Per my previous post - time to talk about program structure and design.  Everyone who enters a gym has their own unique goals based on their body type, lifestyle and work schedule.  While conducting the initial evaluation, the personal trainer (PT) should be talking to you to understand how you’ve been training, any areas of concern, any injuries, certain things you can’t do, etc…  All of these details will help the PT when designing your program.  It’s much better to know that type of information up front instead of learning about it after the program is designed and you’re getting ready to do the exercise for the first time.

What you should understand is you’re paying a PT to design a program custom made for your specific needs – that’s the point/purpose of hiring a personal trainer and essentially what personal training means.

Probably one of the most sought after goals clients have is to tone up, lose body fat and drop weight – those 3 goals essentially go hand-in-hand.  The various types of training that exist to meet those goals are limitless; a good personal trainer can be pretty creative with exercise in maximizing results.  Since a client will generally have a one hour session 2-3 times per week, it’s incumbent upon the PT to provide the client with the best program that will maximize results in that rather short period of time.  In order to make that possible, the PT should have knowledge with regard to the human body (physiological effects, biomechanics, kinesiology, etc…) and how it works relative to the client’s lifestyle.  You can’t just take cookie-cutter workouts and expect them to work for everyone.

Here’s a general example of what I’m referring to when I talk about custom made program designs; I’ll use 3 of my clients as an example.

• 3 clients, 3 different body types, 3 different lifestyles but the SAME goal; all 3 of their programs are different and use a variety of different types of exercise.  One client does more cardio than the others.  Once client lifts heavier weights and has less rest in between sets.  One client has an injury and can’t do many of the traditional exercises that most people take for granted.  Some of the training that is incorporated into their program designs are interval training, supersets, drop sets and core conditioning, to name a few.  I can’t take one workout and make it work for all three, even though they all have the same goal.  Having just described all of this too, more than likely this will change very quickly as they become more conditioned and their endurance increases.

In the next few posts we can discuss some of the methods of training I mentioned above: supersets, interval training and core conditioning.  Some of you are probably wondering what those are.

Here are a couple of tips:

• If you have a good trainer, he or she will explain the importance of diet & nutrition as they will work in synergy with your training program.  You can work as hard as you possibly can in the gym but when and what you eat will make or break all the hard work.
• Don’t be afraid to ask the personal trainer questions.  Make he or she answer your questions in a manner you understand.  Too many times, I see personal trainers try to talk around the questions and use big words to make you think they know what they’re talking about.  Chances are, if they can’t explain it to you in a way you can understand it then they probably don’t really understand it themselves.