Seven questions to ask a personal trainer before you pay

Personal training is one of the few things people buy without asking a single question first. It is usually bought on a feeling in a ten-minute conversation, and the feeling is often right. It is a lot more likely to be right if you ask these.

1. What happens in the first session?

You want to hear assessment before exercise. Somebody who starts a first session by making you tired has skipped the part where they find out what your shoulder does.

2. How will you change the plan if something hurts?

The answer you want is specific and calm: they will change the movement, keep training the rest of you, and tell you when it is a question for a clinician rather than a coach. Anybody who says pain is just weakness leaving the body has told you everything you need to know.

3. What do you actually measure?

Weight alone is a poor measure and a good trainer will say so unprompted. Better answers involve what you can lift, how far you can walk or run without stopping, how you sleep, and whether the stairs at work have stopped being an event.

4. What happens between sessions?

You train with them for two or three hours a week at most. The other hundred and sixty-five are the programme. A trainer who has no answer here is selling you an appointment, not a result.

5. How long before I should expect to notice anything?

Be suspicious of a confident number. An honest answer describes what usually changes first, which is typically energy and sleep rather than the mirror, and declines to promise a date.

6. What are your qualifications, and what are you not qualified to do?

The second half matters more. A trainer who tells you plainly that nutrition prescription, injury diagnosis and medication are outside their lane is a trainer who knows where the lane is.

7. What happens if it is not working?

Ask it before you pay, not after. A good answer involves reviewing the plan at a set point and being willing to say the approach was wrong. A bad answer is that you need to try harder.

When you do not need a personal trainer

Worth saying, since we sell this.

• If you already train consistently and enjoy it, you may need a specific programme rather than a coach standing next to you.
• If the obstacle is time rather than knowledge, a trainer will not fix your calendar.
• If you like training around other people and want it to be cheaper, a group class does most of the same job.
• If you are recovering from an operation or an injury, the first appointment belongs with a clinician, not with us.

The one that predicts the rest

Question six is the tell. Somebody who is comfortable naming the edge of their competence is usually careful inside it too. Everything else on this list is a way of asking the same thing.