The Best Online Personal Trainers [2022 Edition]

A great personal trainer is one of the best investments you will ever make. A terrible trainer will be a complete waste of money and could potentially damage your relationship with fitness forever. Finding the right online personal trainer is never easy, and our goal here is to help ensure that you avoid making any costly mistakes.

As a company dedicated to online personal training for people over thirty, we are often asked our opinion of other trainers and providers. Because we believe in answering every question we are asked, we put together the following list of the five most prominent online personal trainers and providers in the world.

A great personal trainer is one of the best investments you will ever make. A terrible trainer will be a complete waste of money and could potentially damage your relationship with fitness forever. Click To Tweet

We’ve compiled this list based on personal experience with each of the training providers and individuals in question. We know that each one has a genuine commitment to long-term health and fitness success for each and every one of their clients. As you vet the various trainers and providers, please remember that fitness is a very personal journey. No one coach is right for everyone. It’s about finding the right person with the right personality who matches your goals and personal needs.

Why This Is Not an Instagram Popularity Contest

We were compelled to write this article after a simple Google search for “Best Online Trainers” resulted in multiple lists of celebrity fitness trainers. Each trainer posing in scantily clad clothing. Each of them focusing on aesthetics.

Without a gym or even any experience working with clients in person, these Instagram celebrities are able to cultivate enormous followings. Many aren’t qualified trainers at all, but rather peddlers of their own branded 21-day cleanse or 12-week ab programs. Large numbers of people are jumping on board with these Instagram fitness plans that can be fraught with danger.

For long-term health and fitness success, it comes down to personalized coaching, accountability, and following a proven system and plan. A cookie cutter approach to fitness is not conducive to long-term success. No two bodies are alike.

Instagram stars can look great in photos for a myriad of reasons — one of which may be genetics. But it takes real skill to work with people who are not blessed with genetics or who have highly stressful jobs and family life to contend with.

There is one positive aspect to Instagram fitness: it inspires people to consider fitness and talk about health in a way never seen before. This comes at a cost that we call the Dark Side of celebrity fitness.

The Dark Side of Celebrity Fitness

Instagram’s famous fitness personalities market workouts and eating plans to millions of followers. They share (long) written messages of body positivity and self-love. But if you look deeper at the images they post — which primarily glorify thin, toned bodies — they tell a different story. Harvard experts say that Instagram’s typical fitness images reveal a dimension of narcissism that reflects self-absorption, vanity, and attention-seeking, all of which are often unhelpful and possibly harmful in the pursuit of long-term health and fitness success.

Dr. Marika Tiggemann, a psychology professor in Australia, suggests that even briefly looking at Instagram has an immediate negative effect on self-esteem, body image, and your perception of images of thin or fit bodies in the media. Instagram’s fitness celebrities post lots of photos of themselves — mostly half naked.

Too often, there is an alarming disconnect between the images they post and the words that accompany them. Paradoxically, they urge their followers to never compare themselves to the people they see on Instagram. Well, newsflash. People do even if it’s not their intention.

The Selection Criteria

In order to establish this list, we needed selection criteria that went beyond those delivering personalized one-to-one online coaching programs. As a team, we decided on the following three:

• A Proven System Of Training
• Professionalism
• Reputation

Here’s why we think each criterion is important.

A Proven System of Training

You must look beyond testimonials and Instagram posts, which is the fluff that’s great to see but doesn’t contain any genuine substance to show you HOW these trainers and coaches help people get results. Systems and processes play a significant role in getting long-term fitness results. They serve as the trainer’s essential building blocks and support. They enhance performance and help implement strategic planning, creation, and execution.

Using a systematic approach allows you to meet and exceed expectations. It makes it easier to identify your strengths and weaknesses and monitor your progress. Thus, you are aware of what needs improvement and which needs aren’t being met.

Ensuring the efficiency and consistency of results, systems, and processes is essential. It’s why we put such a high value on trainers who follow a system. Not only is it important for getting results, but trainers who follow a system have the capacity to reduce your long-term investment into your health. A good system stays with you for life.

Professionalism

Unfortunately, the fitness industry has a reputation for lacking a certain level of professionalism that is commonplace in other industries. Professionalism in the fitness industry is about the qualities and behaviors a trainer exhibits and the manner in which he/she conducts their business affairs. A professional trainer or coach speaks volumes about their ability to deliver their product or service.

For every single trainer, coach, or training provider on this list, we have the utmost confidence in referring business to these individuals. We believe that they won’t tarnish the Strength Matters brand in any way, and in fact, will complement it significantly.

Reputation

Reputation is the sum of all our actions that is reflected by the people around us in the way they treat us or interact with us. It is an indirect result of everything that we do. A good reputation requires consistency of effort and actions with character and grace.

