Personal trainers need to produce results. If they don’t, their clients will leave, looking for somebody else who will help them achieve their body and fitness goals.
Professionals in the fitness industry, therefore, need to use all of the tools at their disposal to help their clients achieve their objectives. In practice, that means creating personal training courses that work – something which is easier said than done.
In this post, we’re going to look at the five key tactics the pros use when designing and creating a personal training course.
Strategy #1: Choose A Training Program That Suits Your Client’s Needs
Every single one of your clients is different. Each has his or her own limitations, problem areas, and weaknesses.
Personal trainers need to bear these in mind when concocting a training program. It doesn’t make sense, for instance, to do calisthenics or spin with all clients. Sure, it might be great for a man in his twenties who wants to take part in an iron man competition, but it’s not going to help a woman in her eighties with hip trouble.
If you want to succeed, you need to design training programs that slot naturally into your clients’ lives. Take into account their objectives, current state of health, disabilities, and preferences. Never adopt a cookie-cutter approach where you give every customer the same treatment. It doesn’t work.
Strategy #2: Carry Out A Flexibility Assessment
Your clients’ level of flexibility primarily determines the types of exercises that they can do. Some people are able to bend over and place their hands flat on the floor with no problem whatsoever, while others struggle to get past knee-level.
Personal trainers often carry out “flexibility assessments.” These appraisals help you get a sense of how limber the client is and which exercises they can and can’t do. It’s also vital for assessing injury risk. In general, the less flexible a person is, the more likely they are to hurt themselves while training.
Strategy #3: Choose Movement Patterns That Resemble Regular Activity
Professional bodybuilders have a penchant for weird and wonderful movements, but they’re an extreme case. Often they’re looking for the exercise that will let them gain a tiny bit more muscle mass on an already impressive frame. While their routines might be inspiring, you shouldn’t rely on them for exercise ideas for run-of-the-mill clients with average physiques. They’re just not suitable.
The best routines are those that incorporate compound exercises that resemble the types of movement that people use in their regular lives. By and large, these are optimal for building strength, size, flexibility, and coordination. Going heavy with the weights can help, but you don’t necessarily have to go down the resistance route, especially if your client explicitly tells you that they want to “tone up,” not build muscle. Plyometrics and crosstraining are just as good.
Strategy #4: Set Total Weight, Sets And Reps
When people do the same exercises week after week, the body becomes complacent, and the client ceases to make gains. During your Cert III training, you learned that exercise is most effective when it challenges the body in new ways. Your job, therefore, is to design a program that continually challenges people, never allowing their muscles to get accustomed to the input.
At first, you have considerable leeway in the total weight, sets, and reps that you include in your client’s program. Most untrained individuals will respond well to any kind of low-level stimulus, no matter the type of exercise you undertake.
As people become more trained, however, making additional gains becomes more difficult. At this stage, setting appropriate total repetitions, sets, and weight becomes more important. Too little stimulation and your client won’t make progress; too much and you run the risk of burnout.
Strategy #5: Package Your Personal Training Program Into Something Beautiful
Personal training is an annoyingly intangible profession. A client turns up, receives instruction, and then goes home with nothing to show for it except sore muscle. Sure, over time, they’ll notice changes in their bodies, but it would be nice if there were something real you could give them.
To get around this issue, many personal trainers have taken to providing their clients with physical copies of their nutrition and exercise plan. Writing down a tailored, personalized training routine based on your initial consultation can go a long way to impressing clients and winning you more business in the future. Your clients will be delighted to receive something that helps them put into practice at home what you tell them in the gym.