In This Article:
Is it worth it to get a personal trainer?
What to look for in a personal trainer
How different are male and female personal trainers?
How to find a female personal trainer?
Beach bodies are a thing of the past.
Hot take we know! But the attitude around physical fitness and body types has changed over the last few years as people have started to realise that it’s okay to accept yourself and be proud of who you are, even if you don’t look like someone off of Love Island (psst! Almost no’one does!)
That being said, it's important to feel comfortable in your own skin, so hitting the gym or exercising outside is a great way to keep your body and mind happy and healthy.
Enter the personal trainer! A master of the fitness dojo ready to help you achieve your goals and feel great doing it. There’s just one catch... first you have to find one!
Have no fear, we’ve put together this handy guide to help you avoid all the pitfalls and trappings of finding a good personal trainer that will match your attitude, your lifestyle, and your budget.
Is it worth it to get a personal trainer?
Well it’s a big decision, but if you can spare the cash then you’ll thank yourself for it this time next year.
If you have the desire to change your body in a way that makes you happier, but struggle with motivation or being intimidated by the initial learning curve, a personal trainer can bridge the gap between you as a beginner and you as an exercise champion.
The important thing to remember is that only 8% of people ever actually stick to their new year’s resolutions, many of them fitness goals, and this is due to a number of factors including:
Unrealistic expectations leading to disappointing results
Going in too hard, too soon and putting themselves off the idea
Trying to achieve goals alone without someone else to hold them accountable
Feeling like they don’t have enough time the day
Not enjoying exercising or finding it outright boring
Every single one of these issues can at least partially be solved by a personal trainer, and some of these problems are solved entirely! A good trainer will work around your schedule, find exercises that are manageable, push you to do your best even when you feel like giving up, maintain realistic expectations and goals, and always make sure you’re having a good time so workouts become a treat instead of a chore.
So overall… Yes! A personal trainer is absolutely worth it!
What to look for in a personal trainer
When it comes to actually making that decision, we had a hard time answering this question while staying impartial.
It’s a good thing we had one of Bamae’s resident Personal Trainer/Nutritionists, Sian, available for an interview!
I sat down with Sian to ask her a couple of our burning questions about getting into the fitness world with the help of a personal trainer, as well as a couple of things to expect going in for the first time. When I asked Sian about what to look for in a personal trainer, her first thoughts surprised me, with her priority list being:
Do you feel a warmth and/or personal connection with your trainer, to the point you could become friends?
Do you feel motivated enough to put in the same amount of effort that they’ll put in for you?
Are they pushing you to commit to more than a few sessions right at the beginning?
Some red flags she mentioned were both on the side of the client and the trainer. ‘It’s a marathon, not a sprint’, she said while explaining the upset that can come when a trainer pushes a potential client into committing to a 10 week course before they’ve even had a trial run yet, something which almost always leads to newcomers being put off, and losing a lot of their disposable income on something they might not even use as it was mis-sold to them by a dodgy PT.
Sian went on to elaborate on how much a human connection helps when trying to form a long term working relationship with a personal trainer, citing how she’s seen plans fail over time because the client doesn’t feel like they can put their time and trust into someone they don’t connect with as a friend. It turns out that personal trainers are one of the few client relationships that are better off evolving into a comfortable friendship, as no matter how you slice it, having someone help you to improve aspects of your body is an extremely challenging, emotional and personal process that is much more likely to succeed it there’s a bond between client and trainer (which is very different from almost all other professions where a lot of much harder boundaries should be kept to stay healthy).
How different are male and female personal trainers?
Knowing the importance of getting along with your trainer, we went on to talk about some key differences a gym-goer might find when choosing a trainer of a particular sex or gender.
It’s completely normal to have a preference in the gender of your fitness instructor or trainer. There’s often a very different culture around fitness and goals between genders that needs to be acknowledged when setting out a plan with a client, so it makes perfect sense to choose someone who understands you and your needs on both a physical and a mental health level.
From our talk I gathered that from Sian’s experience, the majority of women go to a gym or exercise class with the goal of losing weight, countering the effects of cellulite, or wanting to increase overall fitness to help in their daily lives and feel better overall. Men on the other hand are often more competitive in their goals, with many younger men often having a gym culture centered around gaining muscle, and pushing beyond physical limits instead of putting much emphasis on their overall health.
Of course this is just a generalization, all trainers will have different attitudes and experience levels, but Sian also pointed out that female trainers are often much more conversational and empathetic with new-comers, and are used to forming close, conversational relationships with their clients as they work towards goals togher, so many women prefer to use a female trainer for that reason alone.
How to find a female personal trainer?
According to a study listed on core.ac.uk, 4 out of 5 people prefer a female trainer over a male one, so they’re in very high demand and potentially hard to find in some areas of the UK.
A great first step is to call up a local gym or leisure centre so that you can book a trial or intake session. It’s completely acceptable to request a female trainer, so don’t hesitate to make that clear from day 1 to make sure that you’re assigned one for your session.
Once you’re in and you’re being introduced to each other, make sure to keep an eye out for any trainer that tries a little too hard to sell you on a long term commitment, as this kind of pressure sales tactic can be a major red flag. It’s also important to let them know in complete detail if you have any health conditions that need to be accounted for, especially if you’re in recovery from and injury or serious health risk.
Sian introduced a great way to gauge a PT’s experience, which is to ask them for their level. Trainers have to train before they can practice, starting out as a level 2 fitness instructor, they train to become personal trainers at level 3 of their course. If your trainers is level 3, you can guarantee they’re qualified to perform the role of PT, and it they’re level 4, they’ve trained to perform their role not only for the sake of physical fitness, but also as a prescribed mentor to hep hospital patients and people recovering from serious injury or illness. Needless to say, if you can land a level 4 trainer, that’s an excellent find so long as they’re also a good match for your goals and personality type.
Overall, if you factor in a trainer’s ability to also help you with your diet and meal plan, then you should have a solid basis now to go out into the world and find yourself the perfect person to help you achieve your goals.
Just remember to focus on yourself, your safety, and your happiness, then you can rest assured you’ll have a gold medal in your future.
Or at the very least a healthier you to wake up to.
