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I have moved about once every year for the past 15 years, so I have cycled through an awful lot of gyms and an awful lot of personal trainers.
I have picked personal trainers in just about every location to which I have moved because it helps me stay on track when the rest of my life might be full of uncertainty, chaos, and moving boxes.
Suffice it to say, I have a lot of experience figuring out what it is I actually want to look for in a personal trainer. The top 6 things I look for in a personal trainer are:
- Certification quality
- Trainer specialities
- Focus
- Experience
- Coaching style
- Authenticity
I’ve ranked these in the order I think is most important, but know that you might play around with the characteristics and their order based on your preferences.
Contents
#1: Certification Quality
Obviously, when I work with a trainer, I want to know that they are qualified, and that starts with having good certifications.
When I first started looking for a personal trainer, the person at the front desk of the gym would just say, “John here is a certified personal trainer and can meet with you right now.” And all I really heard was “right now” because I was at the gym right now, so obviously I wanted someone who could work with me right now.
But over the years, I learned there is a difference in certification quality. Not all certs are the same.
Sure, John was certified and ready right now, but during our hour together, I learned that John:
- Couldn’t answer any of my science questions (is pronated or supinated grip more effective for lat pull-downs?)
- Didn’t offer any new exercises for me, just wandered around the gym as I rocked up to the machines I already used
- Wasn’t really paying much attention except to the clock
That said, look for a cert that you recognize, one that comes from an internationally recognized brand like ISSA, ACE, or NASM.
#2: Trainer Specialties
Specialties are also important.
Now, I love weight lifting and yoga, so for me, I like a trainer with experience in and knowledge of both.
Your “loves” might be something else, like DNA-based fitness and exercise or nutrition and exercise.
To that end, I found it increasingly important to find a personal trainer with some specialties under their belt.
Fun fact: personal trainer certs demand biennial continuing education credits, or at least the quality certs do, so if a trainer has been in business for more than 2 years, they absolutely should have some specialties to their name.
NASM and ISSA happen to offer the highest number of continuing education certs or specialties for their respective trainers, with ISSA offering over 20 and NASM offering around a dozen (but more like career-focused specialties that benefit the trainer, not the client).
#3: Focus
There are so many different companies today that offer personal training certifications, and while they might overlap a lot in the curriculum they provide, be advised that each organization tends to have a specific focus.
This focus is important as it can be highly relevant to your fitness goals and, therefore, the type of personal trainer you choose.
- ACE focuses on behavior change and wellness, basically, how to motivate clients to change. So if you are new to the world of exercise and you know that you need a kick in the pants from your trainer, this might be it.
- NSCA focuses on biomechanics and athletic performance, so if you are an athlete looking for a trainer who can help you improve technical proficiency, especially for things like snatch or deadlift, this could be a good focus.
- NASM works pretty heavily with injury prevention and corrective exercise. If you, for example, never learned the correct form for your weight lifting, and just wandered into a gym at a young age and started picking up heavy things and putting them back down, you might want a trainer with a NASM cert who can help you change your form and prevent injury as you age.
- ISSA is more of a holistic approach, so those who want to improve their health, get training, boost nutrition, and access other specialties might do well to consider a trainer with ISSA certs.
This actually leads me to my next point, experience.
#4: Age/Experience
Ok, so experience might be a relative term, based on your age. If you are only 21, looking for a personal trainer, someone who has been working for 3 years might seem like the most qualified individual on the planet, but once you get to my age, you start looking for people who are equal to or older than you.
Now, to be clear, this isn’t because I’m ageist; it’s because those people have experience with the same types of health concerns that I’m trying to avoid or overcome, and they will bring that experience to their training sessions.
(Ok, in all honesty, a 21-year-old trainer can still have the certs that give them the experience I might be looking for, but it’s rare)
When I was 25, I was stick-thin like all members of my family, and it was very easy to build muscle tone. Flexibility was just built into my existence.
Now that I’ve sustained a few injuries, I need a trainer who has experience crafting training sessions that a) help me achieve my goals and b) do so without making my injuries worse.
For example, I sprained my wrist once and, because I’m not 12 anymore, it took me several months to fully heal. During that time, any weight lifting that involved rotating my wrists and any type of yoga that involved floor work with my wrists was unachievable. I needed a personal trainer to help me figure out what it was I could do to still flesh out a full body routine during the week.
The trainer I had was named Lindsay, and she happened to be a powerlifter in her youth and was now a personal trainer and a yoga instructor. She also had ISSA’s Exercise Recovery Specialty, so she not only knew a lot about weightlifting and yoga (remember? My loves) but she also had experience crafting training routines around injuries, routines that helped her clients heal and still strengthen.
Each time I have injured something, I have worked with someone like Lindsay, someone who understands that flexibility doesn’t come as naturally as we age, or that we need to build routines around certain injuries or preferences.
#5: Interpersonal Skills and Coaching Style
I put interpersonal skills and coaching style together because in some cases, you might work with a trainer who has next to no interpersonal skills, they say whatever pops into their mind without a filter, they might come off as rude, but they really know their stuff.
So, if you want someone who is personable, or you prefer someone that has a very engaged style of coaching, make sure you add that to your list of requirements when evaluating different trainers.
I want to point out that a lot of good, quality certifications (crazy how often we come back to that) are designed not just to give people the knowledge they need to be a trainer, but the resources they need to build interpersonal skills and to develop a coaching style that is effective.
For me, the most important things are:
- A trainer who doesn’t take their phone out of their pocket during our session unless it is to show me an app that I can use (like, I am not paying you to check your texts or doom scroll)
- A trainer who actively watches every rep I do (why are you looking away? I might be doing something wrong) and explains why that particular movement is useful, exactly what muscles it targets, and why form matters
- A trainer who can explain complicated things to me in an easy fashion in the moment (No, I don’t need to know what the American Journal of Sports Medicine said at this exact moment, I need someone to cheer me on while I push through my final rep)
If you need someone who is breathing down your neck and yelling commands at you, that’s great, find someone with that coaching style. If instead, you need an empathetic but engaged coach who collaborates with you, go for that.
Whatever helps you build consistency, maintain good communication, and keep you engaged is the style/skillset you need in a trainer.
#6: Authenticity
Finally and for many people, most importantly, I look for a trainer who is authentic, someone who is doing what they do because they love it, not because they are trying to push a specialized meal plan or get me to buy supplements that they happen to rep.
Authenticity has taken many forms for me over the years, including:
- Trainers who don’t push me to the point where I’m too sort of function the next day, but instead find a good balance with smart recovery
- Trainers who don’t promise any quick fix or any guarantee, but are realistic about what my potential outcomes will be and how long they will take (Did you know you typically see changes to your body after 1 month, and your loved ones might notice after 2 months, but it takes at least 3 months for everyone else to realize you’re fitter? So rude)
- Trainers who respect my time are always ready to go with my particular curriculum before I walk through the door, and don’t check their phones while we train
For you, that authenticity might be tied to the coaching style, someone who is honest with you and sympathetic, but it might be the same things that I look for. This one doesn’t tend to relate to the quality of certifications a person has, but rather to the quality of the person they are.
Summing Up
Finding a personal trainer might mean sacrificing your gym for training sessions with someone else, somewhere else, but working with the right trainer can make a permanent improvement to your health and wellbeing.
It is worth doing your homework and trying out different trainers based on things like the quality of their certs, their specialties, and their compatibility. The things I’ve learned from some of my better trainers have stuck with me and improved my gains ever since.