Do you need to like your personal trainer?

I'm three sessions in with a new personal trainer who I adore. She's quirky and cheerful and wears pigtails and red lipstick to every session. She's a hardcore roller-derby athlete and she is always apologizing for not shaving her legs before we work out.

The music she blasts while she makes me do endless crunches and reverse planks is by the same bands that are packed into my own running playlists. We discuss funny dating experiences and frustrations with men while I'm on my 4,000th set of tricep extensions with the damn resistance bands. She's even invited me to a pole dancing class.

She is hilarious and fun and a lot like my favorite lady friends. But that doesn't mean she doesn't challenge me, push me harder than I really want to go, and act like a professional.

I've had other trainers -- from tough, bootcamp-style beefcake men to kindly, softspoken women and some who fall somewhere in between on the spectrum of fitness professional personalities -- but this woman I can really relate to.

Finding commonalities and genuinely liking a personal trainer is certainly not the most important attribute when entrusting your body and fitness goals to someone else. There's clearly certifications, education, experience, pricing, professionalism, and other determiners to take into consideration. However, I think I'm seeing in signing up to workout with this new trainer for at least ten sessions that personality plays a bigger part than I realized in sticking with the person I hire as well as the exercise regime they're going to throw at me every week.

After all, if I am going to gut out twelve more reps or keep going after my muscles feel like they might just fall out of my body, I want to know in a few minutes we'll be laughing about the dufus guy she went out with last Saturday. We're all about fitness business, yes. But there's also room for a little fun and friendliness, too.

For now, with this roller-skating, pig-tailed, lipsticked, pole-dancing alterna-girl in charge of my abs, I'm pretty happy to say that no matter how quickly I get to full muscle fatigue, at least my connection with my trainer's no sweat.

What about you? Do you prefer to be coached by a trainer with lots of common interests? Or do you need to be whipped into shape by someone who is markedly different than you?



Just a few more sets:

• When to invest in a personal trainer
• Would you hire an overweight trainer?
• Finding your personal trainer soul mate