A good personal trainer assesses you before they write a single set, measures what they change, and solves problems instead of just naming them. They treat strength as a skill and fix your technique before adding weight. A bad one talks in absolutes, skips the assessment and coaches every client off the same template.
You can’t judge a trainer by their arms or their Instagram. Plenty of people look the part and coach by guesswork. What separates the good ones is how they think, and that shows up in the first conversation if you know what to listen for.
I sat down with Shant, my go-to injury guy here at Enterprise Fitness, to pull apart what good coaching actually looks like. Here’s the full conversation.
Why should a trainer assess you before writing your program?
Because a program without an assessment is directions without a starting point. A good screen puts a pin in the map. It says: you are here. Your goal is the destination. The program is the route between the two.
Say you want to get to Sydney. If you’re starting in Melbourne, it’s a short flight. If you’re starting in Perth, it’s a long one. Same destination, completely different trip. A trainer who hands you a program before they know where you’re starting from is guessing at the route.
There’s no judgement in it either. I assessed a client recently who was a 10 out of 10: no restrictions, could do anything. The next person might be a 2 out of 10 with a history of injuries. I don’t feel any differently about either of them. It’s just an honest reading of the starting line.
If you want to see what that looks like in practice, I’ve walked through exactly what happens in a personal training assessment.
What does a good trainer do with what they find?
They solve it. Here’s an example from the video. One of my trainers had a butt wink at the bottom of his squat, where the lower back rounds under at the deepest point. I handed him a weight to hold out in front of him, a counterbalance squat. His abs switched on, his trunk stabilised, and the butt wink disappeared.
Shant explained what’s happening. The weight in front pulls you forward, so your trunk muscles have to brace hard to stop you folding. That bracing is what gives the hips a stable base to work from. A butt wink isn’t automatically good or bad. Sitting on the couch, who cares? Under a loaded barbell, it matters, because a trunk that can’t hold its position is an injury waiting to happen.
Here’s the difference between a coach and a commentator. Anyone can name the problem. Saying a client has a butt wink because their centre of mass is off is like saying someone drinks too much because they’re a drinker. True. Useless. The good trainer picks the exercise that fixes it, then checks that it did.
Why does technique matter if you can already lift the weight?
Because strength is a skill, and your technique sets your ceiling. Two people with the same muscle can lift very different weights. The one who expresses their strength efficiently, with no energy leaking out through a wobbly trunk or caving knees, wins.
That trainer with the butt wink was squatting 70 kilos when he started here. Last week he did 120 kilos for 12 reps. He didn’t get that strong in a few weeks. We fixed the leaks, and the strength he already had finally reached the bar.
It happened to me too. I was stuck at 157 kilos on my high bar squat for a long time. Then a powerlifter had me try a low bar squat, and on my second ever session I squatted 180. The strength was there the whole time. The low bar squat simply made my glutes do their share. Physio Andrew Lock once assessed me and said if my lower back muscles matched my glutes, I’d have the backside of a Kardashian. He wasn’t wrong. Using the low bar squat to train that weakness took my high bar squat to 175.
Sometimes that means taking two steps back: less weight, better technique. That’s what earns you the giant leaps forward afterwards.
What is your trainer actually looking for?
Your constraint. Everything in your body, your business and your life only grows as far as its biggest constraint allows. Mark Bell puts it well: strength is never a weakness, and weakness is never a strength.
So a good trainer is always hunting the weak link. If your bench press technique falls apart, we add pauses. If your triceps give out first, we do more close-grip work. If your deadlift breaks down, the program is built around fixing it. Find the constraint, address it, and the whole lift moves up. That is why our clients keep getting stronger.
Shant adds a layer most trainers never consider. Scientist Karl Newell described three kinds of constraint: the individual (your build and your history), the task (a 100-metre sprint versus a marathon), and the environment (a running track versus a football field where you have to turn, catch and cut). A good program accounts for all three.
Why should a trainer measure everything?
If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Assessment isn’t paperwork. It’s the start of a loop: measure, form a hypothesis, intervene, then retest to see if you were right. Without the first measurement, you can’t tell whether anything you did worked.
Every elite sport starts this way. The NFL tests prospects on the bench press, the 40-yard dash and agility drills before they ever take the field. Even Dmitry Klokov, one of the greatest Olympic weightlifters ever, was assessed. There’s a well-known photo of him in an overhead squat that isn’t textbook, with coaches standing around studying him. People share it as proof that form doesn’t matter. Look again. It’s an assessment. It’s information. More information means better decisions, and better decisions mean better results.
What are the red flags?
Shant has two filters, and I use them too.
- They speak in absolutes. “This is the only way.” “That exercise is useless.” Coaching is full of nuance, and someone who never says “it depends” doesn’t understand it yet.
- Their whole persona is tearing other people down. If all a coach posts is criticism of other coaches, they have nothing original to teach you. The best in the industry don’t need to talk down. They’re too busy building.
- Ego. The best coaches think like scientists, not academics. They test an idea, look at the result with clear eyes, and change course when they’re wrong. A coach who needs to be right can’t do that. One who only cares about your result can.
So how do you choose a personal trainer?
Ask four questions before you sign anything:
- Will you assess me before you write my program?
- After the assessment, can you tell me what is holding me back?
- How will we measure whether it’s working?
- What happens if something we try doesn’t work?
A good trainer answers all four without blinking. If you get a vague answer, a template or a sales pitch, keep looking. And if you’re wondering whether coaching is worth paying for at all, I’ve answered that straight in is a personal trainer worth it.
This is how every client starts at our Abbotsford studio in Melbourne: assessment first, program second, and the numbers tracked the whole way. If that’s the standard you want, book a consultation.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my personal trainer is any good?
A good trainer assesses you before programming, tells you what is holding you back, and measures whether the plan is working. They fix technique before adding weight. If they hand you a generic program or speak in absolutes, that’s a warning sign.
Should a personal trainer assess me before my first program?
Yes. The assessment shows where you’re starting, and the program is the route from there to your goal. Without it, the trainer is guessing at the route.
Why does a trainer care about technique if I can already lift the weight?
Because technique sets your ceiling. Strength is a skill, and leaks like a wobbly trunk or caving knees waste force you already have. One of our trainers went from squatting 70 kilos to 120 kilos for 12 reps largely by fixing those leaks.
Is a butt wink in the squat bad?
Not automatically. A small rounding of the lower back at the bottom isn’t a problem without load. Under a heavy barbell it matters if your trunk can’t hold its position, so a good trainer fixes it before adding weight.
What are the red flags when choosing a personal trainer?
A trainer who speaks in absolutes, skips the assessment, or spends their time tearing down other coaches. The best coaches think like scientists: they test, measure and change course when something doesn’t work.
