Training with a personal trainer

Personal training originally comes from the United States. In the beginning, it was mainly Hollywood stars and models who trained with a personal trainer to get in shape in time for an event. Gradually it spread to the masses, once people realised that training results came faster when working together with a professional. Nowadays this business is hugely popular worldwide and very much on-trend.

Why do you need a personal trainer?

A good question, and one I'll answer in this blog article. Over the 16 years of strength training I now have behind me, I've observed that around 80% of people who train don't achieve long-term, lasting results. You see plenty of people who, after years of strength training, still look exactly the same. I'm talking mainly about body composition here, not the health aspect. Would I stay motivated to train long-term if my body composition never changed? Personally, after a certain point, I wouldn't be!

One of the big advantages of working with a personal trainer is certainly the fact that you achieve visible results, provided you have a genuinely good personal trainer. Let me go into more detail on that right away.

Not all personal trainers are the same

Zurich is absolutely swarming with personal trainers. The fact is, only very few of them are actually good.

How do you recognise a good personal trainer?

• Client results: the personal trainer's website or social media should show various before/after pictures, from which you can see visible change in body composition. Other good testimonials are cases of clients who, for example, got rid of back, knee or neck issues with the personal trainer's help.
• Hands-on experience: the personal trainer should have years of experience.
• Google reviews: another tool is the Google Business listing. Take a look at the ratings and client testimonials.
• Professional web presence: the website is like the personal trainer's business card and should come across as professional.
• Personal training as a main profession: there are many who work in another job on the side (sometimes with no PT qualifications at all) and so simply can't put the resources and focus into their clients that's needed.
• Qualifications: the trainer should have completed several qualifications over the years in both areas, training as well as nutrition. International qualifications round out the profile of a truly good trainer.
• Chemistry: the most important thing of all is the chemistry between the trainer and the client. Get to know the personal trainer in a personal conversation and pay attention to whether they put you and your needs at the centre. The worst thing that can happen to you is a personal trainer who always puts themselves and their own interests first.
• Professionalism: agreed appointments are binding and always kept on time.
• Measurements: a good personal trainer regularly measures their clients' body fat percentage and muscle mass, so progress can always be tracked

Bad apples?

You've probably wondered why I've described in such detail how to recognise a good personal trainer. There's a reason for that, because as in every other industry, there are unfortunately plenty of bad apples.

As mentioned at the start, the industry is booming. That means interest in the personal trainer profession is rising too, but so are the risks that come with it. There are, in fact, many personal trainers who have no qualifications whatsoever to show for themselves. These are usually people who are well-trained themselves and give a potential client the misleading impression, based on looks alone, that they know what they're doing. The same applies to athletes who call themselves personal trainers after their first fitness or bodybuilding competition. Knowing how to get your own body in shape is a far cry from knowing how to do that for different individuals with different starting points. There's also often a lack of understanding of how to handle clients with various issues.

So my advice: always quickly check the qualifications on the website, and ask about them if they're not listed. A personal trainer is a highly qualified professional in fitness and nutrition. Anything else you should consider a scam and steer clear of immediately.

More advantages of a personal trainer

You surely know this: you actually want to stay fit and healthy, but your schedule keeps getting tighter with starting a family, career advancement or other factors. Along with that, eating habits often shift toward an unbalanced, unhealthy diet. Appointments with a personal trainer create the commitment to keep your body fit and healthy through effective strength training and nutrition coaching, despite these factors. Another advantage of personal training is the time you save. Train with perfect form every time and spare yourself the mistakes that around 90% of people make without professional guidance.

My experience with personal trainers

This might surprise you, but I too have worked with many trainers over the years. Without all their valuable and critical input, I certainly wouldn't have become a 12-time fitness cover model. At this point I'd like to mention that I was always very selective about my trainers. It always mattered to me that my trainer had far more knowledge than I did, always had time for me when I needed it, and was consistently very critical of me. That's how we perfected technically demanding movements and also brought in the best therapists for recovery measures. In professional sport there are no compromises, everything has to be meticulously planned, and the right people work toward the shared goal of getting the athlete to the world's elite, and keeping them there.

The same applies at the amateur level, because if you genuinely want to achieve results, I'd advise you to work with a personal trainer who meets the criteria mentioned above. That will certainly be the best investment in your health.