5 Key Elements of a Good Personal Training Session
At Soma VT, we do personal training. In our area, there are numerous places offering personal training services at various prices. If you’re looking for personal training and want to improve your health and fitness, there are five key elements to look for during your consultation or initial training sessions. If these are all there, get in there and build a routine that benefits you!
1) Preparedness - Personal trainers tend to be very busy, generally training multiple people every day and spending 6-8 hours conversing with people, solving problems, and creating a great training environment for those they work with. The best personal trainers are generally the most prepared. They have an initial plan to work off of, they’re well versed in what issues may arise and they’re ready to ask the right questions to help your training program. If you are in your training session and feeling like the trainer may not be prepared for your training session, run, don’t walk, to the nearest exit. Your body is not something to be left to guesswork.
2) Timeliness - Incorporating a good training schedule into life is difficult. You might have kids, a job, volunteer work, hobbies, or a few fleeting moments of summer that challenge you to make the time for yourself to do your exercises. In this case, it’s imperative that your coach is timely. Are they showing up a few minutes prior to your training session? Are they making sure that they are aware of your schedule and how much time you have to train that day? What about you?Are you feeling motivated enough to show up on time and engage with your workout? Timeliness can be a great indicator of whether a training program is going well or in need of a change.
3) Trust - Many coaches get into coaching because they want to help people. They want to improve the lives of those they work with and are ready to take the extra step to help. When this is the case, it’s pretty common to see a layer of trust develop between the coach and person training. If you can look at your coach and feel like you trust that they want what’s best for you, that’s a great sign!
4) Autonomy - A solid training program involves most days of the year. It may get pricey to see your personal trainer 6-7 days per week. Due to this, it’s imperative that you develop some independence and ownership over your training program. Do you feel like you can make an exercise substitution on your own? Do you feel like your voice is heard when talking about your training program? The trainer is there to help, at the end of the day, it’s your action and effort that will drive your results.
5) FUN - Finding movement that you enjoy is the difference between a training phase and a training lifestyle. You don’t have to love every exercise you do. You should enjoy a lot of them though! When you finish a training session, ask yourself if you had fun doing it. If you did, what was fun about it? Run with that! Unless you hate running, then maybe only do that once in a while.
With that said, happy training!
Whether you’ve been training for a while or are thinking of getting started, ask yourself about these five elements during the process and speak up about what you need! Engaging in a consistent training program and having a strong relationship with your coach can change your life for the better.
If you have questions about getting started with personal training or are interested in booking a consultation, please reach out to the SOMA VT team. We look forward to training with you!
