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Is My Personal Trainer Any Good? Ask a PT

In our last article we talked about how to deal with sore muscles, this week we’re talking about how to tell the difference between a good personal trainer and a bad one. Answering the question “Is my personal trainer any good?”

Is My Personal Trainer Any Good?

Question: I’ve had a personal trainer for 6 weeks now and I don’t feel like I’m making any progress. Should I stay with him, or leave?

Answer: This is a hard question to answer. Six weeks is not a long enough time for most people to get noticeable results. On the other hand, if you are new to training, then a good personal trainer should have helped you to make serious gains in most of your lifts by teaching you the correct technique.

I was a personal trainer for 7 years in London, and I’ve seen many examples of good, average, and excellent personal trainers. It’s very easy for a personal trainer to spot a good or bad personal trainer, and it isn’t always the good personal trainers who are the most successful!

This is an industry where how you look and communicate is more important for sales than how much knowledge you have. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, communication is crucial for personal training. But I’ve seen far too many personal trainers who are very loud but talk absolute rubbish.

What makes a good personal training session?

Punctuality

The PT needs to be punctual, a couple minutes late while they end their last session and move on to their next one is fine. Being consistently 10 minutes late is not.

Appearance

This is a tough one, you could get amazing results with a badly dressed personal trainer. But I would say that the better PTs out there tend to have the type of personality where looking and smelling good is tied to their professionalism. A proper uniform rather than typical gym clothes is pretty important in my opinion.

Communication

Does your trainer explain WHY you are doing an exercise? Do they explain HOW to perform the exercise? Do they analyse your technique and offer tips on how to improve it? Friendliness, humour, and empathy are also important, but you NEED the former to get good results in the gym. The latter should be seen as a bonus!

Planning

Are your workouts planned out in advance? Does your trainer write down notes on your sessions? Is their a long-term plan? Do they plan out workouts for you to do on your own? Or do you feel that they are just making things up as they go along? If this is the case, then you are unlikely to get good results. No PT is going to remember every weight you lifted without making notes, so how can they properly progress your training?

Professionalism

Do you have your trainers undivided attention during a session? Or are they on their phones/talking to other people in the gym? Remember, you’ve hired them for the hour, so you are their number one priority. Can they check their phone? Sure. Can they acknowledge others? Of course. But for 99% of your time together, they should be focusing on you.

Are They Science-Based?

This is the one that trips up a lot of trainers. They can be professional, turn up on time to every session, and plan out your workouts to the nth degree. But if they are telling you unscientific advice, then they could well be harming you. I’ve heard of trainers who give out unsolicited medical advice, that turns out to be completely wrong. I’ve seen trainers create programs that make zero sense, and give out outdated nutrition advice.

The funny thing is, you can still deliver a great session while talking rubbish, but a lot of the advice just wastes their clients’ time.

This may sound like an attack on PTs, but honestly I feel that most PTs will pass this test with flying colours. There are many bad trainers out there, but most of them don’t last a year. Some bad trainers are so good at communication and likeability that they survive, but they are pretty rare.

But if you’ve hired a new trainer, then it is worth evaluating them using this list before spending a fortune on personal training. A good trainer will not be offended by this, but a bad trainer will!

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