I won’t lie, personal training is a tough business for some but is a fulfilling career, but you won’t succeed unless you strive to improve every day. If you want to make your clients so happy that they will tell all their friends about you then there’s certain things you need to be able to and these are a must in my opinion
1: THEY’RE FOCUSED!
What’s the point of asking a young mum to perform max lifts if her primary goal is fat loss? There isn’t one, but a lot of personal trainers are guilty of projecting their own values onto their clients. Remove your ego from the equation. If an exercise doesn’t meet your client’s needs and goals, then it’s a waste of time.
2: FORM & TECHNIQUE!
This is by far the biggest fault that I see with a lot of personal trainers and I have witness this first hand, watching them with a client and seeing their client is doing an exercise with poor technique ( kettlebell swings being the biggest ) getting them to squat in the smith machine with a foam pad on, Dumbbell walking lunges when their balance is all over the place….if you can’t do it right yourself then don’t teach it.
3: THEY’RE HUMAN
Personal trainers should care about their health, but that doesn’t mean they have to eat steamed broccoli every day. Everyone has a guilty pleasure or two (I’m a sucker for gummy worms if you’re curious). Share little details like this with your clients. It’s important for them to understand that the occasional indulgence won’t hurt them as long as they make healthy decisions most of the time.
4: THEY WALK THE WALK
If a mother tried to convince her children to stop eating so much sugar with a can of Coca-Cola in her hand, how effective do you think she would be? Not very. Those kids would laugh her out of the room! Don’t expect people to take you very seriously if you don’t follow your own advice. I’m not saying you have to be perfect, but you’ll have an easier time finding clients if you walk the walk.
5: THEY CARE & ASK QUESTIONS
Resist the temptation to lecture your clients. If you’ve ever been to a boring college class, you know your clients won’t retain much information from a lengthy lecture. Instead, let them do the talking ( you’ll learn a lot by just listening ). I like to ask my clients a lot of questions, ranging from their day plans for the weekend, eating even what they’d like to train. This helps me determine the triggers that influence their behaviour. It also gives me the opportunity to ask them what they could do differently next time to make a better decision, which improves future compliance, and most importantly build a bond
6: THEY EDUCATE THEIR CLIENTS
“If I give away too much advice, my clients might decide they don’t need me anymore!” Sound familiar? Don’t worry about it. If that was really the case, they wouldn’t have hired you in the first place, because you can find all kinds of advice for free on the Internet. Explain things like anatomy, proper form and exercise selection as time goes on. Your clients might even share an interesting thing you said with a friend, which could result in a referral if you’re lucky.
7: THEY DON’T USE TO MUCH LINGO
It might seem odd to mention this because I just told you to educate your clients, but hear me out. It’s good to teach your clients, but you need to do so in a language they will actually understand. I know you can point out the latissimus dorsi on a diagram of the human body, but the average person can’t even pronounce it. Just call them “lats” and make sure your client understands the important that they are the broadest muscle group on your back and should be activated during exercises like rows and chin-ups.
8: THEY PROVIDE HOMEWORK
I’ve done this a few times with my clients, set them ” homework” or to practice something so when our next session comes round they should be able to move better and myself see a progression with them. Your clients don’t live at the gym. Their lives can’t revolve around fitness, because they have a lot of responsibilities. It’s hard to find the time to prepare healthy meals when you’re a single parent or a busy professional. You need to understand this struggle, because your clients’ results depend on it. A little bit of exercise couldn’t possibly make up for a whole lot of poor eating decisions. Give your clients some “extra credit” assignments they can do in between sessions.
SUMMARY:
Our clients care is first and foremost, their goal is now our goal, if they fail we fail and I myself hate to fail but to learn sometimes we have to fail…Right I’m off to get ready to go run the park-run, it’s been a while since I’ve ran one of those
Again if you need help, 1-2-1 training or online programming please reach out….Together We’re Stronger, Together We’ll Succeed
Robhamill 