Get Results for Personal Training Clients Who Live Real Lives

Oct 18, 2019

By Tim Saye




Many personal trainers report that clients are entirely on board when planning their program, excited about starting their workouts and focusing on their food diary at the beginning, over time many of them seem to lose that mojo and become less consistent. As a result, their progress slows down, stops completely, or they even end up undoing everything they achieved in the initial committed phase.

That tends to happen even more often with online personal training clients, where there's little to no in-person relationship. An important thing to understand is that every client wants to achieve amazing results, but completely overturning their lifestyle overnight may not suit them and eventually create tension between what they want to do and what they realistically can.

In the next series of blog articles, we'll focus on how to get real results for people with real lives, and we will discuss:
- what factors contribute to a successful client journey
- what non-fitness skills you need to develop
- and what tools and strategies you can employ for best long term results.

We will break it all up in to 6 parts and cover each one in more detail over the next 6 weeks.


Part 1. Relationship and Coaching

The type of relationship you develop with clients will have a significant impact on how closely they adhere to the plan you design for them. Adherence will be the deciding factor in their progress and ultimately, whether or not they succeed in achieving their fitness goals.

You can be the most skilled and qualified expert in your niche, have all the knowledge and tools at your clients' disposal, if you're not able to get clients to take consistent action, the world will never know how good you are.

In this chapter, we'll discuss why and how to focus your efforts around coaching and relationship building if you'd like a really high percent of your clients to succeed long term.


Part 2. Consistency Over Perfection

Most clients will be average Janes and Johns who have a family, potentially kids, a time-consuming job and a whole life going for them. Even with the best intentions, they can't make their training and food prep top priority because it wouldn't be realistic.

Sadly, often they don't realise this until after weeks, sometimes a few months of being super focused. Something happens in their life, a kid gets sick, they go on holiday, or work gets much more stressful, and the bubble pops. In the second part, we'll go into details on how to design your service, so it focuses on meeting your clients where they are and encourage consistent progress as opposed to perfection.


Part 3. Community Support

Working with a personal trainer online or face-to-face allows people to nail down exercise form, accountability and expert coaching for accelerated results. However, quite often a community of like-minded people who are on the same journey will add that extra level of support one person may not be able to provide.

In this part, we'll discuss ways to build a tight-knit tribe that will eventually start its own life and keep your members engaged and interested in putting the effort in even when it gets uncomfortable.


Part 4. Continuing Professional Development

Any foundational qualification entitles trainers across the Globe to work with clients on their fitness.

When you start working with a wide range of people, you soon realise that their fitness, weight loss or whatever goal they have will not only depend on a perfectly designed training plan. There are no two bodies the same, many people will have something that needs to be taken into account and their body needs to be taught how to perform particular movement patterns. Then there's nutrition coaching, mindset development and more..The list could go on.

In a nutshell, focusing on your clients and what skills you need to develop or improve to better help them is what makes the difference between an average and an exceptional personal trainer.


Part 5. Clear and Concise Communication

Many fitness professionals get into the industry because they have a passion for fitness, love to improve performance, and see amazing results. 

Many course providers, however, don't emphasise that to be a successful personal trainer, you also need to be an exceptional people person.

Communication is a crucial skill to develop. How you talk to people in general, what language you use when on the phone, when arranging an appointment, during sessions, in messages, video messages, and coaching calls.


Part 6. Compassion and Empathy

These two traits are often at the core of a coach who wants their clients to achieve the best possible results on their fitness journey.

Some of the strategies you can use to show that you care and empathise with your clients will include communication techniques, listening and coaching skills as well as flexibility in all areas of their fitness plan.

In this part, we'll bring all the strategies together to help you become the go to coach in your area.


Wrapping Up

Often, trainers like to work with easy clients who follow every piece of advice to the letter and achieve astonishing results. Many then find that being able to break down a roadblock and help a person improve their lifestyle for the better can be even more rewarding. Stay tuned for these articles to learn more about getting real results with real people.

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