However, reputation shouldn’t be correlated with popularity. A person can be extremely popular (Facebook/Instagram), but it might be for all the wrong reasons.

It’s not enough to rely on testimonials and reviews posted on a trainer’s website. They can easily be doctored or fabricated, intentionally or not. They’re always going to have a bias. A trainer’s reputation will help you determine the right candidate. It is a measure of his or her influence. A trainer who enjoys a good reputation should definitely be preferred over a trainer with no reputation. A person’s good reputation separates them from the rest and makes them special.

 

The Best Online Trainers and Training Providers of 2020 (Alphabetical Order)

Andrew Read

A lifelong athlete and coach, Andrew Read has seen it, then tried it, and then tested it. He has trained hundreds of athletes and clients, including those in the Olympic and World Championship levels. He has tested his theories on himself. He is both a black belt and an Ironman, and has been honing the craft of training for over twenty years.

Andrew has a wealth of experience to draw from. He is not tied to a single tool or method but has an extensive tool box from which he can choose the right solution for each athlete.

His training methods are blue collar and basic. There are no attempts to hack performance. He promises and provides age-old methods crafted to guarantee improved performance. He has worked hard to meld the training of mind and body together through his three simple rules on training: turn up, don’t complain, never quit.

This coaching program is ideally suited for men over 40.

For more information visit his Facebook Page

Girls Gone Strong

Girls Gone Strong understands that health and happiness are about so much more than the size of your jeans or your squat PR. They know true health includes no longer obsessing about food, but instead having the knowledge and confidence to eat in a way that’s best for you and your body.

Their coaching program shows you how fitness can enhance your life instead of becoming your life, and how to eat and exercise in a way that you actually enjoy and will be able to sustain forever with ease and confidence. The coaches at Girls Gone Strong combine the latest research with decades of experience working with women in the real world to offer solutions that help women reach their goals in a realistic, sustainable, and compassionate way.

This coaching program is best suited for women who are frustrated at a lack of results in their gym and want a female perspective on training.

For more information, visit http://www.girlsgonestrong.com

GMB Fitness

GMB, or Gold Medal Bodies, is about creating physical autonomy and freedom in your life. Their approach to training is to get stronger and move better for the things you enjoy.
Their unique three-step system is designed to first build physical autonomy, then address weak links, and finally work to achieve specific bodyweight skills.

With years of coaching experience behind them, GMB is the only online training provider on this list that does not have direct contact with a personal coach. That’s a testimony to their unique coaching system.

This online course coaching system is ideally suited for those who want to take back control of their bodyweight training and movement quality.

For more information, visit www.gmb.io

Big Dawgs/OPEX Fitness

Founded by James Fitzgerald, the first ever CrossFit Games champion, Big Dawgs remote coaching is all about performance coaching for competitive fitness athletes. Big Dawgs emerged when fitness athletes across the planet saw the potential to use functional fitness to improve and compete. Teens, adults, and masters emerged in the fitness arena with a shared goal: to maximize their potential, compete, and win.

What started as a training blog is today the strongest one-to-one remote coaching system for competitive fitness athletes around the world. A space for athletes to be coached in every aspect of their competitive fitness journey. A place for bodies and minds to seek and reach maximum potential. And a community of the finest fitness athletes around.

At Big Dawgs, they’re pushing and evolving fitness to promote a standard of excellence in online competitive fitness coaching.

This online training system is best suited for the competitive fitness athlete.

For more information visit, www.thebigdawgs.com

Precision Nutrition

Precision Nutrition is the home of the world’s top nutrition coaches. Over the past 15 years, they’ve helped over 100,000 clients get into their best shape ever and stay that way for good, and in the process, they awarded $1 million in prize money to their top clients.

Lasting body transformations like these don’t come from dieting or hardcore fitness programs. They come from their proven, research-driven methods that work with men and women of all shapes, sizes, and lifestyles.

Their personal coaching program is best suited for people who are struggling with their diets and need to take back control of their eating habits with a strong emphasis on nutritional coaching.

For more information, visit www.precisionnutrition.com

Every Journey Begins With a Single Step

In every great movie, the hero embarks on a path that promises adventure, challenges, and finally, achievement. Often, the hero finds a guide that takes the hero under their wing and pushes the main character to his or her very limits. Just think, where would Luke be without Yoda? We are the stars of our own movies. And we all need that guide.

When it comes to fitness, a coach can be your personal guide to movie hero-type success, and your secret weapon. There are so many benefits to having a personal coach. I would go so far as to say that coaching is a prerequisite for achievement. Period.

Once you take that first step, you can achieve anything you want. The Strength Matters Coaching Program isn’t easy, but it’s guaranteed to work if you follow the process. And we’re here to guide you every step of the way. But it’s up to you to get started.

Are you ready?

Take the short quiz to find out if the Strength Matters Coaching Program is right for you!