In my over 20 years of training clients, I have seen one mistake that people make repeatedly when choosing a trainer. All too often, clients simply glance around the gym or browse through some websites and then choose a trainer based on their looks -- and not their actual knowledge base. “Hey, that person looks great!” they think to themselves. “I bet they know everything about training!”
This is akin to thinking that the best person to teach you about basketball is the tallest person you can find, or that the shortest person you know will be the best at teaching you about miniature golf.
In fact, consider this: in the picture above, who would you choose to be your boxing trainer? The younger guy or the older one?
Pictured is a young Mike Tyson with his trainer Cus D’Amato. Now, could Mike Tyson train you in boxing? He probably could, but wouldn’t you rather have the guy that trained Mike to be a champion? Of course you would.
Cus D’Amato also trained Floyd Patterson and José Torres to be champions. Cus himself never even made it to ranks of a pro boxer, but he was one of the most revered boxing trainers. It was his knowledge and years of experience that helped turn those boxers into champions.
There are several examples of this in the sports and fitness world. Just think about how many coaches out there aren’t champions themselves, but have taken their clients or teams to great heights.
It used to be that if you wanted to find someone to train you, you would look around the gym and find the most muscular guy or hottest girl – and that would be your starting point. I’ve worked, managed, and owned a few gyms in my lifetime and have watched people use this process to find their fitness “expert.”
When I previously managed one gym in particular, there was one trainer who would be chosen by clients repeatedly because he looked great. He had a great physique, wide shoulders, a small waist and built legs. He was also an ex-collegiate athlete who had been training in his specific sport for most of his entire life. He didn’t turn pro because of an injury that put an end to his career. Most of his workouts had been written for him by his coaching staff, from junior high all the way through until college. He just showed up and did the workouts. He didn't write a single program for himself. He didn’t have any clue on how to program a routine for a normal population that hadn't spent most of their lives training for a sport. He would have all of his clients do the exact same workouts that he himself did from his college days to become bigger, faster and stronger at his particular sport. Most who trained with him ended up quitting because they would get injured or would quickly become over-trained.
I used to train a girl who simply wanted to look better. She followed all of my advice and training programs. After training with me for a while, she looked great -- so good that a gentleman who happened to own a gym stopped her on the street and offered her a job as a trainer. Did this guy want me to go work for his gym? After all, it was my program design and diet advice that helped her to achieve her look. No -- he wanted her because she looked great. He didn’t really care that she barely knew how train herself, let alone how to write programs for other people. He just wanted her in the gym because she looked the part.
I also knew of a trainer who used to have their clients choose exercises from a deck of fitness cards. Yes, a deck of cards that had exercises printed on them. Whatever cards those clients picked out determined their workout for the day. But, hey -- that trainer looked great, so he must have known some secret about the mystical and random choosing of exercises from a deck of cards, right? Wrong.
Don’t be afraid to interview your prospective trainer on how they would train you on your specific goals.
Do you want to get stronger with adding little to no mass to your body? This is important for athletes that have to compete in a weight class.
Do you want to simply have a six-pack and don’t really care how strong you are?
Do you want to be strong and lean?
Do you just want your knee or lower back to stop hurting?
Do you want to be better at sprinting or running? Perhaps 100 m, 200 m, 5k, 10k, a marathon or maybe even a triathlon?
Do you want to be more explosive?
Do you want to be better at a particular sport?
Do you want to be able to do a pull-up or two…or five…or 10?
Do you just want to add as much muscle as possible and get huge?
Do you want to increase your endurance?
Do you have a specific fitness test that you are trying to pass?
All of these goals have different training protocols and should be programmed to achieve that specific goal.
What does your trainer have you do if, during a push up, bench press or over-head press, your shoulder or knee starts to hurt during a squat, lunge or step-up?
Do they just make you stop the exercise?
Push through the pain?
Or do they actually look for the cause of why you’re hurting and then address the problem?
Make sure that the trainer you choose can answer questions like these and doesn’t just give you a “one size fits all” WOD.
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