What to Look For When Choosing a Personal Trainer

What to Look For When Choosing a Personal Trainer

Including regular activity and exercise into your life is a wise move. Investing in advice to ensure you are doing the right exercise for you is also an important decision.

When you head to the doctor when you are sick, or need medical advice, you know that your doctor has been through checks of their qualifications, as they are not able to practise in NZ without registration.

You cannot assume this when you get advice on exercising as not all personal trainers are equal; in fact anyone can claim to be an expert in health and fitness.

A person who sets you up with exercise and lifestyle plans can add years to your life, help prevent an array of lifestyle diseases, and contribute to both mental and physical health. In order to do these things they should know what they are talking about.

Choosing health through regular exercise is absolutely the right choice to make, just make sure you get the right advice which doesn’t do you more harm than good.So before you put your health and your body in the hands of someone there are a few things you need to take into account.

Make sure your trainer has an appropriate exercise qualification.
A trained exercise professional will have completed a qualification in exercise and health related study.

This is because in order to give you the right exercise advice, your trainer needs to know how the human body works, and what can be done safely to prevent injury. While what you look like on the outside may motivate you to exercise, your trainer needs to know what’s going on inside your body to get good and safe results. An unqualified person could easily take the latest fitness fad and get you to follow it blindly. A trainer who knows their stuff will be able to adapt any new technique and make it safe for you.

Make sure your trainer keeps up to date
Exercise is a science and developments are made resulting in changes in the types of exercises we do, and how we do it. This means if your trainer does not stay up to date by reading widely, attending workshops and up skilling their knowledge, then the exercises they are providing may be out of date, ineffective or just dangerous.

How can you know which trainer is qualified and up to date?
It’s actually quite easy to choose a qualified and up to date trainer. While the bad news is that we don’t have compulsory exercise professional registration in NZ ,we do have REPs, the New Zealand Register of Exercise Professionals. Registration with REPs is the recognised standard to ensure safe and effective exercise advice.

Facilities (gyms, studios) also register with REPs, committing to only use exercise professionals that are qualified, up to date, and who agree to a set of ethics in the work they do.

It’s great that most of the exercise industry (both facilities and exercise professionals) are registered with REPs, including almost all of the major clubs and chains.

It’s easy to find out whether a trainer or facility is registered, just head to www.reps.org.nz and use their search function.

Who recommends using REPs registered trainers?
You don’t have to take our word for it. There are some pretty large organisations that support using REPs Registered Professionals and Facilities.

The Ministry of Health, in their new Guide to Going to the Gym recommend REPs Registered Facilities and Professionals.

To be part of the fringe benefit tax free Stress Management Exercise Association Endorsed Programme (SMEAEP) , it is an Inland Revenue requirement that the exercise professional must be REPs registered . Please go to www.smeaep.co.nz for more information.

Who is the NZ Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs)?
REPs is an independent non-profit organisation administrating the New Zealand exercise professionals register to ensure that the public receive safe and effective exercise advice. Using REPs Registered Exercise Professionals is the “Warrant of Fitness Check” that exercise professionals and facilities meet New Zealand and internationally benchmarked standards to deliver exercise advice and instruction. REPs is affiliated globally to other national exercise professional registers representing over 210,000 exercise professionals through the International Confederation of Registers for Exercise Professionals (ICREPs) - www.icreps.org.

ENDS

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