As a trainer, I’m continuously searching the web for the newest trends, educating myself through related articles and periodicles, and searching for industry discussion boards. While recenlty in my studies I came across Jimi Varners blog.
Jimi Varner is a fitness consultant and public speaker in Novi Michigan. I found his lates blog very educational. The blog titled “5 Questions To Ask Before Hiring a Personal Trainer”, will give anybody insight on the subject.
Here is the brief list of 5 questions:
- Are you certified?
- Do you have testimonials and/or credentials?
- What’s your training philosophy?
- Have you helped anybody reach the specific goals I have?
- Will you design a total program that I can implement on my own?
These are very important questions that anybody considering hiring a pt should consider asking that person. To further read more in depth on these five questions please visit http://TrimWithJim.com
I will not expand on these questions. However, I do have one important comment to add too this for anybody that’s considering hiring a pt.
……..be on the lookout for the old “hook, line and sinker” sales approach to personal training. A select few of trainers will throw this at the individual immediately following the consultation. When the big question of “how many personal training sessions should I start with?” arises, often times a trainer will pull out from under his/her clipboard a personal training packaging price list. “If you purchase this many sessions, I’ll give you this much money off.”
Training should and must be sold on a client pre-qualifying basis only, that is measured by time and the human bodies reaction to exercise in a given amount of time. As body styles, goals, human potential and motivation differs, so does the number of sessions any given individual may need. As personal training is indeed “personal”, it should be individualized, not packaged base.
Therefore, 2 individuals with relatively similiar goals and with different body types, should be pre-qualified for different numbers of personal training sessions, not packaged up with a pretty pink bow!
So if you are consulting with any trainer who flips to the back of their clip board…..RUN! You’ll probably accomplish more running away anyway.