Posted on February 22, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Last night I had a dream that I was walking through Leeds and saw Chris Baird smoking!! I woke up in a cold sweat and started thinking about whether it was a disciplinary and then remembered it was a dream….phew!

As I sat eating breakfast (porridge with seeds and cinnamon this morning) I reflected on my dream and then started thinking about whether there is an ideal image of a personal trainer. Do the general public have a preconceived idea of what they think personal trainers should look like and behave? And if they do….what is it? Do I conform to it? If I don’t, should I consider changing?!

I guess these thoughts also relate to a comment I made in a previous post about our personal training clients often thinking the team of motive8 personal trainers in Leeds being super-human exercise freaks?! It’s interesting that when I speak to my clients they seem to automatically think that I’m going to be super fast at running, super strong or that I find all types of exercise easy! This isn’t true, whilst I think I’m pretty strong for my size, I actually find certain exercises really hard….burpees for one! I’m also just mastering the art of pull-ups, which as a personal trainer is quite embarrassing that I’ve only recently been able to lift my own body weight. So, I hate to shatter anyone’s dreams but there are things we do find hard…hopefully this won’t make you feel disappointed but make you realise we are simply human!

Do people have expectations about how a personal trainer should look? I’m sure they do, after all, many people will often employ a personal trainer because they want to look better themselves and therefore they may look to their trainer inspiration. However, just as people in every day life come in different shapes and sizes, then so do personal trainers! We all have our own goals and disciplines – some personal trainers may be into body composition training,  others may be triathletes or marathon runners, some may play team sports, whilst some personal trainers may just love to exercise and not have a specific activity they focus on other than simply enjoying exercise and looking after their health (a perfect reason to exercise if you ask me!)….these reasons to exercise will all result in very different physiques.

People’s own perceptions about the ideal image of a personal trainer don’t necessarily have to just do with body image either it could be about what we eat and drink and our behaviours. How would a client feel if they bumped into their personal trainer having a few beers on a night out? Would this be acceptable? Do clients think we ever eat chocolate or biscuits? How would they feel if we did! (I’m not saying we do….it’s all hypothetical!) Going back to my dream, I would be mortified if I saw any of the personal trainers in Leeds smoking……but is this any worse than drinking or eating rubbish?!

Overall my view is that as a personal trainer I want to be a role model to my clients. I want to educate them about how they can lead a healthy and active life which as a positive impact on their health and increases their longevity. I want to be a person who they look up to and inspires them to make the choices they make to achieve their exercise goals.

If you read this post and you have an ideal image of a personal trainer or any thoughts about this it would be good to hear them so reply and let us know! What would also be interesting to find out is whether these images changed once you started training with your own personal trainer.