How to Find a Personal Trainer That’s Right for You

by westcoastsciMar 22, 2022Exercises, Health and Wellness, Kinesiology

How do you find the perfect personal trainer?

The most important thing that you should look for when hiring a personal trainer in Vancouver is finding a personality fit. Take some time to answer the following questions:

Do you want to work with a personal trainer that is full of energy and bouncing off the walls getting you pumped up to exercise?
Do you want a personal trainer who has a lot of certifications?
Do you want a personal trainer who is calm and collected in their approach?
Do you want a personal trainer that is very talkative and will tell you their life story and be eager to hear yours?

If you do not have a personality fit with your personal trainer, that could create a barrier (or an excuse) to quit before you even begin.

Free Consultation

Another thing to look for is finding a place that offers a free consultation. This will provide you with an opportunity to speak with a potential personal trainer to answer the questions we mentioned above. Furthermore, it will allow you to ask other questions such as the ones you’ll see below.

During the free consultation, the potential personal trainer in Vancouver should ask you about your goals. Here at Westcoast SCI, setting goals is perhaps one of the most important things you can do to stay committed to achieving your goals. Your personal trainer at Westcoast SCI will spend a lot of time “diving deep” to gain a true understanding of what motivated you to exercise in the first place.

Setting a goal that has true meaning to you is the “kryptonite” that can ward off all the excuses that your brain will come up with when you don’t want to workout anymore. Proper goal setting will drive you to push out that last set, wake up early in the morning when it’s dark and cold outside and drag you to the gym when you would rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix.

A good personal trainer in Vancouver will spend the time to find a true to your heart goal with you. When I say a true to your heart goal, I don’t mean I want to look good in a bathing suit, or I want to lose 20 pounds or I want to be able to run a 10km race. A good personal trainer will dig down to find the “why” for your goal.

client consultation with personal trainer

Someone that can keep you motivated and accountable

If you want to achieve results with exercise, the best way to think about starting a new exercise routine is to consider it as a lifestyle and behaviour change. Sometimes it’s helpful to compare exercise to learning a new language or a difficult subject like algebra. If you have ever learned a new language for example, how did you go about doing that? You probably had to take classes, find a tutor or purchase an online (or for those of you who are like me, cassette tapes or CDs) course. Consider this the same as hiring a personal trainer to learn how to exercise. Sure you can find some free stuff online, but typically, you won’t get very far on your own.

When you were learning a new language (or studying math), how often did you study or practice? How much did you have to study? Do you think you would improve if you only studied for 10 min once a week? Or would you get better benefits if you practiced daily for 30min each time? How long did you have to study for to get proficient/fluent in that language? Were you able to master the language in a month? 3 months? 1 year? Or are you forever a student looking to continuously improve? If you stop speaking the language for a year or more, is it easy to travel to that country and start speaking it again?

Exercise is very similar in this regard. To really get comfortable with exercise and make it a part of your life, you need to make a conscious effort and commitment to it. If you think you’ll get the results you desire in a short period of time (6 weeks) and keep the results forever, think again. Have you ever heard the saying “use it or lose it”? Like speaking a second (or third) language if you don’t exercise/practice a language regularly, you lose all the results.

Making exercise a regular part of your life is a task unto itself. Carving out time to fit in regular exercise is something that will take effort and energy. For most people, keeping the momentum going started is the hardest part. This is where an online personal trainer or at-home personal trainer can really help. Sometimes all you need is someone to hold you accountable. Having a regular appointment can do just that. You won’t want to let your personal trainer down, or have to come up with excuses to bail out.

Location

Another thing that helps you stick with your exercise routine is finding a personal trainer in Vancouver that is close and convenient. Finding a personal trainer in Vancouver is easy as there are so many at your disposal. Likewise, if you are tech-savvy, there are online personal trainers as well. It can be very beneficial if a personal trainer can virtually come to your home and set up a program that works specifically for you and your workout space.