Choosing a Personal Trainer

The aim of UKPersonalTrainers.com is to provide a free resource for qualified personal fitness trainers to list their services, and create a simple-to-use directory to help clients locate trainers either by location or training specialities. Choosing a personal trainer is the first step to hopefully achieving your health and fitness goals. Making the right decision at the outset is therefore very important, and the following
information provides a basic guide to help you choose wisely.

What are your goals?
Health and Fitness is extremely diverse, so you should first locate potential trainers with skills that match your particular requirements. If you're after a specific type of training, for example yoga, post-natal fitness, injury rehabilitation etc. then you should look for trainers with the relevant qualifications and experience in those fields. If your goals are more general in nature, like weight loss, toning, aerobic fitness etc. then you can probably be less selective as most qualified trainers should be fairly competent in these areas. Your choice of trainer may also depend on
what level of fitness you're trying to achieve relative to your current level. For instance, if you are already fairly fit and/or training for a sport,
you will require a trainer that has the ability, knowledge and experience to take you to the next level.

Health and Fitness Assessment
You should expect a personal trainer to always start with an initial assessment and lengthy two-way chat regarding your exercise history,
current health status, and future goals. If a trainer doesn't know where you've been, how can they then work out where you're going, in other words, they shouldn't just launch you straight into the first exercise session gung-ho style.

Qualifications and the Register of Exercise Professionals
REPs (Register of Exercise Professionals) provides a way for the public to cross-check that a trainer has acceptable qualifications and has
met the required standards to instruct. The REPs register is growing all the time, and is a very important and useful tool for the general public and fitness industry. However, many trainers have been personal training longer than the register has been around (started in January 2002) and may not feel they actually benefit from being on the register. Therefore, it is important that you don't dismiss a trainer simply on this basis,
as it might be that they are far more experienced and qualified than some instructors who are actually on the register. Personal trainers should have also gained some experience as a gym instructor prior to one-to-one training, and not just dived straight into it after qualification.

Instructor's Public Liability Policy
This is probably the most important thing to look for! Not only will your trainer be covered if you sustain an injury, but they will have also had their qualifications checked by the insurance broker, which is often a professional fitness body like FitPro (Fitness Professionals), FIA (Fitness Industry Association) or REPs (Register of Exercise Professionals). A responsible personal trainer should also have up-to-date CPR training.

Avoid the sales pitch
Be wary of a trainer telling you what you want to hear just so they can make the sale. It takes time and commitment to reach your health and fitness goals, especially where weight loss is concerned. Wouldn't you prefer an honest and responsible trainer that genuinely wants to help
you to safely achieve your goals, promoting exercise as a lifestyle choice and not just a quick fix? Also, remember that not all trainers are going to be salespeople, so try not to write them off based on their telephone skills alone.

You can locate personal trainers by scrolling over the map of the UK on the homepage and then click on an area or county.

If you have any questions about this website, don't hesitate to contact us