Finding the Right Gym and Personal Trainer

If you’ve had a bad experience with gyms, don’t know how to distinguish if you have found the right personal trainer, or get anxiety just by thinking about going into a gym, this article is for you!

Unfortunately, just looking at someone’s credentials and college degree, hopefully they have one or the other or both, will tell you very little about the personal trainer’s ability to appropriately train someone. Many certifications can be obtained online for a few dollars and a few hours of time. Incredibly, there is no licensure required to become a trainer so literally anyone can call themselves a personal trainer.

In a world of quick fixes, shows like the biggest loser and the no pain no gain mentality, a lot of people find trainers that throw them under a cookie cutter workout, that are designed to crush you into the ground and make you feel miserable for multiple days after. These strategies might work in the beginning, but they may be causing more harm than you think.

If you want to reach your health and fitness goals and achieve results you can sustain for a lifetime, you’ve got to get the right help!

When shopping for a personal trainer or new gym, look for the following 5 keys signs that will help you find the right place:

1.  They put a HUGE emphasis on recovery.

Find a gym/trainer that make a big deal about sleep, stress management, meditation, nutrition, and breathing. Those are the keys components to achieving sustainable results. Throwing hard exercise on top of an under slept, stressed out, deconditioned individual is like throwing chains on a drowning person. It’ll make it that much harder for them to reach their goals.

2. They know how to load your system.

This one is a big one! Are their clients lifting weights or are they still doing bodyweight exercise after months of training? A good trainer will meet you where you’re at, they’ll teach you the basics, and then they will load your system. Meaning, they will challenge your body to create a change. To achieve results, you must stress your system just enough but not too much.

STRESS the body + Recover = RESULTS

You can’t achieve the end results without one of those components. Find a trainer that can help you with both.

3.  They don’t run extreme weight loss challenges.

A trainer doesn’t know your blood work, she/he doesn’t know if you’re walking around with an autoimmune disease, undiagnosed hypothyroidism, vitamin D deficiency, dysregulated circadian rhythm, B12 deficiency, and many other common problems that would prevent you from dropping weight a healthy way. A good trainer goes beyond just training and they have a network of professionals that can help you to get to where you need to be without sacrificing your health and challenging you to drop 20lbs in 4 weeks.

4.  They’re expensive.

When you come across a high-end gym, you’re not just paying for the hour of your training session, you’re paying for the accumulation of time they spend outside of the gym bettering their skills and the investment they put into always improving their services. Don’t let the price scare you away, see it as an investment. Explore different training options, private, semi-private, and small group training, with your trainer and find a service that will meet your budget while still investing in yourself. A good personal trainer will give you all the tools you need to be do things on your own if you one day choose to.

5.  Their testimonials tell stories.

A good trainer’s testimonials are more than just complementing how motivating they are and their ability to run someone through a fun workout. Look for the life changing results you want to achieve and one’s worth investing for.