Singapore Personal Trainer | FAQ’s On Hiring A Personal Trainer In Singapore

“Personal Training at home? How is that possible? You mean I got to get those machines and keep it in my house? ”

These are common skepticisms people have at the notion of working with a personal trainer at home. How can you actually get results when you don’t have your home equipped with all the machines and facilities the mega gym has?

The secret is…………

………….Well, there is no secret.

If a personal trainer tells you so, it’s like pissing on your feet and telling you that it’s raining. Or it may also mean he has no clue about designing a proper, minimalistic workout at all. Truth be told, you don’t actually need much equipment to get the desired results when hiring a personal trainer. It all depends on how experienced and versatile the trainer is.

Now, let’s look at the basic fundamentals of a properly balanced workout. It’s got to cover these basic movements (hang on with all these technical jargons yeah, it’s imperative that you know these so you could weed out the less competent trainers for the better ones when you intend to hire one in the future)

7 Basic movements :

• Quad dominant exercises - you don’t need machines

• Hip dominant exercises - you don’t need machines, free weights would be useful

• Horizontal Pulling exercises - you don’t need machines, free weights would be useful

• Horizontal Pushing exercises - you don’t need machines

• Vertical Pulling exercises - you don’t need machines, resistance bands would be useful

• Vertical Pushing exercises - you don’t need machines, free weights would be useful

• Core Exercises - you don’t need machines

It’s not difficult to find a personal trainer in Singapore to hire but don’t be surprised that when you’re seeking for one the jargons used above may sound alien to them. Nothing shocking because most trainers out there stop learning once they’ve gotten their basic certifications.

All right, consumer warnings aside let’s get to the whole point of this post.

In home or at the gym?
This post is to give a clearer picture of how personal training at home can be done and may prove to be better than joining a gym membership. The money that you will save from the membership fees and petrol back and forth locations (gym to house and vice versa) will be used to purchase some simple equipment (yeah, not the bulky ones!). Equipment needed for purchase (from top to least priority)

• Barbell with plates

• A pair of dumbbell with plates

• Resistance bands/tubings

• Swiss ball

• Medicine ball

• Exercise mat

• Foam rollers (to be used for deep massage)

• Step up boards

Equipment you can use from home

• Platforms of various heights (be it low height table, chairs, staircase)

• Sturdy objects to loop bands (pillar or heavy furniture)

• Extra Space (well not really an equipment but if you have a big space it’ll be of an advantage!)

• Tennis balls (this can replace foam rollers)

These are but a few of the plethora of equipment you can use to get great workouts at home. Very basic but is more than enough to get the results you want. Your home need not look like a gym equipment shop as the items above could be stored safely in an obscure location without needing to be an eyesore.

OK, so there you go. Workouts at home with a personal trainer without the hassle of monthly memberships and traffic jams.

Cheers and good luck to your fitness journey!

PS: Get this checklist for a good head start: How To Choose A Personal Trainer 

When it comes to personal training locations in Singapore, we have so many options to begin with. I’ll touch upon the common ones in this post. You can click on the hyperlinks to get more details on each particular type of location.

Usually, when someone wants to start personal training they would go to one of the big mega gyms, sign up as a member and then hire the trainer that is attached to that gym. (Note: the personal trainer the client is attached to may be a part-time freelancer as commercial gyms do hire freelancers)

 

Full timer or Part-timer?

The trainer would then train the client and make use of the machines that are readily available in the gym. Most personal trainers attached to gyms would base their workouts on exercising with big, bulky machines even though more and more scientific studies have shown that ‘free’, unrestricted movements like bodyweight exercise, free weights and exercise bands yields superior results.

But we can’t blame these trainers because if more and more people realize that machines are inferior, lesser people will sign up as members of gyms. From a marketing standpoint, this is a “NO-NO” for the company (fewer sales). Therefore, these trainers have no choice but to base workout programs using machines predominantly.

Hold on!

