"77% of Personal Trainers put clients on a fitness program WITHOUT assessing them first"

This to me is a scary figure. That means the majority of the people who go to the gym and pay a trainer hard earned money are getting ripped off.

There are a few questions that I hope this figure is stirring in your mind:

1. What type of assessment should my trainer do?
2. Is my training program made just for me, or is it a one-size fits all?
3. What do I do if my trainer didn't do any type of assessment?

My question to you is: Would you be comfortable with a physical therapist giving you exercises to do without examining your injury in any way? No you wouldn't. You would question his competence. You would question his competence further if while you felt pain somewhere or extreme fatigue, he told you to keep pushing. My next question for you is, why would you hire a personal trainer to do the same thing? Aren't they dealing with your body and how it works?

Before I answer these questions I am going to go over some things you need to consider before hiring a personal trainer, or asking your current trainer.
1. How long have they been in the field of exercise science (personal training)?
If they are a new trainer, the following questions are even more important.

2. Do they hold a degree in the field (exercise science, exercise physiology, athletic training, etc)?
While most trainers will not hold a degree in exercise science, continue answering the following questions to see if they are qualified enough to be working with your body.

3. How up to date are their certifications?
There any many certification agencies where all a person has to do to become a personal trainer is go online and take an exam. There are leading agencies that require continuing education and have a higher standard of certifying someone as a personal trainer. They are as follows: National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM); American Council on Exercise (ACE);and a couple others. Their certification should be no older than 3 years. Do not be afraid to request to see an official copy from your trainer if you are in doubt.

4. Did your trainer do any sort of assessment before they wrote you an exercise program?
At the bare minimum they should take a health history, assess your wants and take your body weight. This is still not enough grounds to write an adequate training program. There are many training tools out there to assess how your body is functioning. If you are an athlete it may be a vertical jump test, if you are an individual it may be a sit and reach test. In order to assess the body as a whole there are some tests that are superior to others. The preferred method that is slowly trickling down from the professional arena is the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), created by Gray Cook and Lee Burton. The FMS is 7 basic athletic movements that helps a personal trainer determine any strengths, weaknesses, imbalances or movement deficiencies that may be present in your body. This creates a solid baseline for which a trainer can write an adequate program designed specifically for you.

5. Are you using only machines?
If a trainer is bringing you from machine to machine they don't fully understand how the body works and are shutting down a majority of your stability muscles. Think about it: when are you ever being held in place against something solid and moving something around your body. Can't think of any? This should raise a red flag. Every movement that you do occurs without any external stabilization, so why should you work out with a built-in stabilization? Here's a great quote from a highly respected industry leader in fitness: “Although machine-based training may result in fewer injuries in training, the lack of proprioceptive input (internal sensory feedback about position and movement) and the lack of stabilization will more than likely lead to a greater number of injuries during competition.” – Michael Boyle So if your trainer is doing "balance" exercises with you on top of using machines, it's counterproductive.

6. How do you feel after your workouts?
A huge misconception in fitness is that you need to feel completely exhausted to consider it a "good workout". Legs buckling, not being able to lift your arms, and vomiting are sure signs that you have over done it! Being sore for more than 24-48 hours afterward means that you have worked out too hard. Don't get me wrong, you should be walking out of a gym with perspiration. There is a happy balance and if your trainer is crossing that line you should address it! Also, if you are ever in pain during or after your workouts and you continually inform your trainer with no prevail, it's time to find a new trainer.

To summarize, never be afraid to challenge your personal trainer with questions. If you don't feel confident in their answers, research it yourself. Be extremely cautious when hiring a trainer as there is a lot of rubbish out there. Remember you only have one body that you have to live with for the rest of your life, why should you trust it to just anyone?

For further reading: Core Performance ; Athletic Body in Balance ; Women's Health Magazine March 2009 issue Page 118