How to find the best personal trainers in Singapore

There are many reasons to work with a good personal trainer including the valuable education and expertise they can bring to the table, working out a program that’s the most appropriate for you, to assist your athletic goals, to avoid injuries and to assist with motivation and accountability. Unfortunately despite the explosion of Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach commercial gyms in Singapore over the last decade, this has not been accompanied by an equivalent growth in quality personal trainers. In fact, quite the opposite. These days you’re more likely to find a trainer leaning against the leg press machine checking his Facebook account whilst, his client works out. So, if you’re going to spend your hard earned dollars on a Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach, it's definitely worth selecting the best. We’ve put together this handy guide for you to select the best personal trainers in Singapore.

“Assess, don’t guess” – Paul Chek

It’s essential that your trainer write out a full 4 to 6 week programme in advance and to take notes of your performance after each set. To reach your predefined goals you need a plan, and it is the responsibility of your personal trainer to write that plan, not you. Once you have completed your assessment, the best personal trainers will spend time reviewing your assessment results and goals and come up with a fairly detailed training plan including a long-term plan and shorter programs (on a monthly or 4-6 weeks basis). This plan should be adapted and modified as you progress. 

“A man who is his own trainer has a fool for a client” - Anon

“If you change the rest period you change the exercise.” – Paul Chek

Fixed weight machines are pretty popular and commercial gyms are usually full of them. These machines were supposed to be a guide to allow the user to safely perform a movement that you would normally do with free weights. However it turns out that these machines are actually far less useful than free weights and often detrimental to your health.

• On machines, you are often seated, back resting on the seat so that your core musculature doesn’t need to stabilise your trunk and spine and therefore your core is not engaged.
• Machines usually work a specific muscle in isolation, generally prime movers that move the load, without any activation of your stabilisers. These stabilisers are in charge of stabilising the extremities and joints when moving a load through a full range of movement. If you only develop the prime movers on a machine at the expense of your stabilisers then the next time you do any functional movements, like throwing your bags into the back of a car or going for a jog you are much more likely to end up with an injury caused by muscle imbalances
• Most machines have a limited size and range of motion. They can’t accommodate different heights, or an individual’s full range of motion. Therefore you might end up in an unnatural position with your body at uncomfortable angles creating further dysfunction. Just take a look at some of the beef cakes in your average gym and then ask them to spend 60 minutes in a yoga class…
• Because they only work the prime movers they are easy to overload with poor form and hence are more likely to cause direct injuries than free weights
• They only operate in one plane of movement - they don’t allow you to twist, bend, wiggle as you exercise and hence only develop strength in 1 dimension. This is not functional.

“The only thing a Smith Machine is good for is a hanging your towel on.” – Christopher Chua

Considering the short amount of time that a personal trainer has with his client, he should focus on quality work, movements that will have a big impact on the results, and exercises where his guidance is absolutely necessary. If pure cardiovascular work such as running is necessary (only in specific cases), it should be done outside of the personal training session. This conditioning can be done by the client on his own and the personal trainer can not add much additional value. 

Most people can only commit one or two sessions a week with a personal trainer so it makes sense to add in some extra activities that can easily be done on your own in order to complement the work done with your trainer. Stretching, zonal movements, flexibility and mobility work, or even some cardio exercises done on your own can be a huge benefit to your program depending on your time commitments of course.

A personal trainer should be fit and healthy. It is hard to take someone’s advice seriously if they have bad skin, are overweight or unenthusiastic. You can spot these trainers a mile away. They have shoulders so broad that they can hardly walk through a door, they have bad skin from spending all day consuming toxic whey protein shakes that their liver cannot detoxify and are more interested in checking their Facebook messages whilst they are training you rather than concentrating 100% on you. The best trainers take care of themselves first, as a priority, before coaching others. You wouldn’t want an atheist preacher to tell you about god, or a bankrupt businessman to consult you on starting a new company. So you don’t want an unfit trainer yelling at you to do 100 push ups!

So that's all for now and we hope this will help you find a great personal trainer that is perfectly suited to your needs. If you're in the downtown area and want to know how it's done properly then feel free to get in touch with us to find out how our Personal Training can help you achieve your personal training goals.

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To your health, happiness and longevity,

The Levitise Team

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