12 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Personal Trainer
Two cups of black coffee later, I continued to sit. Still waiting for a client that never showed.
The situation had me thinking about why some clients receive better results than others. Though there are many factors as to why, today we will look more specifically at the personal trainer-to-client relationship. What you, the client, have to remember is that you are in this for the long haul. This isn’t just about a 16, 24, or even a 52+ week program with a personal trainer. This is the journey to shape who you are and how you feel about yourself.
It is the client’s job to work hard both inside and outside of the gym while the trainer provides a road map to the next destination. Your personal trainer will share a wealth of knowledge with you during each session and via their website, email, text, and/or other sources of communication. I admit that when I work with clients, I take the blame if a client has not been successful, or they have not performed their “homework” assigned to them outside of our time together. For me, it is as if I have not provided them with the right resources to succeed.
Personal training is an investment you have made in yourself and an investment made in yourself can go a long way!
Think about it like this. After your personal training program ends, how will you live your life? Will you continue the same path you are on now, or will you return to your old ways? The hope is that you will not and that you will take your newfound knowledge with you to continue your journey sculpting your physique.
Remember, you spend about one hour with your personal trainer per session. This is important to consider, especially if you only work out when you meet your trainer. This means that there is plenty of time to forgo everything you did in that one hour, but also plenty of time to accelerate what you did for better results.
12 Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Personal Trainer
1. Show Up
You guessed it!
Showing up to your personal training session(s) consistently leads to the overall ability for one to reach their goal(s). I for one am understanding when individuals need to reschedule. It happens. Especially, this time of the year as illness rates increase and incidents occur. When one must cancel a session, it is important to complete a make-up session. Unfortunately, when a session is missed, results are further delayed. For many clients, I use a software program where I can post a workout to their training program’s calendar for them to perform with the use of the equipment they have access to (if any). It is imperative that he or she still completes a workout. Remember, consistency is key. Yet, if one becomes ill, listen to your body. It may be more logical to go for a walk or rest.
If you know that you are not going to be able to attend a session in advance, let your personal trainer know. This is important for you financially as many trainers have a cancellation policy in place. If you are not sure, ask. Now trust me, I know, a cancellation policy can be a nuisance. But, what has to be taken into account is that your trainer is performing this as his or her full-time job to pay the bills. Therefore, this cancellation policy is a means of protecting themselves financially. When I implemented my cancellation policy, which requires a client to provide 24 hours in advance or they will be charged a session fee, it was originally to keep clients accountable. Before this policy, I recall many clients canceling due to being tired after work and others wanting to get drinks with their friends. For you to be most consistent and prevent cancellations, pick the same day(s) and time(s) for each week if you can. This will allow you to remember when your sessions are without having to check your calendar upon making other appointments.
2. Be Communicative
Communication is key in many if not all areas of life. If a client does not like or understand something, I ask that he or she communicate with me. Otherwise, I assume everything is okay. Also, please express to your personal trainer what the best way to communicate with you is. I have some clients that I go back and forth with via email, text, social media, and some merely prefer to chat in person or over the phone. My goal is to make each client’s experience as “enjoyable” and injury-free as possible. If an individual is not enjoying their experience, they will then associate their time with a personal trainer and exercise negatively.
What each session will require is hard work, but not to the extent that the exercises are inadequate for you. Instead, you should feel confident in your performance each time, and each time the movement may progressively get harder as you advance. There is a difference however between one hating to perform an exercise, such as lunges, and one hating the overall experience because the trainer has not done his or her job.
Remember, your job is to communicate so that both you and the trainer have a clear understanding.
3. Ask Questions
Personal training clients should never feel afraid or hesitant to ask questions. I’ve heard many stories where individuals have asked their past trainer a question and in return, they were laughed at or told not to ask questions. Not all personal trainers, strength coaches, physical therapists, chiropractors, etc are like this. Not by any means.
You are paying for a specific service conducted by an individual who is a professional in the specific service you are investing in. Therefore, you deserve the right to feel confident all of the time.
