Learn from one of my biggest mistakes and I’m sure you’ll be much further along as a coach or personal trainer.
To succeed as a sports performance coach or personal trainer is beyond your fitness knowledge, programming skills, and acute “coaching eye“. It’s about getting “buy in” from your personal training client and athletes.
Think about it, what good is the best coach if the athlete won’t fully do what they’re asked ok. You can have the best support staff and program but if it’s not going to be executed correctly it all means nothing. Trust me, I’ve gone through it all. While it can be a VERY frustrating process in the end, our job as coaches and trainers is to help our clients and athletes obtain their goal. With that said, here are a few tips that I’ve found helpful throughout my time working with some difficult clients and athletes to help them trust in our process.
Educate
Take a personal training client that is focused on losing weight and the weight-loss client is fixated on the scale number. If you don’t educate them that the number on the scale isn’t as important as body composition they may get upset, regardless of the results. The client could have lost 8lbs of fat and gained 5lbs of muscle, but all they’ve focused on is the meager 3lbs lost, regardless of the great body composition change.
This is why it’s vital to take before and after pictures. It’s VERY easy to forget how you used to look like but if you took the before picture, it’s all there.
Keep in mind that the pictures should be accurate. This means you should take the pic at the exact same angle, distance, lighting, clothing, and time of day. This will allow the pictures to stay consistent with each other and be more accurate. Also make sure that the client isn’t flexing or anything of the sort, they must be as relaxed as possible, something that can be intimidating so make sure to reassure them that there is no judgement and it’s secure.
In the end regardless of the goal, educating your client is extremely important. It not only clears their head of all the BS marketing and sales out the the crazy fitness industry but it also ensures that you both are on the same page.
Give Them What They Want
It’s really important to give the personal training client and athletes a little bit of what they want, regardless if it’s completely counter intuitive. A little give and take is important for a healthy relationship, right?
I had a group of athletes that we’re getting prepped for a big season, the previous season they were part of a top 10 team for a respectable D1 school. We had a captain and a few other upper class-man part of this group, they knew that this would be the last chance for the seniors to have any chance of a National Championship.
With all that on the line, these athletes wanted to be CRUSHED at the end of each training session. From the coaching stand point this conditioning style is not at all beneficial for their goal. The risk vs. reward is way too great for what is on the line for these athletes. They not only would increase their risk of injury but also diminish their performance level for the next training session.
As a sports performance coach we NEVER want to do this, however what is optimal isn’t what is always best for the athlete. It sounds weird, but if the athlete isn’t motivated, inspired, or trusts the process they won’t put in their best effort or worse go to an unqualified coach/personal trainer that’ll run them into the ground boot camp style with little to no thought about their performance development.
At least if you’re the coach, you can give them 80% of what you want and 20% of the conditioning that they want. For this example, we did just that and made sure they got a soul crushing conditioning at the end of the workout. This ensure they walked away believing they put in their best effort, despite if this method is beneficial or not.
Fire Them
If you’ve implemented the top 2 points and the personal training client or athlete is still not buying in and/or being disruptive, then it maybe time to let them go. In my experience the environment you have in your gym is vital to help support the athlete and clients toward their goal, so you should protect this as much as possible. One person can create a negative environment, ruin the focus of others, and then cause a downward spiral of negativity, it can also be a HUGE drain on your time and energy, which can easily diminish the quality of your coaching.
In short this has to be addressed, however before you do anything, I would make sure to have a sit down with them and figure out WHY they are still acting out or being difficult. If you still can’t address the issue, you should respectfully refer them to another coach, personal trainer, or gym that may better fit their needs.
Conclusion
In the end, clearly coaching experience through internships and mentorships are the skeleton of a great coach to really standout the coach or personal trainer must understand how to adapt their coaching style to each person. Without this, there will be no “buy in” and without “buy in” you may lose athletes and clients that you could’ve made a difference for. At times it’s a hard pill to swallow but the sooner you understand this better off you’ll be and the sooner you’ll help make a difference for the fitness client and athlete.
Stay strong,
Team Fusion Trained
About the Author
Many often fail to realize that effective coaching requires just as much of a learning process (if not more) than effective training. Thanks for sharing.
Well said Brian.