3 Ways to Spot a Bad Personal Trainer

Being a personal trainer and sports performance coach for 12 years now (man, I’m old!), I’ve seen a lot of quality and shitty coaches and trainers in my day. It doesn’t help that there isn’t a standard qualification in the training field, excluding the NCAA level where most Universities require you to have related degree and have worked under a collegiate strength and conditioning coach for a minimum of 2-3 years. So how do you spot a bad personal trainer?

Below are 3 ways that I’ve found to be pretty effective:

1) My way or the high way

I’ve been around some great coaches and trainers in my day and despite what Jillian Michaels and whatever TV shows want you to think, a qualified coach and personal trainer respects and listens to their athlete and client. They’re not screaming at them for shits and giggles, they aren’t belittling them to “tear them down and build them back up”, or any other crap ”that’s good for TV”. A good personal trainer and performance coach will communicate with respect to their athlete or client.

It also infuriates me beyond belief when I hear stupid shit like, “REAL coaches tell their athletes/clients what to do and not vice versa”. I’ve been around some great coaches and personal trainers in my day, and you want to know what the commonality is? They listen to their athlete/client, they give respect and command respect, and they don’t demand or dictate.

So if you have a personal trainer that’s constantly screaming, showing no respect, and isn’t listening to you, they need to be fired. What happens if you started to feel some pain during the squat but the trainer doesn’t listen and keeps pushing you? I’ve seen this happen and it’s due to a lack of communication established by a unqualified personal trainer. A truly great personal trainer or performance coach makes adjustments based off of their athletes, team, or clients feedback. They should be able to make adjustments on the fly and also still keep you moving in the right direction. The trainer also has to meet you where you are at your current fitness level and build you up from there, this means that the personal trainer must create a program based on you and NOT try to conform you to their cookie cutter program.

I believe Coach K does a great job at adapting his system based on what each athlete brings to the table:

“Adjust your strategy to your team. Krzyzewski recognizes what is far too frequently ignored in organizations that force people to conform to certain molds, work on fixing people’s weaknesses rather than focusing on their strengths, and expect a strategy to work even if it doesn’t leverage the best in its people. A hallmark of Krzyzewski’s approach is that he shifts his system each year to his players, rather than shoe-horning his players into his systems. When neither of his two recent co-captains, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, were very good at confronting other players, for example, Krzyzewski didn’t force the issue. “As a staff, we had to do more confrontation because the two guys we had, it didn’t fit their wheelhouse. I try to adjust my leadership based on who I have to help me lead the team.”

*from the Washington post link HERE

Bottom line, if your personal trainer doesn’t know how to adapt and adjust the program/strategy based on each clients individuals needs, then they need to go!

2) Machine/FAD Trainer

While each client has different needs, a personal trainer shouldn’t be putting you through a full machine workout training session. A qualified personal trainer should have a lot more in their toolbox then placing you around a circuit of fitness machines. As we know by now, free weights and movement-based exercise are far more effective then a full routine of machine workouts. This also includes those personal trainers that love the TRX, speed ladders, or whatever other FAD equipment they use to entertain themselves. If a personal trainer has a healthy client and has a general goal of building his/her own overall fitness, the workout should include:

Strength- barbell, dumbbell, bi-lateral, uni-lateral, trunk etc…
Movement- Skill based, linear and lateral drills, etc…
Cardio- get the heart rate up via circuits, high reps, calisthenics, sprint training etc…
Recovery- stretching, foam rolling, mobility, etc…

While each clients program is subjective based on their needs and available equipment, there is no excuse for any personal trainer to have a full machine workout with a healthy client, nor a full TRX workout either- unless it’s for recovery. You pay good money for a personal trainer and should get a quality session that’s focused on the above points and your individual goals/needs.

3) Cardio Personal Trainer

Some personal trainers are convinced that to lose weight you must do cardio every workout. First this couldn’t be farther from the truth, DIET is what makes a big difference in your weight-loss. But to make LASTING and stronger (aesthetic) changes it’ll be a combination of weight training, cardio, and diet. If your personal trainer is having you run on the treadmill for half the session, they need to be fired immediately. You shouldn’t pay a personal trainer to stand there and watch you run on a machine, you maybe thinking this doesn’t happen…but TRUST ME, I’ve seen some frightening things in many NYC personal training gyms.

Moving on before I go on another tangent :p

While cardio is great for the heart and can help you stay in shape, it also shouldn’t be used for all your workouts. If you are running x5 days week (for fitness not sport) you may want to add in some strength training and lower down the running routine a bit. Building lean muscle mass will have lasting changes and in reality give most people the body that they want.

Here’s Paige Hathaway’s transformation:

*follow Paige on Instagram HERE