What Is a Personal Trainer?

When the term 'Personal Trainer' is mentioned, a lot of images are conjured up in the mind. Most involve pushing people to their limits, whilst the trainer is shouting at this poor sweaty person, who looks like they are about to pass out, vomit, or worse, both. But we really aren't like that at all (Unless, of course, you ask us to be!)

Personal Trainers can take on many roles, or many specialities. These can include, but are not limited too, weight loss, toning, muscle building, sports specific training, weightlifting, rehabilitation and functional training.

The first three (weight loss, toning and muscle building) are pretty self explanatory. But what you may not know is the other roles we may take on.

Rehabilitation, (and no, I don't mean alcohol and other drugs) is generally post (after) injury or post surgery. Imagine you have had a knee reconstruction (A very common surgery, even for non sports players). You have your operation. You do the physiotherapy in hospital (Acute). Then after you are discharged, you are then referred onto an outpatient service. These services will vary from location to location. But generally, it's 1 or 2 visits per week, with a Physiotherapist. These last for generally 8 to 12 weeks, depending on the type of surgery and your recovery.

Then what happens?

You may be referred onto us, Personal Trainers! We can talk to your Physiotherapist and yourself about your recovery, goals and any complications. The Physiotherapists may require you to undertake some hamstring, quad and/or some balance work with a Personal Trainer. Your main goals should be to strengthen the knee, be able to walk on it independently, and have full range of movement and the knee should be even with the other knee that wasn't operated on. And of course, functional training also helps with this, as it is designed to help with everyday movements the body uses with every day life.

What about Sports Specific? Well that is simple. There is such a wide variety of sports these days, all using different movement patterns and different muscles. For example, a marathon runner uses leg muscles to complete a straight running pattern where as a footballer, although they still use leg muscles to run, they doesn't always run in a straight line. They need agility work to stop, start and run in different directions. If we are talking AFL (Australian Rules Football), then they also need to work on their upper body strength to help mark, handball and tackle other players. Swimmers need upper body, lower body and core. And different exercises also help to mimic the different movements in their strokes that they do in the pool.

And there is my personal favourite, Power-lifting. I am fascinated by this sport. This is what we call a 'tri-lift' sport. There are 3 different lifts performed. A back squat (Where you have the barbell on the back of your shoulders, and squat while keeping the barbell straight), a bench press (Where you are laying on your back on a bench, and you lower the barbell to your chest and raise it back up into the air) and the Dead lift (Where the barbell starts off on the floor, and you lift it to shin height and lower it again, back to the floor). Not only does this sport take a huge amount of strength in your arms and legs, but a lot of core (tummy/middle section), back and shoulders work.

Not every Personal Trainer has the same qualifications, or the same 'specialties' so 'shopping around' for one that suits you may be required.