I’m not saying don’t go to gyms; it is still the BEST place to exercise. But if the personal trainer you hired keep giving you machine exercises, you’d better off training on your own as machines are ‘no-brainers’. There’s normally instructions label attached to the machines unit.

(More about why machines are useless and free movements are the way to go, click here)

OK?

Another location would be right at the comfort of your home. Well if you stay in a condominium you can train at the clubhouse’s gym. Depending on how well equipped it is, you may need to invest in extra equipment to embark upon a balanced workout routine.

Condo gyms can be less crowded and fully booked too depending on peak or non-peak hours. So it all depends on luck. If your personal trainer is competent enough, he should be able to come up with a decent program without even the need for much equipment.

If you’re staying in a landed property, you can train anywhere there’s space. The bigger the space the better, but it’s not a must. Heck, you can even train in a small room that’s barely a 100 square feet in size! Again, it all depends on the experience of your personal trainer. If he has to scratch his head to think of new exercises, you might have found the wrong one! So choose wisely.

Lastly, a personal trainer can bring you out and train in the outdoors. This would be the most fun of all locations. There are many parks in Singapore equipped with fitness stations. With simple equipment like bands and using the readily available, various height platforms you can find all over the park your personal trainer should have no problems designing a fun, weight loss, fat blasting workout for you. Of course, it depends on the creativity of your trainer.

The cons of training outdoors would be the unpredictable Singapore weather. It may rain or shine anytime so do be prepared to find the nearest sheltered location should it rain or be too unbearingly hot to exercise. Your personal trainer should advice you accordingly on what to wear, and make sure you hydrate yourself before, during and after the workouts.

PS: Get this checklist for a good head start: How To Choose A Personal Trainer 

The first thing that comes to mind when planning to hire a personal trainer would be:

“How much does it cost?”

In Singapore, the charges range from a lowly $16.15 per hourly session to a high of $150. Now there are personal trainers who charge as high as $300 per session, but seriously, why would anyone pay that much?

If a trainer charges in the $20-30 range, does it mean that they are a lousy trainer not being able to get results for their clients. On the other hand, an expensive trainer that charges over $100, does it necessarily mean that they’ll deliver what they promise?

Can your personal trainer deliver results?

To hire a personal trainer, you’d have to equip yourself with these few pointers:

———————————————————-

• How important are my goals? Is it a life changing, life impacting decision?Am I doing it for myself, for my family? for my children?

• “What’s the REAL reason I’m hiring a trainer? Is it because I want to keep fit? Is it because I want to live healthier?” (Come on people, be honest!)

• Most personal trainer to client consultations, when asked about goals, the clients would give answers somewhat similar to the above. Generic, non-specific reasons. When actually the compelling reasons lay deeply rooted to their emotional self esteem. Things that clients are not comfortable sharing to even family members and close friends, let alone a stranger while at a consultation?

• Eg. “I need to lose weight because I feel depressed every time I look at myself in the mirror”, or

• “I have a wedding dinner in a few months time and my old friends are going to get shocked at my horrendous weight gain over the decade”, or

• “My spouse don’t seem attracted to me anymore”, or

• “My spouse keep saying I’m fat and that I needed to lose weight”…

• Or other debilitating, negative verbal/mental self abuse one would say to oneself.

• and the list goes on

(Not wanting to go off topic here but these matters need to be addressed before anyone should even decide hiring a personal trainer. OK, back to the topic of pricing…)

• How much is my monthly budget and how much time am I willing to commit?

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Do take note that if you hire a personal trainer in Singapore, hire one that is equipped with good EQ skills and the understanding of the psychological aspects of a client. In fact, this plays a higher level of importance as compared to the basic fitness and physiological expertise your personal trainer should already have. (As to whether most trainers have that basics, that will be another topic by itself.)

