Featured Fitness Professional

"Personal Trainers - Are They Worth It?"

By Dean Carlson

I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about my training business, and inevitably hourly rates were discussed. A local gym franchises "personal training" rates were mentioned; the figure of $60 an hour comes to mind. His comment to me was "That's a lot of money just to look good". This got me thinking about a couple things, namely the perception of value within the training industry, and also the perception that the only reason to "workout" is to "look good".

So is a $60 an hour training rate a lot of money? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on who is doing the training. For someone to stand next to you during a workout and count reps while he talks on the cell phone - Yes. For someone to shout in your ear "you can do it, come on, one more rep" - Yes. Unfortunately there is far too much of that in the business.

The second part of his objection actually annoyed me a bit. Do people hire personal trainers so they can look good? Absolutely! Is looking good a common goal of those who start working out on their own? I am sure it is. Is that the primary reason I train clients? - I can say absolutely truthfully that it is not. This isn't why I train myself either. I view it as more of a beneficial side effect - a happy coincidence.

So why do I workout and why do I pass that knowledge on to others? There are a variety of reasons, but they generally fall into two categories; performance, and health.

Performance - This can mean different things to different people. The athlete wants to be able to run faster, jump higher, and have more endurance in the sport setting. A person in the general population may want to walk a few flights of stairs without getting winded, throw a ball around with his kids without getting sore, or even get out of bed in the morning without the aches and pains.

Health - This affects both the athlete as well as "average" folks, and it covers a wide range of disciplines; nutrition, joint function, body composition and disease prevention, just to name a few. A well rounded trainer will be able to either address these issues when in his scope of practice, or make the proper referral to other professionals when this is indicated.

So is hiring a trainer worth it? Cost aside, what is the value of hiring a trainer or physical preparation consultant? I would suggest a good trainer will:

1. Take the time to get to know the prospective client before entering into a training relationship with them. Let's face it, no one gets along with everybody. Both parties should make sure they are compatible and comfortable with each other before the training begins. This can save a lot of frustration for both sides.

2. Take a complete history of the client, including medical history and background, training history, lifestyle and eating questionnaires, plus a motivation and goal worksheet. The more information that can be gathered the greater the chance for a successful outcome.

3. Perform a complete physical assessment of the client, to include but not limited to - Posture, gait, flexibility, and fitness analysis.

4. Communicate with the client and encourage input into program design and implementation. Yes, an individual is hiring a trainer for his expertise, but not many people like being dictated to and micro-managed. Give and take between trainer and client helps the trainer know better what is and isn't working, and keeps the client engaged and active in the entire process.

5. Design programs with each individual client in mind - personalization. This is the point of all the assessment work; to evaluate strengths and weaknesses, and address these with the proper training. This does not always mean getting the client stronger, often times joint function and flexibility needs to be addressed first. Starting off every client with the same canned program is a recipe for failure.

6. Constantly reassess and seek improvement. In the client - a good trainer evaluates every rep of every set. Reassessments must be done on a regular basis in order to gauge improvement and adjust training. In the trainer - a good trainer is constantly seeking to improve his skill set and be more valuable to the client.

The bottom line is value vs. cost. If a trainer is in tune with his client and getting results, cost is not an issue. Who would you rather have train you, someone scraping for business or someone who is in high demand because they are a professional who gets results? I'll take door number two!

About the Author:

Dean Carlson is a certified personal trainer located in Concord, NH. His website is http://www.cr8health.com