Re: Hire personal trainer?
Finding a good trainer is very difficult. At my gym, in the 2 years i've been going there, they've gone through about 30-40 different trainers. The only one whose been there the whole time was the guy who does the martial arts classes. Of all the trainers that have been there the only one I would trust is the martial arts guy, and only to teach martial arts.
In finding a trainer I would ask these questions:
1. How important are squats and deadlifts in your programs?
- In 2 years I've NEVER seen a trainer have a person do squats and deadlifts.
2. If they say squats and deadlifts are important ask if squats to parallel or ATG(ass to grass).
- ATG, it recruits more muscles in your legs and is safer for your knees
3. Machines or free weights.
- Free weights doing compound movements are king.
4. How much do you incorporate those brightly colored balls on the wall.
- The more they use them, the worse they are. I've seen trainers working people out on those balls almost their whole session.
If you manage to find a trainer who correctly answers these questions congrats, they still might suck the big one.
Your best bet is to educate yourself. Buy some books, browse some of the online forums. All this will cost less than a bunch of sessions with a probably sub-standard trainer. The best thing that can happen with a crappy trainer is wasting some time and money, the worst is severe injury because they taught you something incorrectly.
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