The 5 biggest problems with hiring a personal trainer
Hiring a personal trainer may not be for you, you have no guarantee they are going to help you get the results you want, it’s a lot of money and how do you know if you’ve picked the right one? Full disclosure I (Charlie) am a Personal Trainer and an Online Coach, but we may not be the best fit for each other, there may be someone else who you get on better with and who’s values/approach line up with you. In this article, we are going to talk about the most common problems in hiring a personal trainer and how to make sure the coach you hire, is right for you. We have made it as comprehensive as possible to make sure you don’t waste your money. Our goal at Hack The Body Hack The Mind is to help as many people as possible, so by making sure you get the personal trainer that is right for you, is going to do just that!
1) You are not guaranteed results
One of the scariest things about paying a personal trainer is you have to guarantee they are going to help you get the results you want. There is a plethora of PT’s (personal trainers) out there all calming they can burn fat, and build muscle all in a 12-week period. But there is no guarantee that is actually going to happen. So how do you make sure you are going to get results?
Ask as many questions as you can. Coaching is a collaborative effort, meaning the coach and client have to work together to achieve results. Asking as many questions as you can will do two things.
You will gain knowledge that will mean in the future you may not need a coach (which should always be the goal of the personal trainer, to teach you what to do)
You are testing the knowledge of the coach. If the PT can’t answer your questions or isn’t honest with their knowledge, then how are they going to get you to your goals?
Guidance. Your coach is like a teacher or a SatNav, here to guide you to your destination, but you still have to make the turns. That means your coach should be giving you advice on what to do and how to do it. This is either done by the conversations you have 1-2-1 or via your Check-ins if you are an online client.
Ask about the future. Your goal is to either lose weight, gain muscle, gain strength or get ready for an event, so the deadline for this is in the future. Your coach should have a plan for the future, not just tomorrow, or next week but 12 weeks In the future, even a year or 4 years. The timeline will be different for everyone but there should be a plan of action on how you are going to get where you want to get. Ask to see this plan.
Now these things don’t guarantee you results, but they make sure your personal trainer has thought about what you want to achieve and how they are you are going to get there.
2) Personal Training is too expensive
Personal Training is expensive. Depending on where you are in the UK you could be paying £20 - £100* a session. (*average/estimated costs of a 1 Personal Training session) - If we say that the average PT Session in Bristol is £30-£40 that could start to rack up a huge bill if you see this person once a week or even more. So how do you make sure the trainer is worth the money they are asking for? And why is personal training so expensive?
Knowledge, experience, location and demand. This is what goes into the costings.
How long have they been a personal trainer?
What qualifications do they have and what do they know?
Where are they based?
How popular is this personal trainer?
These are all questions you should be asking yourself. This will help you understand why it’s so expensive. If a personal trainer who has 1 year's worth of experience and has maybe worked with 10 - 30 people is charging £40 plus, I’d be questioning what justifies the cost, is it the results their clients have got or is it just the location/demand?
But why is it so expensive to hire a personal trainer? So normally the more experience the more a PT would charge. The more in demand they are, the more they would charge. How prime is the location? More charge. But there is also an effort being put in behind the scenes (at least there should be) Planning a session takes time, messaging back and forth with the client, having to pay the gym rent, software costs, insurance and the list goes on…
So to make sure you're paying the right price, ask yourself those questions.
3) Knowledge
We have touched on this slightly already. But there are a lot of coaches who know nothing. They only care about money or themselves and don’t care about you getting results. I have seen personal trainers do some crazy things for money, make up fancy exercises and use big words to bamboozle the client into thinking they know a lot. How do you know if the personal trainer knows enough?
Certifications. First of all your personal trainer should be qualified, and have some sort of Certificate in Personal Training. But what additional studies have they done? Have they done any more courses and certifications? - Now I know a lot of knowledgable people with degrees, but I also know a lot of personal trainers who have just their certificates but through self-study have learnt a lot and have gained a lot of knowledge through experience. I would just make sure they are doing some kind of CPD to make sure they are up to date with the current research.
Self Learning. I think this is extremely important. Certificates are expensive and a lot of the information can become out of date quickly as they have to comply with standards and educational boards before publishing the course. I mean it wasn’t long ago certs were still telling people to not let their knees go past their toes when they squat. But books, podcasts, mentors and research studies can (and will) give a lot of knowledge. So make sure if they haven’t done any Certifications since they first started, that they are up to date and continuing to better their knowledge. By asking “Where do you get all of your information from on training and nutrition?”
