Personal Trainer Vancouver

What To Expect From Working With A Personal Trainer

Our personal trainers start with your permission and consent before getting to work with you to come up with a plan. Your professionally certified personal trainer will keep your data safe throughout the process. No mean no, yes means yes… we take your consent seriously.

Your first session with a personal trainer

Some of our clients want a general fitness plan, so broader goals and longer time-lines are appropriate. In other cases however, a client may have a deadline in mind like an upcoming run or a vacation.

With goals set and a baseline to work from, it becomes easier to check progress and either stay on track or adjust the program as needed.

Here are the steps our personal trainers take with their clients.

Prior to this assessment our clients will also fill an intake form which is a medical survey and a consent form. This survey will be in preparation for an initial assessment that includes contact details, some general health and medical questions that look at stress levels, sleep quality, and current fitness – as well as past medical conditions.

Medical practitioners such as kinesiologists also require clients to fill a PAR-Q+ form to identify clients who might require a doctor’s recommendation to start exercise. Finally, consent is required (consent means reading and agreeing to our policies). Once this is done our personal trainer has the information and the permissions they need to start working with you.

The very first step of their assessment is to take stock of your past fitness experiences: your personal trainer will ask how those experiences went, what worked and what didn’t. They’ll also ask about past injuries. Our personal trainers listen intently at this stage, asking generative questions before starting to build a full understanding of what their client wants and needs.

The next stage of the assessment is about objective measures: range of motion, flexibility, strength, girth measurements, weight and functional movement screen. Some specialized personal training programs rely on more in depth measures like body composition, chemical measures such as V02max or computer imaging. Be sure to ask your personal trainer if these tests are relevant to the type of training you’re looking for. Basic manual measurements are enough for most clients. The accuracy and type of information our personal trainers collects allows them to create a program that challenges you as our client appropriately.

With this baseline recorded, it’s time for your personal trainer to set goals. These goals and timelines should be realistic, so we take into consideration your budget and schedule. Goals vary from client to client – some clients want a particular aesthetic others are looking to lose weight. Strength and agility are also common goals.

Even if you are seeking general fitness, it is important to set specific goals. For example: “lose two inches on my waist by August”, or “do 10 pull-ups by my wedding date”. That way our personal trainers can help you stay on track during your program.

Finally it’s time for the personal trainer to create an exercise program for you. This is the step that most people think about when imagining personal training. The program might start during the assessment session if there is time, or during the 2nd session. The actual form of the program is a plan that often lives in the personal trainer’s head and is explained verbally to the client, but be sure to ask your trainer if you’d like them to create a printout to use at home or in a community centre. From this step onwards the personal trainer will continue to reassess each client periodically and check in on their goals.

Data Security and Personal Information

Today, data security is at top of mind for everyone – especially if that data contains private contact and health details. In fact, even paper files may be at risk because this information might be valuable in the wrong hands. At the same time, it would be unproductive to block health data from the practitioners who need it to help their clients. Therefore, it’s more important than ever for personal trainers to strike the right balance of gathering the information that is needed while ensuring data security.

Personal trainers in Vancouver are bound by BC and Canadian personal data privacy laws PIPA BC and PIPEDA respectively. These are different from FIPPA and other regulations restricting information collected by doctors and hospitals, PIPA is a broader privacy act and applies not only to private practice like physiotherapists but to all businesses. There’s a lot to know about these laws, but a key takeaway is that it is the personal trainer’s responsibility to collect no more than the information they will use; keep your information up to date and accurate; and to keep data safe. Consent is implied when a client voluntarily gives any personal information, so it is always a good practice for a client to ask about data security at an early stage.

Kinesiologists make excellent personal trainers

Kinesiology is its own recognized field of scientific study – the study of human movement. Kinesiologists have to obtain a university degree to become a practitioner. To become a kinesiologist in British Columbia, you must go through a 4 to 5-year post-secondary degree program at an accredited university.

Several large BC universities, like the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, offer kinesiology majors with courses in biology, chemistry, anatomy and biomechanics. Most offer hands-on labs and students are exposed to real-world health and fitness through student jobs like helping to train university sports teams.

After their degree is complete, kinesiologists must then join the British Columbia Association of Kinesiologists (BCAK) in order to become accredited. With good standing with the BCAK, professional kinesiologists are ready to train clients on their own or join health teams working alongside doctors, physiotherapists or counsellors.

The expertise of a kinesiologist is broad and applies to many fitness, health and academic settings. In a gym, a kinesiologists work can be the same as a personal trainer when providing exercise advice and support with the added benefit that a kinesiologist comes with the backing of years of education. Sports teams, health clinics and community centres commonly hire kinesiologists for this very reason.

Other Personal Trainer Certifications and Accreditation

Other than Kinesiology Association of BC membership, the leading personal trainer certification is the British Columbia Recreation and Parks Association (BCRPA). ACE, NCSA and ACSM certificates are also common. There are numerous options so be sure to ask your personal trainer which certification they hold.

Because the main personal trainer certifications are varied and relatively quick to obtain – as little as 12 weeks compared to 4 years for a professional kinesiologist – a personal trainer’s approach, style and quality can vary hugely. Our recommendation for anyone working with a personal trainer outside of Symmetrix is to screen your personal trainer for experience and reputation, on top of certifications.