Josko and Brandon from Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby have been personal trainers for over 10 years. They’ve been bad trainers themselves – and now they coach other trainers on their staff. So when they say there are signs that a trainer is setting you up to fail (or get hurt), it’s worth knowing what to look for.
Here are the 3 biggest red flags before you commit to a personal trainer.
Watch the full video on YouTube:
Red Flag 1: No Assessment Before You Train
If a trainer takes you straight to the gym floor on day one without asking a single question about your history, that’s a problem. Skipping an assessment is the fitness equivalent of a doctor handing you a prescription before running any tests.
The point of an assessment isn’t paperwork. It’s context. Your trainer needs to know what brought you in, what your goals are, whether anything hurts, and what injuries you’ve had. None of that is small talk – it shapes every programming decision they make from day one.
At Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, the assessment process covers three things before any real training starts: a blueprint meeting to talk about goals, a 3D body scan to capture body composition data, and a movement analysis to see how your body actually moves. That’s one to two sessions just for the baseline. Everything after gets built on top of it.
The right starting point is different for every person. Someone who’s never lifted before needs a different entry point than someone coming back from knee surgery. Someone trying to lose 30 pounds has different priorities than someone training for a 10K. Without an assessment, a trainer is guessing – and you’re the one who pays for those guesses.
If you showed up to your first session and your trainer never asked what brought you in, what hurts, or what you’re trying to accomplish – that’s worth paying attention to.
Red Flag 2: Talking in Absolutes
Watch out for trainers who say things like “the only way to build your biceps is…” or “you should never feel a deadlift in your lower back” or “you have to hit this many reps to build muscle.” That kind of absolute language sounds confident. It’s usually a sign the trainer isn’t thinking about you specifically.
The problem with absolutes in fitness is that the right answer almost always depends on the person in front of you. Squat mechanics vary by hip structure. What looks like bad form for one person might be completely appropriate for another based on their build. A trainer who applies the same rules to every client isn’t coaching – they’re running a template.
A good trainer adjusts based on where you are and what you can currently do, then pushes you just enough past that to create adaptation. That’s the job. Telling someone “your knees must go out in a squat” or “never do this exercise, it’s the worst for your shoulder” without individualizing any of it is just noise.
It’s easy to understand why absolute language gets popular. It makes good social media content and sounds authoritative. But in a real training environment with a real person who has real history, it breaks down fast.
Pay attention to the language. Phrases like “for most people” or “depending on your situation” or “for you, I’d adjust this because…” are signals of a trainer who’s actually thinking. Same cues for every client, no adjustments, absolute rules – that’s a red flag.
Red Flag 3: Overusing a Timer
Timers aren’t inherently a problem. The red flag is arbitrary timer use – “do as many burpees as you can in two minutes” or “get 20 mountain climbers in under a minute” – without knowing whether you can hit those targets with your form intact.
What usually happens: by rep 10 or 12, you’re tired, your form starts breaking down, and you’re grinding through the last few reps just to hit a number someone picked out of nowhere. That’s when injuries happen.
This shows up most often with coaches who came up in CrossFit. CrossFit programming is built for athletes – it’s intense, competitive, and assumes a base level of movement competence. When that same format gets applied to someone who just started working out, it’s a mismatch. Not because CrossFit is bad, but because the programming wasn’t designed for that person.
At Kraken in Burnaby, the coaches use timers with purpose. There’s a difference between “30 seconds this week, 35 seconds next week, 40 the week after” and telling someone to go as hard as they can for two minutes and see what happens. The first is progressive overload. The second is performance theater with a decent chance of getting you hurt.
If you’re training to build strength or muscle, working within a rep range with proper rest is going to outperform timed circuits almost every time. The goal is quality reps, not the appearance of intensity.
FAQ
What should happen at my first personal training session in Burnaby?
Your first session should be an assessment, not a workout. A good trainer will ask about your goals, injury history, and current fitness level. At Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, new clients go through a blueprint meeting, a 3D body scan, and a movement analysis before any training begins – typically over one or two sessions.
Is it a red flag if my trainer gives everyone the same program?
Yes. A good trainer adjusts exercises, cues, and programming based on each client’s individual mechanics, injury history, and goals. If your trainer is running the same template on every client with no modifications, they’re not actually coaching you.
Why do some trainers use so many timed circuits?
Timed circuits look and feel intense – clients sweat, move fast, and feel like they worked hard. But “feeling hard” and “being appropriate for your body” aren’t the same thing. Trainers who use arbitrary timed sets are often optimizing for perceived effort rather than actual progress.
What’s the difference between good and bad timer use in training?
Good timer use is tied to a known baseline – a 30-second plank you can hold with solid form, then 35 seconds next week. Bad timer use is picking an arbitrary number (“20 burpees in a minute”) without knowing if you can hit it without your form falling apart.
How do I know if a personal trainer in Burnaby is right for me?
