“Personal Training” has gotten a strange reputation in recent years, because there is no mandated certifying body (at least in Singapore); literally anyone can be a personal trainer, and thanks to social media, the loudest voice usually wins.

This isn’t an article to bash on who’s legitimate and who’s not, but we’ll let you in on what your first session looks like with us.

Part 1: Consultation

We’ll ask you a bunch of questions that allow us to know more about you: where you work, how much you sleep, relationships that mean something to you, food you like to eat. We don’t do this to then turn it around and go “okay you can’t do these things anymore”— we’re looking to get a snapshot of your life in totality right now. No answer is a bad one, as long as you’re honest with yourself. Even then, sometimes you can’t be sure and that’s ok: answers can change over time, because people change over time!

We use fitness as a medium for change; your fitness affects the rest of your life, so it’s only natural that your life affects your fitness in a symbiotic way.

Part 2: Assessment

If the Consultation bit functions like a scanner, this next Assessment but functions like a 3D printer. We use certain and specific physical tests to determine your current strength, mobility, aerobic and endurance levels to give us a sense of your physical faculties as a whole. This may span a single session or a few sessions, depending on the way we’re trying to stage your progress to reach your goals.

Once again, this isn’t something you need to feel bad about. We know you probably can’t do a push up, but seeing you try your best in front of us will go a long way in helping us know where you’re trying to move from, your imbalances and your natural tendencies, so we can be realistic about what we need to do next.

Part 3: Programming

This is where we take the 3D scale model of yourself along with your other data. These tests and numbers will tell us exactly what we, as coaches, need to know to design your program, which is unique to you. We’ll go into a deep, dark cave (a Starbucks, really) to start charting your next steps. Think of it like how an architect works with the head of construction: they look at what the final building looks like, assess the quality of materials they have, then get to work.

The only difference is this: you are more than a building; your body will age and go through stages in life where priorities change and perhaps deepen. We’re not pretending to be your oracle on the mountain, but we believe that your fitness and your awareness of it is going to last you for the rest of your life.

This article was written by Alex Sahilin and John Cheah.

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