November 2017

We do not know the answer to this question, but we know from many years of experience in conducting personal trainings that gender is often important for you – clients – when choosing a personal trainer. Specific expectations as to the person of a personal trainer may be caused by a lack of good knowledge of the industry, stereotypes that are still perpetuated in social awareness, or own unconscious fears and needs. We decided to look at the stereotypical perception of both genders in the context of personal training. There is a belief that a male trainer has a more task-oriented approach to work and thus has a chance to be more focused on training. This assumption is accompanied by a comment that he does not waste time on stories about his weekend culinary achievements or children’s performances 😉 He is also better able to cut himself off from experiences, so there is a lower risk that problems with private life will affect his involvement in individual training. In the public perception, men still enjoy greater authority in the case of typically “male” professions. And these definitely include sports-related competitions. It is also said that men tend to be firm more often, which can better mobilize the person under their care to work hard during personal training. Women, however, usually combining many life roles on a daily basis, are considered to be better organized. And this can directly translate into the quality and structure of personal training. With that in mind, it is hoped that more can be done with the trainer within the same training unit. It is commonly believed that ladies have more patience than men and can therefore be better teachers and impart knowledge and skills, including exercise technique, more effectively. They understand clients’ needs better due to their more developed empathy. They pay attention not only to the good performance of their work, but also to the comfortable mental well-being of the student / ward. HOW DO WE CHOOSE A PERSONAL TRAINER? What individual factors influence the decision to choose your personal bully? 😊 Women often, fearing a strange man, shame around the body or a jealous partner making reproaches, decide to train with a woman. Clients with typical “female” shortcomings of the figure, such as cellulite or stretch marks after pregnancy, also prefer to meet with an individual trainer, who will be easier to tell about their complexes and who count on greater understanding. Often, guided by the appearance of the person who is to train us, ladies choose a personal trainer whose figure is close to their expectations, and not a muscular trainer (unless expectations go towards such body aesthetics 😉). There must also be a thought that women are by nature more delicate, which raises the expectation of greater understanding and leniency on the part of the personal trainer (how wrong this belief is known to Malwina’s poor clients😁). In the case of men, the reasons are actually similar. It may happen that men without training experience will focus on choosing an individual trainer not on their qualifications, completed courses or experience, but rather on his physical attributes such as the size of the chest. As if muscle mass is directly proportional to knowledge. In the case of men, there may also be embarrassment. Then you think that it will be easier to reveal your weaknesses to a man than to reveal them to a woman. Also, “showing up” in a club with a female trainer can be embarrassing or even humiliating for some men. How is it? “Woman beats me”? It happens that a personal trainer may be less obedient to the client than her colleague would have, after all, what can she know about weights, after all, she is only a woman. THE GENDER OF THE TRAINER MATTERS? You might think that the client and the same-sex trainer will have better contact due to the greater number of common points. However, this assumption is unfounded. There are men for whom individual training with a woman is an additional motivation. If they want to impress their trainer, they will be more involved in exercising. And there are ladies who cannot imagine working with another woman, and appreciate their coaches for the concrete, distance and sense of security they receive from them. Regardless of the gender of the trainer, his knowledge, experience and skills are important, as well as the “chemistry” that occurs between him and the client. It is such an intimate relationship that your own comfort is sometimes the best signpost.