I relish questions as it offers me an opportunity to continue to learn. The more you learn, the more you recognize how much you actually do not know. If I do not have an answer for you, I will find it as an individual should not pretend that they have the answer to everything, because they do not by any means.
4. Feel the Muscle
During the initial coaching of an exercise, your coach will inform you of the specific muscle(s) being activated. If you forget or are not aware of where you should “feel” a muscle activate while performing an exercise, just ask. If you know which muscles are supposed to activate, but just can’t seem to get them activated, let your coach know as well. A slight adjustment of the exercise can be incorporated so that you have a better feel of the movement. It is completely fine and happens a great deal. By having the ability to contract and “feel” the right muscles activate for an exercise, you will have better success in muscular strength and growth.
When a client cannot quite feel a specific muscle activate, I have the client perform isolation work. By isolating the muscle during an exercise, we allow the client to “feel the muscle”. In addition, by having that mind-body connection throughout a full range of the exercise performed, we can then learn how to recruit that specific muscle for bigger lifts. The more muscles we can activate during a big lift, the more weight we can move. Sometimes we may even need to slow down an exercise or increase/decrease the weight until the client feels the muscle activate.
5. Learn Technique
What you see at your local gym, might not always be the correct way to perform a movement. There are many individuals out there who perform exercises improperly, but not always. The same goes for how you think you are performing a movement versus what you look like when you perform a movement.
You will witness a lot of individuals swaying their back in an attempt to curl the weight upward, not starting the deadlift (or any exercise for that matter) with tension throughout the body, or a lack of adaptation for an exercise that is better for his or her ability. Nobody wants to get injured. Nobody! Perform any exercise incorrectly while lifting heavyweight and you are bound to tweak something at some point.
Do note that there is no perfect form. Each individual is different from one another and one individual will have to squat, press, pull, and even hip hinge slightly differently than another. Your personal trainer should be able to explain and coach you through an exercise. If you experience pain while performing an exercise, speak up and communicate this to your coach. Again, there are plenty of variations to place you into the right movement pattern for you, injury-free.
6. Be Open, Be Honest
If you find the right personal trainer, they are like counselors in disguise. I want my clients to be open and honest with me and I am sure your trainer or trainer-to-be does as well. One of my goals is to give each client some time to chat about anything. That moment of communication might lead to an underlying issue you were unaware of. By discussing what you are stressed about or what is going on in life, my hope is that you will feel not only physically, but also emotionally better than when you first started your workout.
Now, the next part is about honesty. There are some things clients choose not to tell their personal trainer. Things like how much they are really eating and drinking, their level of intensity during a session, if they are having financial constraints, and so forth. Sit down and chat with your personal trainer.
Listen, your personal trainer is human. He or she is not perfect by any means. We all have our flaws, but be honest with them. I always tell my clients my flaws: I love craft beer, I love sweets, I drink entirely too much coffee, and I do not sleep very much. If you are not doing something outside of your time together that you are supposed to be doing, then be honest. This is important because when you are not hitting your marks (i.e., circumference measurements, weight, improve performance), but state that you are performing everything outside of the gym on point, coaches may become concerned that there is a greater issue taking place and do everything they can to solve the problem.
Financial constraints are a big area of concern as well. If you are having financial constraints, talk to your trainer. They have bills to pay as well and understand finances. I tell clients all of the time there are options. This is one reason why I allow clients to make payments to meet their financial capabilities. I do not want to see someone not receiving the help they want because personal training is entirely too expensive. There are always options.
In some cases, you can invite a friend and you both split the cost than if you were on your own. Invite more than one friend and you’ve just created a small group personal training session where it is even less expensive. Another option might be a discount for a client you refer. Those are just some examples that might be offered. Do note that every personal trainer is different in how they do business, therefore, you should speak to your gym before inviting someone to your training session.
The end outcome: when you are open and honest, your workouts and results will improve exponentially!
