Is Your Personal Trainer Really That Personal? (Chapter 1).

More and more often I hear from many of my dance students, fitness clients, and friends about their vague understanding of what their personal trainer is actually supposed to do except making them sweat.

After receiving my certificate as an ACE Personal Trainer and applying some of the main tools and techniques to my coaching method, I find it my responsibility to share with my readers about what to expect and what not to expect from your personal trainer. It might help you to make a right choice when you decide to invest into your self. And if you live in Los Angeles or some place close to LA, I can recommend a great friend of mine who actually inspired me to pursue my certificate. His name is Christian. He is the most educated, passionate, and dedicated personal trainer who will make you learn, improve, and thrive in your body.

Since the title Personal Trainer includes such a powerful word as Personal, you as a client have a right to expect that your trainer will truly care about your needs and assist you to help you to shape them into your goals and to develop techniques to achieve those goals. The main aspect that I have noticed is that some personal trainers do not consider themselves educators. They think all they have to do is to make you move and sweat. There is nothing wrong with that except this personal trainer does not create a well aware and educated client. Now, if you are happy with that, great. However, you should know that a client who is being properly educated has a better chance to make fitness a part of his/her lifestyle.

One of my close friends called me to talk about her experience with her personal trainer. I will make it very clear, my friend is an easy client. She had very specific goals in mind and a good history of adhering to physical activities. Her personal trainer though, never even bothered to take any notes or educate her on how her first THREE out of her total TWELVE sessions which cost my friend a $100 each would help her to get where she wanted or at least start her on that transformational journey. When my friend would ask such questions as what type of muscles they were working on, her PT would reply "back muscles" or "leg muscles". Now, I do not think you need to be a personal trainer to know that there are back muscles or leg muscles, but I do know that as a personal trainer you have to educate your clients on different categories of those muscles and their specific actions and functions. Otherwise, how do you expect your client to develop more body awareness and grow self efficacy for the long term improvement? As a client, you have a right to ask questions and to be curious. After all, your body is the most precious and fragile property that you poses, and when you trust another person to do work with that property, you'd better know exactly what is being done or undone, and why.

Every client is unique. That's why, for a personal trainer it is crucial to spend time to get to know what kind of person your client is before you start working with him/her. And from my personal experience, deep down, each person truly would like to get in touch with his/her inner world through more agile body and keener body awareness to express him/herself. All of this brings us back to the topic of building a RAPPORT. If you can make your client feel safe and feel that his/her personal interests are the top priority for you, you can get away with general information here and there, but do your best and share all the knowledge you can, so people actually know that their back is way more than just shoulder blades and their legs are way more than just shins. Although, those parts are very important too :)

My friend's personal trainer failed to build trust and create a dynamic relationship with her client which eventually pushed my friend to withdraw her investment and look for help at some other place. Thus, the business lost a good client and the reputation of many personal trainers is being compromised.

The next Chapter will be dedicated to my personal opinion about Online Personal Training Sessions. It's a huge topic that I think needs to be addressed because of its popularity. Now, to give a hint, unfortunately the history taught us that if something is convenient and popular does not mean that it is good for us :)

I hope you have learned something from my humble attempt to share a little bit of my personal philosophy on personal training, and I encourage you to ask me any questions or leave any comments you'd like on any of my posts. And remember, if you are looking for an amazing certified personal trainer with some serious dance and fitness educational and professionla backgrounds, in Los Angeles, I know just the right man. His name is Christian Fajardo, and I can easily connect you with him.