Personal Trainer Education

How do personal training programs teach client assessment?

The whole idea behind working with a personal trainer is to achieve personal fitness goals. Although personal trainers acknowledge that there is a formula for achieving certain results, they recognize the client’s individuality must be factored into creating a personalized workout. Personal trainer training programs are designed to help students cater to these individual needs.

Considerations are given to a client’s vision of how they want their body to look, or how they want to feel as a result of working out. A client’s willingness and ability to devote the time and energy necessary to achieve their goals must also be considered. Certain risk factors must also be identified to ensure the client’s safety.

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Personal training programs prepare students for real world scenarios, so that when they actively being their careers as personal trainers, they’ll know what to expect from their fist session interacting with clients. Personal trainer training programs teach the importance of assessing both what clients’ hope to achieve, as well as how reasonable it is that these goals can be achieved. This allows a proper expectation to be set in terms of what it will take and how long it will take to achieve these goals.

The first session with a personal trainer is focused on assessing clients’ current physical ability, preexisting conditions, as well as their fitness goals and the feasibility of attaining them. Clients will be asked to complete a written questionnaire that will give the personal trainer the information they need to design a personalized workout program. The questionnaire typically addresses a person’s family medical history including issues with cholesterol and propensity for heart attack. It also probes their personal medical history to determine if there are injuries or recent surgeries that need to be considered, and clients are asked to describe where they may be experiencing physical pain or discomfort. Lastly, clients are asked what they hope to accomplish from working with a personal trainer so that they can be given a realistic expectation of how long it will take to accomplish these goals, and whether they are even realistic. This assessment ensures that both the client and the personal trainer are working together towards the same goal.

What is the demographic of clients personal trainers work with?

Personal trainer training programs are designed to make sure that those graduating as personal trainers make an effort to make gyms less exclusive to people who have long-running established exercise regimens and more accessible to everybody interested in working out. This has been coupled with an increased public interest in taking preventative steps to help ensure health and longevity. For decades, following a spike in the mid 80s, health clubs have shown a steady increase in enrollment and annual membership that has outpaced what would be expected from population growth. As a result, most health clubs are finding a very mixed group of members. This includes everybody from young high school athletes, to working professionals, to geriatric retirees. This is great news for those considering a personal trainer education in that the demand for their services will be strong and the clientele will be diverse.

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The early morning group is generally made up of younger working professionals who find the time to workout in the morning before going to work. This group often has the highest level of energy and the highest expectations for results. Personal trainers described this as a “mutually-motivating situation” in that they must come to early morning sessions with all the enthusiasm and passion these early morning clients demand. This has the benefit of setting the pace for high-energy and youthful exuberance throughout the day.

After the younger early morning group comes the mid-day crowd, which is more mixed in terms of age and ability. This group is often made up largely of retirees who are free to meet with their personal trainer during the day as well as working professionals who workout during their mid-day breaks or lunches. Later in the afternoon comes the after-work group, again often younger and middle-aged professionals who schedule their workouts around their job.

How do personal trainer training programs teach students to measure a client’s progress?

Because muscle weighs more than fat, and the process of getting in shape involves replacing fat with lean muscle, the scale is not always a good gauge of progress. As part of the first session with a personal trainer, in the course of assessing the client’s current physical condition, body measurements are taken and a body fat analysis is performed using skin calipers in what is sometimes referred to as the “pinch test”. Learning how to measure body fat is fundamental to all personal trainer training programs as this provides a basis for tracking progress. A good personal trainer will then take these same measurements and perform the same body fat analysis every month to track progress. Bill Linaker told us: “Those measurements have been my greatest teacher. We want to see the waist measurement go down, we want the arms to even out in their size, we want the chest expanse to increase, we want to see the shoulders go up. These are changes in the body that can only be seen on the tape measure. This tells us where we’re going.”

Personal trainer training programs also teach how progress can be measured in a client’s demonstrated ability. Being able to increase the number of reps, increase the weight being used and, demonstrate an improvement in form when lifting weights are all strong indicators of progress. Personal trainer programs will teach you that progress can also be attitudinal. In some cases it can be said that becoming energized by workouts and the progress being made, being excited about working out rather than reluctant, and demonstrating a greater willingness to push harder and exercise with greater intensity are the ultimate indicators of a client’s progress.

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