7. Take It Easy
It’s cool to come to the gym and crush it or want that hard workout that just crushes you. But, there is a time and a place for that. There are also those days that are scheduled for easy workouts and rest days so that the body can recover to progress most adequately.
When you stress your body frequently while not allowing your body optimal time to recover, you will begin to experience a decrease in performance and an increase in illness as your immune system declines. Because I state this in such a manner, do not, I repeat do not get the idea that you should not work hard most of the time. With the number of clients I have worked with, I can tell you that most do not stress their bodies to the point of such. I am not saying that they are not working hard, but instead that it requires a great deal of stress to reach this point. On those days when you are exhausted, completely stressed, or even ill, learn to recognize the symptoms and get some rest. On your easy days, think about lifting in the higher repetition range for a few sets or even going for a nice long walk. Your trainer will let you know what to do based on your goals and performance in and outside of the gym.
8. Maximize your Workout Intensity
Intensity can be defined by the amount of physical power used during an activity. Throughout a client’s workout, I like to ask the client if the exercise they are currently performing is easy, medium, or hard. If it is anything less than medium intensity, we make some progressive tweaks.
First, what weight are you using? The weight you use should be a weight for which you can probably perform 1–3 reps more than prescribed. If I prescribe 6–8 repetitions of a barbell back squat, do not choose a weight that you could perform 15 repetitions with and then stop at 7 reps because I prescribed 6–8.
Secondly, what does your speed look like? Depending on the goal of the day or specific exercise, I might ask the client to slow the movement down to feel the muscle(s) better. This also allows you to increase muscle strength by moving slowly on the eccentric phase of the movement.
The moral of the story is don’t tell your trainer that it is really hard if it is not really. Once a trainer gets to know their clients and watches them more frequently, he or she will be able to identify when the client needs to work harder or not. If you feel unsafe, remember your job is to speak up. To get the most out of your personal training session, make sure your intensity is optimal.
9. Do Your Homework
If your personal trainer is not giving you homework, then ask for it. You should be doing something on your days outside of the time you spend with your trainer. This can be anywhere from focusing on a specific dietary goal like finding a new vegetable and meal to make with it, performing a cardio or strength training session, meal prepping, working on mobility, taking care of an injury, and so forth. This is especially true if you are only meeting 1–2 times per week or less. Your goal is to always do better and you cannot be your best if you are not practicing frequently.
10. Fuel Up and Stay Hydrated
Make sure you eat and drink before your workout. Typically, I recommend eating a snack 60-90 minutes before a workout - especially if it has been several hours before having a meal. You passing out, becoming dizzy, or being unable to work as hard due to a lack of nutrition is an area that can be controlled. Try and alleviate this by consuming something prior or if you have fasted before the workout, let your trainer know in advance. The trainer can then alter the workout based on your needs.
11. Take Notes.
You won’t be with your personal trainer forever. Someone needs to be tracking your workouts and keeping notes. This is why I use a journal or particular software to track all exercises, weights, sets, repetitions, and to allow clients the ability to take notes during their workouts. By tracking your workouts, you will be able to monitor your progress over time.
Remembering every exercise performed, every repetition accomplished, and every weight selected during a previous workout is nearly impossible. Without a record of past workouts, it’s also difficult to see measurable progress. Using a workout journal or fitness app is a great resource to help you rock every workout.
12. Be Goal-Oriented
Goals are important. I mean you wouldn’t want your trainer to be getting you ready for a bodybuilding competition if your goal is to run a full marathon, right? Those are two completely different goals. Make sure you have a goal set and explain it to your trainer. He or she will then create a plan and explain to you the steps required to help you reach your goal. Keep in mind that not having a goal in mind makes it much easier to quit as you have nothing to strive for.
Goals are the most important part of any objective that you want to achieve in life. Your personal trainer will be a huge asset here as they will be able to get you thinking deeper about your goals. They will also be able to tell you if you are in over your head. They probably won’t say that, but they will help you create smaller goals to reach your ultimate goal. When you dig deeper into what your true goal is, you will have a reason to keep pushing even on those days when you want to quit.
