Being an NYC personal trainer you’re exposed to MANY different types of personalities. Some personal training clients are super intense and have a type A personality, while others are more laid back and are patient with the training process.
As a personal trainer it is your duty to set your client up for success. There are many factors from managing the clients expectations, keeping them motivated, and progressing the client enough to challenge them.
Difficult but NOT Too Difficult
Here is where I see a lot of issues, at least in my opinion. Challenging the client is key to progressing up and keep the clients motivated. Unfortunately I see far too many unqualified personal trainers jumping into more advanced movements that the personal training client is not prepared for.
For instance, I watched a personal trainer in NYC attempting to teach the squat snatch. He started his client with the overhead squat. This is fine and dandy, the overhead squat is a great overall exercise BUT it’s ONLY good if you’re qualified to do so. If your back squat looks like crap, your overhead squat will probably look worse.
After a few attempt the client wasn’t really getting the overhead squat, luckily the trainer decided to move him on to another progression of the lift. Sadly for some reason the trainer jumped to the “knee snatch”:
This is an EXTREMELY fast movement that requires a great deal of motor coordination, mobility, and speed. Long story short, the client just wasn’t getting it.
Think!
If the client really wanted to do the squat snatch, the trainer needs to assess if the client is prepared to do so? In this case, absolutely not! While you may want to appease your client, you also need to explain why this will lead to failure.
Clearly the client didn’t have enough mobility in the static position (OHS), so how would they have the mobility in a dynamic position? If it was up to me, I would’ve started off with the power snatch and as we progressed the mobility/flexibility, increase the exposure to the OHS, and finally to the squat snatch when prepared.
Second, the next progression the personal trainer chose was a very difficult specialized exercise that not everyone can do, even veteran weightlifters. It may sound cool and look cool to do, but clearly the client wasn’t prepared to do such a demanding exercise. The personal trainer didn’t seem to really look at the clients mobility and just focused on new progressions to through at him.
As a personal trainer, you need to set your client up for success. Whether it’s knowing when to push for an extra rep, more weight, or when to back down, this is all on the personal trainer. Too many failed attempts and this can demoralize the clients motivation. Keep this in mind the next time you’re training.
Stay strong,
Team Fusion Trained