By: Michelle Seher

Did you know that the right workout can help you improve your mental health? You probably did, which is why you searched for a personal trainer for mental health 🙂

Personal trainer for mental health

Original source: here.

That’s right, it’s a proven fact that regular exercise isn’t merely milk that ‘does a body good’, but it plays a crucial and powerful part in improving your mental health and happiness.

Just to name a few positive perks of getting physical, exercise can…

  • Turn your frown upside down
  • Put a new spring in your step
  • Help you to sleep like a baby
  • Make you strong like Popeye (with or without the spinach)

If you’re someone who suffers from a mental health issue, perhaps you’re pumped to hear this optimistic news, or perhaps you’ve been there, done that, and bought the ‘I work-out’ t-shirt only to find yourself disappointed that it wasn’t the right fit for you. What’s worse, maybe you’ve attempted to exercise, and failed to follow through, and that personal let-down pushed you even further down that deep rabbit hole of despair.

If so, don’t tune me out yet. I promise you that this isn’t just the same old song and dance. Lend me your ears, or better yet, your eyes, as I aim to help you better understand what might have gone wrong and steer you towards success.

Putting this practice into place can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re a newbie or someone just trying to figure out what exercises work best for you, your body type, and the personal goal that you have in mind (whether it’s physical and mental health, weight loss, or something else). In reality, motivation often just isn’t there for you to get through the right workout on your own.

What can you do to overcome this?

Well, for starters, a great option would be to hire a personal trainer for mental health.

Just like any prize fighter, including Rocky, you’ll need the right trainer by your side to instruct you, guide you and cheer you on to victory.

Having someone to support, direct and encourage you along the way is always a sensible way to proceed.

Choosing a personal trainer who is the perfect fit for you isn’t as easy as pulling a name out of a hat (or Google). There are a few things that you should be aware of before you take the necessary steps in choosing a trainer who will stay by your side to show you the secrets of boosting your stamina and how not to sweat the small stuff. 

You will want to keep in mind the following:

  • Oversights made by personal trainers when it comes to working with depressed clients
  • Oversights by consumers when choosing their personal trainer for mental health issues

Still with me?

Wonderful! Before we get to the nitty-gritty, let me put your mind at ease by sharing a bit of my background and reassuring you that I’ve not only researched this topic, but I have seen it in action as an eyewitness to amazing transformations that have taken place with my own clients.

Who am I?

  • I’m the author of The Mental Health Prescription
  • I have personally worked with people who previously suffered with mental health problems
  • I purposefully promote and present this topic to corporations as a harbinger for change

Major Oversights of Personal Trainers Working Working With People Who Have Mental Health Issues

One of the goals for this article is to enlighten you to the 3 most common oversights that some personal trainers and fitness professionals fall victim to when working with clients suffering with mental health problems. Once you are ready to take the next step to seek the best coach for you, I want you to do it with newly boosted confidence.

Oversight 1: Failing to Determine the Different Types Of Mental Health Issues

Mental illness isn’t a one-size-fits all disorder. Mental illness is a general term for a lot of different conditions, from anxiety, to depression, PTSD, and many others. 

A good trainer needs to be able to closely monitor and assess their client’s frame of mind–we do this by utilizing questionnaires. There are different questionnaires for different mental health issues. For instance, for depression, there’s the POMS (profile of mood states). For anxiety, there’s the STAI (state-trait anxiety inventory), and many others.

Right off the bat, a new client should be given an extensive questionnaire to fill out. Trust me, I hate filling out long forms too, but this vital information will give your new trainer the intel needed to create the best workout routine for your specific needs. However, throughout your personal training sessions you should also be handed shorter but just as necessary versions of the questionnaire.

This helps your trainer keep an eye on what is working and what is not, to make appropriate adjustments along the way and ensure the personal training sessions are best suited for you. Be advised, it’s best for trainers to keep these questionnaires short, simple but targeted–who wants to be burdened with a 30-minute questionnaire before and after their workouts?

Is your current routine working for you?  Why not check out the questionnaire that we use with our clients in chapter 5 of my book The Mental Health Prescription and find out for yourself!

Oversight 2: Failure to Personalize Exercise Routines

Sadly, some trainers don’t seem to realize that clients who have mental illness require personalized exercise routines tailored for their specific needs, and that, like everyone else, they too have individual goals. A good trainer will adamantly listen to, understand, and empathize with their client’s objectives and needs in order to put together the perfect, personalized exercise routine that will ultimately help them to achieve their targets.  

Make sure to find the right place and the right trainer who is willing to take time to understand the difference between someone’s desire to bulk up and to become slightly more fit and toned. Different needs call for different exercise routines which lead to different outcomes. The idea is to achieve the results you want!

That’s why having a trainer who is not too prideful or unaware that they may need to adapt the routine along the way is vitally important. Ongoing assessment and analysis of your feedback is crucial to helping your trainer help you conquer your goals.

Oversight 3: Failure to Communicate With Other Health Professionals

Often trainers overlook the benefit of communicating with their client’s health professionals, such as doctors, social workers, practitioners, therapists who can help them better understand their clients’ needs.

