Being a personal trainer requires more than just a precursory knowledge of fitness and exercise. A good personal trainer must be a cheerleader who motivates their clients, while at the same time is knowledgeable of the human body, is up to date on the latest weight lifting and cardio workouts and how they benefit the body, knows enough about proper nutrition to create a well balanced eating regimen for his/her clients, and is well organized and efficient in the office; because before you ever meet with your first personal training client you should make sure that you have all of the paperwork that you will need in order to offer your client superior training results. It is distracting to have to keep excusing yourself from a meeting with a client to retrieve the personal training forms that you need, but forgot to grab before the client arrived. This lack of organization does not make a client feel confident in your skills as a personal trainer, or perhaps more importantly as someone they are handing their hard earned money over to. Many clients might fear that a personal trainer who is unprepared in the office may be as unprepared and inept in the gym. Be prepared and make the best professional impression on your personal training clients. What are some of the proper personal training forms you should have when meeting with a client?
1. Health and Medical History Forms are necessary because knowing the medical background of a client will help you to develop the healthiest and safest fitness routine for your client.
2. Par Q is a physical fitness questionnaire for clients to answer that helps you to gauge their fitness level and can also pinpoint medical conditions that could pose a danger with certain forms of exercise for the client.
3. Waivers, Releases and Injury Report Forms are used to release you from liabilities as a result of any injuries a client may have as a result of engaging in a fitness routine. Hopefully none of your clients will ever hurt themselves, but it is possible and they can get hurt if they fail to disclose medical conditions that preclude them from certain exercises. You want to protect yourself in every way possible as a personal trainer.
4. Physical Assessment forms will help you to determine at what fitness level clients are presently at. This also helps in the developing of the proper fitness routine for a particular client. There are several different physical assessment forms you may choose to use here such as body fat calculating forms, measurement forms, weight tracking forms as well as a few others.
5. Client Self Assessment Forms will give you an idea of the goals the client has for seeking the services of a personal trainer to help you develop a fitness routine to meet those goals or educate the client on more realistic fitness goals.
6. Personal Training Contract Forms ensure that the client understands what services to expect from you and the costs and payment schedule and methods you expect of them.
7. Fitness Routine Forms let the client know and understand the fitness routine you have developed for them and why.
8. Progress Forms give clients a written record of the progress of their fitness from when they started to the present.
9. Exercise Preparation Forms instruct clients on how to get ready for a new fitness routine and reminds them of the importance of letting you know if they do not understand something or are experiencing any initial problems with a fitness routine.
The space of this article does not permit a full listing of all of the proper personal training forms that you should have on hand when meeting with and offering personal training services to clients. If you want to be a personal trainer with the most up to date information, then I urge to learn more about the forms listed here and to learn about the forms that did not make it onto this list. Show your clients that you are a skilled personal trainer by presenting them with a prepared, professional impression of you that is achieved by having all of the proper personal training forms you need in working with your clients right at your fingertips when you meet with them to assess their fitness needs and set up a personal training schedule of services.
