite simply, the year of 2021 will mark the emergence of an evolved fitness professional. The new personal fitness trainer will have many of the same skills as his/her predecessor, but he/she will adapt their day-to-day services and incorporate new technology to confront the new challenges they face, offering a vastly superior personal fitness training service. The seven attributes highlighted below are indications of a personal fitness trainer that has read the writing on the wall and made necessary changes. These changes are not about offering the same service in a more sanitary environment, the characteristics below indicate that the personal trainer has thrived in the changing environment and elevated their service to new levels.

1. Unquestionable cleanliness and social distancing

Fitness trainers operating in traditional commercial gyms will continue to flounder in this area. While most of these gyms have stepped up their sanitization routines, there is simply no way to keep germs at bay in this environment. Gym patrons will continue to grab weights recently held by another member, or breathe in air that has been recently shared by others during their workout.

Look for fitness trainers that operate at smaller studios or other niche environments that can control the cleanliness of both the equipment and the workout area. Better yet, look for a personal fitness trainer that will travel to your home and set up your workout in your house, garage, or driveway. After all, there is no workout environment you can control better than your own home. Just be sure to ask the trainer about their own sanitization procedures.

2. Takes advantage of technology for your workout

We all need to unplug from our devices, and often times a workout is the best time to do so. If you’ve ever tried an online workout routine, you’ve likely experienced a drastic drop in motivation for your workouts. There can be several reasons for this, but one of the most common is device fatigue, which is a sort of hypnotic mental state that our devices create over time.

Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly many benefits to new technology available for our workouts, and it is important that your trainer incorporate those that can benefit you most. For example, your fitness trainer can now monitor your activity on your Fitbit (or other fitness tracker) and offer advice on your daily routine. Even better, some trainers will create online workouts for you to perform on days they are not training with you. This is a great option for many clients, because the fitness trainer can build workouts filled with previously covered exercises, ensuring proper technique can be achieved when working out in isolation. The best fitness trainers will use technology to hold clients accountable to their programs even on days they are not with them.

3. Offers incorporated nutrition services

Proper nutrition is critical to the success of any training program. For too long, commercial gyms and trainers have adopted one of two incorrect views:

• 1) nutrition guidance is something you find elsewhere
• 2) all you really need is a handful of nutrition tips (that usually focus on protein)

A fitness personal training service will have a certified nutritionist (or even a registered dietitian) available that can consult with you and help you reach the goals of your physical training program.

4. Offers a higher level of convenience for you and your schedule

Our world has gotten more convenient, and let’s face it, we expect everything to be immediately available to us. And that’s okay! Higher levels of convenience typically mean increased comfort and more free time to do the things we care about. A personal fitness trainer recognizes this and has evolved their day-to-day operation to offer a more convenient service. This might mean accommodating a session at an unusual hour of the day, or it might mean offering the flexibility of a virtual session when needed.

Undoubtedly, the highest level of convenience is on-site training. Similar to other on-demand services on-site training means that your trainer will arrive for a workout at the location and time of your choice.

5. Delivers measurable results via body-tracking technology

Anyone who has tried a fitness program has experienced the letdown of underwhelming results. Too often we are fed gimmicks from fitness professionals. In fact, many personal fitness trainers do not actually focus on delivering results for their clients and instead focus on building a rapport. These types of trainers, the overwhelming majority, only focus on the client during their training session and do not spend the extra time monitoring their results and making thoughtful adjustments to their programs.

The personal fitness trainer pulls together information from several areas when executing a training program for a client:

• 1) the client’s goals
• 2) their knowledge of goal achieving fitness programming
• 3) the way their client’s body is responding to the training

The third component is just as important as the other two, and it is all too often overlooked. The right personal fitness trainer will regularly take the client’s body measurements and adjust the training program, ensuring the client reaches their results in a reasonable timeframe.

While they are expensive, the best way to monitor progress is through a 3D imaging device. These devices deliver a full 3D body rendering and often provide a detailed health report, making it the ideal way to track your body’s progress.

6. Customizes programming for every client

We are all unique people, from our personalities to our fitness abilities, and everything in between. There is a reason that diets like the Atkins diet or workout programs like P90X deliver different results for each person. Our bodies are different, and therefore each of us will respond differently to training! Still, a common temptation for personal fitness trainers is to offer the same workout program to different people. While this reduces programming time, it is a path to unmitigated failure for the client. This trend has only increased in the dawn of online personal training, because a trainer can simply design a routine, or record a workout, and sell that it to many different people. Sure, this drives the price down, but what are you really paying for? One-size-fits-all programs deliver nothing more than one-size-fits-few results.

"One-size-fits-all programs deliver nothing more than one-size-fits-few results."

The right personal fitness trainers will develop and adjust unique programs for each individual client they work with. The experience will be completely tailored to the individual and their goals.

7. Excels at the things that were always important

While the right personal fitness trainers need to offer higher levels of service, they must also remain adept at the core principles of personal fitness training. It remains paramount to listen to a client’s goals, assemble successful workout programming, educate clients on exercise, utilize proper technique, increase mobility, prevent injury, increase confidence, build a rapport, and so much more. Odds are, if your personal trainer was successful in previous year, and they have adapted to the industry disruptions in the ways mentioned above, you are likely working with a best-in-class professional that will deliver your fitness goals and top notch service.

Are you ready to hire a personal trainer? Mobile Trainers is a personal fitness training company operating in Scottsdale, Arizona, and we strive to implement all the best practices mentioned in this article. If you are interested in learning more about our home training service, please schedule a free evaluation session, where one of the members of our staff will be happy to come give you a free consultation, 3D body scan, and advise you on achieving your fitness goals.