There are tons of lists out there that walk you through the qualities of a good personal trainer. Things like credentials, experience and training philosophy are all important, but the trainers who really stand out tend to have qualities that don’t necessarily come on paper. And they’re often born of experience. Here are five innate characteristics of the best personal trainers, plus where to find someone who has them all.
Looking For A Personal Trainer? Look For These Qualities
There must be thousands of personal trainers in Reno and Sparks, and making the decision to hire one can be understandably daunting. Looking for these qualities is a great start.
Listening Skills
The role of a personal trainer is to apply their own expertise and training to help you achieve your goals. And that requires excellent listening skills. Your trainer needs to be very clear on your training past, any challenges you’re currently experiencing, and your ideas for what you’re hoping to achieve. They can’t do that without listening to you, and that needs to be the standard dynamic. If a trainer routinely talks over you, consider it a red flag.
Communication Skills
Having all of the knowledge in the world is essentially useless if your trainer can’t effectively communicate it to you. So the real ability comes not in just knowing how to help you train and find success, but in sharing that information in such a way that you truly understand.
Ability To Problem Solve
While the basic equation for improving fitness is regular exercise and a reasonable diet, there can be stumbling blocks along the way. A good personal trainer needs to be thoughtful and analytical,assessing what’s going on in your life to pinpoint any issues that are keeping you from progressing.
Empathetic
For so many of us, body weight and fitness abilities are fraught issues. We live in a society that puts so much emphasis on the physical, and by the time most people turn to a personal trainer, they’ve often tried and failed to find success on their own.A good personal trainer is intimately aware of the inner struggles so many of us face and has the capacity to handle that with grace.
Quick To Adapt
Every client is different, and while a trainer may have a go-to methodology, it should always be adaptable to the unique challenges and goals of every patient. Personal training is just that – personal. Your fitness routine should be created for you as an individual,and it should be ever-evolving as your strength and endurance changes or as life events happen. The value of a trainer is in that evolution. Otherwise, what’s the point? If all you need is a static template to follow, you could work out with a free app or online video.
The Bottom Line
By broadening your definition of a personal trainer from someone who’s there to push you through a workout to someone who will help you grow and find success in a truly collaborative process, you’re setting yourself up for a really great experience. Learn more about what makes Paul Fischer a different kind of personal trainer. Contact him today for a free consultation.