The fact is that 90% of the time, exercise is helpful and beneficial to the client’s mental health, but in specific situations, exercise just isn’t the right route.

Why is this the case? There are numerous reasons that factor into why some should abstain from strenuous exercise (at least temporarily), but the biggest culprit is medication. Whereas, certain types of medications don’t mix well with exercise and vice versa, others can actually have a neutral or even positive effect. That is why communication between trainers and health professionals play an instrumental part in our clients’ success stories.

Caring enough to communicate with a clients’ health professionals, can help to pre-empt any avoidable or accidental problems. 

Building Better Awareness When it Comes to Choosing Your Personal Trainer for Mental Health

As consumers, we have our own part to play, and should strive to be “a voracious consumer of intelligence.” In all fairness, not all factors come from the personal trainer’s side. Below are some tips to help you build better awareness as you consider a personal trainer to help with your mental health condition.

Building Better Awareness: Why Do I Even Need a Personal Trainer?

If you are like most people in the busy world in which we live, you’re no stranger to the struggle of finding enough time and motivation to come up with the right routine that you can stick with that fits your needs and accommodates your busy lifestyle. This is exactly why you should hire a personal trainer.  Why add any unnecessary stress on top of your already demanding daily responsibilities?

Why try to muster up the energy to do it all yourself– let us ease your load by reducing your stress.

Taking the first step by hiring the right personal trainer is almost always the best fix for someone struggling with time, motivation, and routine. Besides, you’d be surprised that when money is involved, how quickly our motivation changes: don’t be surprised if you suddenly find yourself wanting to make sure that the person you’re now paying does their part to deserve your hard earned cash.

Yes, a good trainer can be expensive, but should you really put a price tag on your health? Hard truth… it’s much easier for your money to be replenished than your health. Hiring the right personal trainer is a sure-fire investment that will yield healthy returns in the long run.

Why struggle to save a few bucks by spending your own precious time and possibly end up with a routine that isn’t beneficial, or worse, is harmful to your situation, when there are personal trainers who have the education, experience and expertise who can create a correct and effective workout in a fraction of the time.

Building Better Awareness: You Get What You Pay For

 A huge mistake people tend to make is seeking out the cheapest personal trainer on the market. Now that’s a paradox for you–a cheap and good professional trainer! More realistically, trainers are usually either cheap or good. Perhaps in an alternative universe you could get both, but not in our world–trust me, in this case, you definitely get what you pay for!

Not convinced? Check out my article on why a more expensive personal trainer is usually better

Hiring a trainer that lacks proper knowledge, education and experience can hurt instead of help: out of ignorance, a trainer unfamiliar with mental illness may even assign exercises to you that are damaging. Think of it this way: would you ever consider buying cough syrup instead of a much-needed painkiller just because it’s cheaper? Exercise, like medication, is only effective when properly prescribed and given in the correct doses.

Building Better Awareness: Don’t Confuse Likeability with Competence

Another understandable, but common mistake consumers constantly make when ‘personal trainer shopping’ is to choose one just like they might do if they were searching for a new outfit–they choose the one that is most trendy and eye appealing.

As consumers scan through the racks of trainers, the one who looks to be fun, enthusiastic, and outgoing usually catches their eye. There’s nothing wrong with finding a trainer that has a great personality, just don’t confuse this with know-how.

Simply because someone sounds enthusiastic and confident doesn’t mean they have a background in physiology, anatomy, program design, and most importantly as it pertains to you: a program design for people with mental illness.

If you pick out someone just because you like them and they’re fun to be around, it could end up costing you time, money and possibly even your health–so choose wisely!

Building Better Awareness: Don’t Hire Someone Inexperienced with Mental Health Issues

Not only is it essential to hire someone with experience working with clients who suffer from depression, it’s just as important to check out their track record: were they actually able to help their clients?

Just like any profession, a trainer needs to have the right tools in order to do their job well. By hiring someone who is inexperienced in this particular area, or has no success stories to share, you are not only taking a huge risk with your money, but with your health.

How can you expect someone who is inexperienced to handle the necessary experimentation and personalization of routines that you need? It would be like someone who is expecting a baby seeking a podiatrist’s advice about proper breathing techniques during delivery. A podiatrist being a doctor, may have some professional insight to share, but pregnancy is most definitely not their specialty. A trainer who doesn’t have sufficient and successful experience and expertise in this area most likely won’t be able to help you to fully achieve your goals.

Think about it…If the only tool someone has is a hammer, then they’ll think everything is a nail. Personal trainers who think that one method works for all clients, will be wrong most of the time.

Conclusion

 What’s the takeaway?

  • Do your research and build better awareness
  • Not having a personal trainer might cost you more than just time and money
  • The right personal trainer is here to help you, not harm you
  • Not every personal trainer has the same education, experience and expertise
  • Take time to find the right personal trainer that’s right for you

As a parting note, if you haven’t already, I invite you once again to take this short questionnaire to see if your current routine is helping you, it can be found in chapter 5 of my book The Mental Health Prescription.