So in summary, here’s pretty much the breakdown of the costs of hiring a personal trainer in Singapore (per sessions basis):

• Freelance personal trainers (mostly part-timers who already have a full-time day job but is pretty much moonlighting as a trainer): $20-$50 range

• Country club trainers: $40-60 range

• Mega Commercial Fitness Centres (they have a fair share of full timers but they also contract freelance trainers to work at their studios for a split in commission): $60-$100 range

• Experienced/established Companies with Private Studios: vary but can range from $60 to $150

• Elite Independent trainers: $80 to $200 range

A general rule of thumb (and let me say that this is general and by no means accurate), the more in demand, experienced, and sought after the trainer is, the higher the charges would be.

A professional, qualified personal trainer is expensive and you should not go for the cheapest. Well you can, if you want mediocre results but we’re talking about your health (is it wealth?) here.

 

 

Would you hire the cheapest heart surgeon to operate on your heart , the cheapest contractor to build your real estate, the cheapest lawyer to fight your case, the cheapest dentist to fill your root canal? I bet no? You’d definitely want to get the best that you can fork out right.

Most trainers who charge lowly rates would normally be low in demand OR it could be a way to entice potential (or would I say unsuspecting) cleints. The basic rule of ‘demand and supply’ applies here too. Why would their demand be low? Well common sense would predict that their qualifications, experience or results may be sub-par.

(Not wanting to slam rookie personal trainers here, because everyone’s got to start from somewhere. But…. this post is about getting the best personal trainer you can that’s within your budget and therefore I’ll just be as honest as I can. Sorry newbie trainers, your time will come when you’ve proven yourselves!)

WARNING: Consumer Alert!!

 

Also do take note that quite a number of personal trainers here in Singapore have won the ‘Best Personal Trainer Awards’ (or variations of it) from the companies they are attached to. Do take note that ‘best’ normally correlates with ’sales made’ for that particular company. So the onus is on you to differentiate a ’sales trained trainer’ between a ‘qualified trainer’.

 

 

I hope this post has been useful!

 

 

Good luck to your fitness journey!

 

 

PS- There are other cost factors that would add up to the overall costs such as client’s location, special medical contraindications (if any) and supply of equipment (if needed). This is especially so for in home personal training.

 

PS: Get this checklist for a good head start: How To Choose A Personal Trainer 

Are you looking for a personal trainer in Singapore?

The common questions that people ask before hiring a personal trainer can be summed up as follows:

How do I choose a personal trainer in Singapore?

Who do I hire as my personal trainer?

Should I sign up as a member at one of the fitness clubs in Singapore and hire a personal trainer there?

Or should I hire a freelance personal trainer who will travel anywhere in Singapore who would then come over to my location?

What kind of certification should my potential personal trainer be equipped with?

Is experience more important versus certifications?

What are the price range of personal trainers in Singapore?

Can personal training be done at home with just basic exercise equipment, unlike the mega gyms in Singapore that is equipped with an array of equipment?

Would my personal trainer be giving me guidance with regards to nutrition.

Would my personal trainer have an accountability tracking system that’ll make sure I don’t fall off the wagon?

What if I travel overseas for a few weeks. Would my personal trainer keep track of my progress or give guidance when I’m away from Singapore?

Is there a support group that I could join to share my experience and also to help keep me accountable?

Do my personal trainer have real testimonials of his clients who have had great body transformation results?

Do they have before and after pictures or a video testimonial to prove this?

And most important of all…

Do my personal trainer guarantee his services and provide a 100% money back guarantee
should I not get the desired weight loss/ fitness results he promised.

These are just a fraction of the questions that will be going through your mind when you have the intention of hiring a personal trainer here in Singapore.

And what this website,

www.SingaporePersonalTrainer.com

does is to provide you with all the necessary information needed to help you make the right decision before you actually hire a personal trainer in Singapore.

Look over to the navigation bar on the right and you can find out in more detail to the Frequently Asked Questions on choosing a personal trainer.

And if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to type your message below! Hope you find this website informative and all the best to your fitness journey.

Good luck!

PS: Get this checklist for a good head start: How To Choose A Personal Trainer