Experience. So scientific evidence gives us a lot of information and some good guidelines to follow when it comes to health and fitness. But personal experience and anecdotes are still evident. A trainer who has worked with hundreds of people will have seen a lot and had to solve a lot of problems. So by finding someone with experience, the likelihood is they have a lot of knowledge.
Be aware of big words. A personal trainer needs to know all of the science and understand a lot of knowledge. But the true test of a personal trainer is being able to make complex problems and solutions, simple. “Think Coach, Speak Client” - Be able to know the nuances of training and nutrition but be able to make it easy to understand for the client. A personal trainer who uses big words (without explaining what they mean) does so to make you think they are smarter than they really are. They do it to confuse you.
Make sure the personal trainer you hire has a lot of knowledge by making sure of those things above. Make sure they know what they are talking about. Even listen to podcasts (shameless plug, Real Coaching Radio or externally MindPump) to let you know what is right and wrong.
4) They make you do things you don’t want to do
This is crucial. How many of your friends talk about being worked so hard they were almost sick? Or so they collapsed? And the personal trainer wears it like a badge of honour? What if you don’t want to train the way that a personal trainer does things? You don’t have to… and they shouldn’t make you.
The biggest thing that will help you get results is for you to stay consistent. You stay consistent by doing what you enjoy. So your personal trainer should help you find out what exercise you enjoy, and tailor the experience to you. So many trainers have a “way” or a “system” and try to make everyone do that system, (they try to jam a square peg into a round hole). They don’t adapt or adjust their method to suit the people in front of them, they have the same approach with everything. Be it 1200-calorie diets, low carbs or hours of cardio. They have the attitude of “do what I say if you don’t like it, that’s your problem!”
There is an optimal way to help you get to your goals, but that means nothing if you hate it. Be aware of trainers who make you do things you don’t want to do.
5) Finding one you like.
Finding a personal trainer is like choosing a dish at a restaurant. They are all different, Some are Italian dishes, some spicy, some are low-calorie, and some are mouth-watering burgers. They’re all food but for some reason, one dish is more appealing to me and a different one to you, and that’s because it just is! The same goes for PTs, they all have different approaches and personalities. I mean it is Personal Training. So it can be hard to find the right one. A good way to see if someone is the right fit for you:
Watch them around the gym and how they interact with their clients, are they professional? Are they too professional? Are they always on their phone? Are they teaching the client or commanding the client? What style do you like the look of?
Look at their content. Content will show a lot about someone, are they helpful with their information and does their personality come across on their posts? A lot of the ways we pick coaches are through the internet, so see what they are like on the internet. What are their values and views? And do they align with you?
Can they communicate? The job of a personal trainer is to communicate how to do exercises, how to eat the right foods, and why you're doing what you're doing. If they can not communicate and speak in your language (remember speak client) then they are not going to be the right trainer for you. Trainers are teachers of exercise. If you can’t do an exercise it is a trainer's job to get you to do it correctly, it is not a problem with you, it is a problem with the trainer.
There is a lot that goes into making the right decision for a trainer. Making sure you get on is huge, probably the biggest thing as you are going to spend a lot of time with this person. But they also need to be worth the price you pay by having the correct knowledge to help you get to where you need to get too. Think of a personal trainer like a plumber, you have some plumbers who pass the tools, and some plumbers who are certified to work with Gas. You wouldn’t hire the tool passer to work on your boiler, it’s not safe. Well, the same goes for personal trainers. You want one who has experience or at least passion for their job, not someone who is going to be on their phone half the time and disinterested the other half. Your body is much more important than a plumber and your feelings about the way you look are way too important to not do your due diligence and check if this person is for you.
There is also no harm in using a few personal trainers until you find the right one. Be careful not to just jump from person to person because you haven’t got the results you wanted (there is normally a reason why and again, your personal trainer should be able to explain why) but looking for the right personal trainer can take a while and we wish you the best of luck in finding one who helps you get to your goals.
Hopefully, the points in this article help you to decide which personal trainer is right for you and give you a good idea of the problems within the fitness industry. If you have any questions, comment below or email us at Info@hackthebodyhackthemind.com