Watch for whether they assess you before programming, whether they adjust exercises to your specific situation, and whether they prioritize your form over hitting targets. A trainer who asks good questions, listens to the answers, and builds a plan around you – not a generic template – is worth keeping.
Ready to Start?
If you’re in North Burnaby and looking for a trainer who starts by actually understanding your body before handing you a program, Kraken Fitness offers a free trial week. Come in, meet the coaches, and see what training built around you looks like.
About the Author
Josko is the Founder & CEO of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby. He’s been a personal trainer for over 10 years and now spends just as much time coaching his coaches as he does coaching clients.
Brandon is the Co-Owner & COO of Kraken Fitness. He brings the kinesiology background to the team – the guy Josko calls when a client asks a science question.
Full Transcript
[Josko]
In this video, we’re going to be giving you three personal trainer red flags that you should be watching out for before you get a personal trainer. So, obviously, we’re gym owners. We own a gym here that’s in Burnaby. That’s near Vancouver in Canada. And uh yeah, we’ve been personal trainers for like over like 10 years. And you know, we’ve been bad trainers ourselves and now I think we’re pretty good trainers. And we actually now just coach other trainers on being trainers – our staff. So yeah, you should trust us.
[Josko]
So the number one thing that would definitely be a huge red flag is not doing assessments. So it’d be like going to a doctor and then they’re just giving you medication right away without actually gaining your history or what your actual baseline or capabilities are before they give you any kind of prescription. Same thing with fitness. You’re going to want to actually see where they’re at first before giving them the right dose for where they want to be.
[Josko]
At our gym, we have a very long assessment. We of course have your blueprint meeting where you’re going to be sitting down talking about your goals. We also do a 3D body scan. That’s going to be kind of like similar to a STYKU scan where you’re taking down your body fat percentage and you’re taking down your lean muscle mass percentage and all of that. We also do a movement analysis. And this is all before we ever teach you how to do a single exercise. Why? Because your trainer needs to understand the context. What brought you here? What are your goals? Where do you want to go? What’s wrong with your body? Does anything hurt? Have you had injuries in the past? They need to know all of that stuff. And that’s typically like a one or two session process for us depending on the person.
[Brandon]
Number two is absolutes. So this would be a trainer who says that the only way to do X exercise is this way or the only way to get results is by doing it this specific way. The only way to build your biceps is doing it like this or the only way to strengthen your core is doing this exercise or you have to do this many reps to build hypertrophy or anything like that. Because this might make a good YouTube headline or be very hype on social media but in real life the practical application may not actually apply to each individual person. So a really good trainer is able to make modifications to what your goals are and what you’re able to currently do to just push you a little bit past that so you adapt to that stimulus.
[Brandon]
So where a trainer might say that your knees have to go out in a squat or don’t let your knee go too far forward while you’re squatting or you shouldn’t feel a deadlift in your lower back – it’s all going to be different for every single person. So you can’t talk in absolutes. You can’t say, “Oh, never do this exercise. This exercise is the worst for your shoulder.” Because it really all depends on the person. So, just watch out for that kind of language. It really tells you a lot about that trainer.
[Josko]
So, number three is overuse of a timer. A lot of trainers, they’ll say something like, “I want you to do as many burpees as you can in two minutes. I want you to try to get x amount of reps in a minute.” The problem is most likely your form is going to start breaking down, especially if they just chose some arbitrary number that they think you should be able to do. So they might say something like, I want you to get 20 reps of burpees in under a minute or as many mountain climbers as you can in 30 seconds.
[Brandon]
And what ends up happening is like by let’s say rep number 10, you start getting tired, your shoulders start sagging, it gets harder and harder, and then now you’re just putting yourself at risk for injury trying to reach that time. And this is unfortunately how a lot of CrossFit classes are built. But just remember that CrossFit classes, they’re built for like the athlete and then there’s like general population that just started doing it. It’s not made for the general population.
[Josko]
And so a lot of coaches end up using this a lot because they’ve seen CrossFit or maybe they were taught by a coach that that was the way that you’re supposed to do it and they want to see you sweat and burn and hurt and cry. But the reality is that this is probably one of the biggest red flags when it comes to training. So, especially if you’re in a context of trying to build strength or even muscle, you can do it with a timer, but it’s actually going to be much more optimal to work within a certain rep range that’s going to bring you to a certain amount of fatigue and give yourself adequate rest so you can actually perform it with good form.
[Josko]
There’s nothing wrong with using timers per se. Like, you could say something like, “I want you to do a 30 second plank,” but you have to know that that person can actually reach that. You can’t just say a random number. So we use timers all the time. We have clocks all around us and some of the coaches carry timers with them, but they’re for specific purposes so that we can progressively overload. This week you’re doing 30 seconds, next week you’re doing 35, the week after that you’re doing 40. That makes sense. But in the context of just as many reps as you can, as fast as you can – it’s one of the biggest red flags.
[Josko]
So, those are the three biggest red flags. Watch out for these when you get a personal trainer and yeah, save yourself an injury. If you like that video, please like and subscribe and we’ll see you in the next one.