You’re motivated because you just signed up for a personal training program, but how do you know if they’re following best practices in safe personal training? With the motivation to get healthy and workout, it can be easy to overlook safety concerns. Remember, you’ll be doing strength training and taxing your body to new extremes in your fitness journey. You don’t want to run the common risk of overuse injury or pain from your exercise program. First, you need to make sure your fitness coach is a certified personal trainer, not just a former athlete or fitness influencer. Then, you need to know the definition of a personal trainer so you know what to expect. Lastly, it’s essential to understand what a fitness professional's personal training certification teaches. This makes you an informed buyer, so you know what to expect from your personal training program to get your money’s worth and stay safe. 

Here, we’ll explore each of these so you can quickly identify if your trainer is following safe personal training best practices.

Know The Personal Training Profession

You know what to expect from a doctor: they have gone through college, medical school, and residency – they know their stuff. If you ask a question, they can answer it. If you have a medical condition, they explain the condition, treatment options, likelihood hood of recovery, and recommendations based on your unique situation. 

You won’t let a doctor make these recommendations blindly. So, don’t blindly let a personal trainer do whatever they want to your body either. Personal training is a profession. A fitness trainer should know their stuff, too – if you ask a question, they should be able to answer it. Likewise, part of their job is to work with you to identify goals that you help develop. Then, they’ll need to know everything about you through a comprehensive fitness assessment so they can develop the best plan possible. 

A certified personal trainer is someone who educates and trains clients in the performance of safe and appropriate exercises to effectively lead their clients to optimal health. They don’t diagnose or treat medical conditions. Likewise, they do not prescribe a diet that’s intended to treat a medical condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure.

What Does A Personal Trainer Need To Know?

Your personal trainer knows more than just hard exercises and clean eating. They have a well-versed understanding of how the body responds to the demands of exercise and how to influence a person to achieve their fitness goals. Below is a breakdown that most personal training certification companies educate their students on. 

A personal training certification is just the starting point. It’s entry level. A trainer becomes more qualified through continuing education and advanced specializations. Even better is a trainer who has gone through (or is currently in) an exercise science degree program. These types of degrees, regardless if it’s an associates degree, bachelor’s degree, or master’s degree are far more in depth than a personal training certification. Remember, a personal training certification requires someone to pass ONE exam. But, a degree in exercise science is fitness knowledge acquired over time. Therefore, they have an even better understanding of how to get your body to your fitness goals safely. Lionel University offers the best in class exercise science degree programs. The founders of Lionel are pioneers in the fitness space and have prestigious backgrounds. This means students learn from the best and have completed the most respected program available.

Exercise Programming

An individual that holds himself or herself out to be a “personal” trainer should be able to develop an exercise program that corresponds to your personal preferences, current schedule, and available resources – so that you are able to stick with it. A trainer should continually collect accurate, up-to-date information on your health status, training progress, etc. A trainer should take the time to learn more about you and to orient you to fitness equipment so that you are able to use it correctly on your own. They should also allow you to learn what exercise options you have available to you, as well as which exercises you like doing best. A competent personal trainer will develop a training protocol that incorporates the exercises, training schedule, and food preferences for you to gradually develop a healthy lifestyle.

Once you have indicated the ability and discipline to continue with a fitness program, a trainer should establish a long-term exercise plan for an integrated fitness lifestyle based upon your fitness goals and objectives. This plan should include the basic principles of fitness training: overload, specificity, individual differences, reversibility, periodization, rest, over-training, and stimulus variability. 

Exercise Physiology

To develop an appropriate, comprehensive, individualized, and periodized training plan for you, a personal trainer must have knowledge of the “training effect,” which is the body’s adaptation (muscular, cardiopulmonary, and metabolic) to the stress imposed by physical activity. This requires an understanding of the major muscles of the body and an understanding of metabolism. They must also know about the function and regulation of the lungs, heart, blood vessels, hormones, brain, and nerves, as well as the weight control and temperature regulation systems at rest and during exercise. 

Functional Anatomy, Kinesiology, and Biomechanics

A trainer should have knowledge of the principle systems of the human body, their function, and their interaction. This includes the interaction of the muscular system and skeletal system. It is critical for a trainer to know the relationship of the body’s muscles to the joints in order to understand the effects that muscles have on joints. 

Additionally, a trainer should know how movement impacts posture, body mechanics, and body musculature. Studying the physical characteristics of the human body and the principles of mechanical physics gives the trainer a basis for determining what exercises you should do, how the workouts should be conducted, how effective exercise execution is, and if the exercises they use are safe. This means that the trainer knows the way to do exercises most effectively, as well as which muscles are involved in the particular parts of the exercise.

Assessments And Fitness Testing

Your personal trainer should begin your exercise program with an assessment of your physical fitness: muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and cardiovascular endurance. This is usually done during your initial consultation with the trainer. Assessments provide a baseline from which to evaluate your progress. They also allow the trainer to develop a personalized program based on what is best for you and then discuss what the results of your assessment mean. If you have a medical condition of any kind, the trainer should also request medical clearance from your physician (usually, they will give you a medical release form to take to your doctor and bring back to them). 

If you have a more serious medical condition, the trainer should ask your doctor for their recommendation for exercise, any activities or exercises that are contraindicated for you (and the reason why), and any other pertinent information relevant to designing a safe and effective training program. 

Nutrition And Weight Management

“Considerable data indicates that the safest and most effective way to successfully change body composition is to combine sensible eating habits with a program of sound exercise, including both aerobic training and weight training. (F:TCG 461) If your fitness goal includes weight loss or weight management, your personal trainer should provide you with nutrition recommendations along with a well-designed exercise program. 

The food (also known as fuel) that you provide your body determines whether the effort that you spend exercising will be successful. A trainer should take the time to (1) estimate your daily caloric needs based on your activity level, (2) determine the appropriate nutrient ratio based on your fitness goal, and (3) educate you on what, how much, and when to eat. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the trainer should put together a personalized meal plan for you. In fact, in certain states, personal trainers aren’t allowed to give clients specific meal plans without having a dietitian or physician sign off on it first. But they can explain what sound nutrition means, and help you figure out how to change your eating habits to support your fitness goal. 

Basic Emergency Procedures and Safety

Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) training are necessary skills for fitness professionals. Your personal trainer absolutely must be currently CPR and AED certified. It’s a requirement. You never know when an emergency will happen. If something unexpectedly goes wrong during your personal training session (e.g. you have a heart attack), you want your trainer to have the training and skills necessary to save your life. 

Program Administration

Your personal trainer should keep a detailed record of your initial and periodic measurements (body fat, circumference, weight), training sessions, exercise program, nutritional recommendations, and progress. This is so that he or she knows when it is necessary to make changes or modifications to your training plan (the trainer should note those changes and modifications in your record as well). 

Human Behavior/Motivation

“Motivation is about the desire, or want, to move in a particular direction.” (DoFWC 167). If you have taken the step to seek out the services of a personal trainer, then it’s safe to assume that you want to move in the direction of increased health. You are already motivated, but probably not enough to maintain a regular program of exercise entirely on your own. One of the roles of a personal trainer is to help you identify your reasons for wanting to participate in a fitness program. This is key in order for you to make progress and to maintain the regular exercise and sensible nutrition habits that the trainer helps you develop.  Your personal trainer should understand the principles of motivation, as well as the most common barriers to motivation and how to address them. They should be able to help you find and maintain the motivation you need to stick with your training program in pursuit of your fitness goals.