Recently one of my students arrived to our coaching session with large plasters over her knuckles. When I asked her what had happened to her hands she proceeded to tell me about the personal training session she had just had. He was not her regular trainer, so it was her first session with him (lets call him Max). It was a boxing session which she was happy about as she had done boxing in the past. She put on her wraps (these protect the knuckles) and her gloves and so the session began…..

She was halfway through the session when she told him that her hands were starting to really hurt, Max’s response to her was “Go hard or Go home”, not a saying I have heard for quite some time!

So she pushed through the pain and finished her session with him. When she took her gloves off her hands were bleeding, hence the giant plasters on her hands!

We discussed the session and she explained that she likes to train hard but not to be spoken to in that manner. If he had gotten to know her a bit he would have found out that she has already lost 30kg and she has been working VERY hard.

As you can imagine she is eagerly anticipating the return of her regular trainer from his holiday!!

I guess this session just shows that there are some Personal Trainers out there who still use the ‘one size fits all’ approach or what springs to mind for this particular character is ‘its my way or the highway’.

When I have wanted to choose a PT for myself I go through the personal trainer profiles and choose my top three. Then I observe them for a couple of weeks, watching how they interact with different types of clients and their professional conduct. After that whoever impressed me the most is who I choose. This may not work for everyone, but it might be worth giving it a try if you’re not enjoying your personal training sessions and you are in the market for a new PT.