Clients that come see you for 1 on 1 personal training a couple times a week are the best kinds to get, but not all clients (or potential clients) can, want or need to see you that often. It is a good idea to try to fill the open time slots in your/your staff’s schedule by encouraging clients to see a personal trainer once a month for program updates. How do you encourage that type of client to sign up with you? Send them some of the information below. What better way to encourage folks to come see you than by educating them on why it is so important?
Read more on Fill Your Schedule – Encourage Monthly Clients…
I am sure many of you have come up against clients who question why they need to do cardio exercise. Of course you know the importance of combining aerobic and anaerobic cardio, strength training, stretching and other forms of exercise…but your clients may not. I always like to give my clients the facts about their fitness and do it in a way that is easy to understand and suggest doable ways to accomplish what I am suggesting.
Here is a great way to help your clients understand the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise and to show then why both are important in reaching goals.
I start by telling clients that every good cardio program should include aerobic and anaerobic exercise with some variable impact and agility training.
Aerobic Exercise:
Aerobic exercise is easy to explain. It involves going out for a walk, jog, cycle, swim, hike, x-country ski, indoor cardio equipment or taking a fitness class. It includes exercise that is within your comfort zone and at an intensity that you could hold for 20 minutes plus. This type of exercise will condition your heart and achieve numerous health benefits.
Anaerobic Exercise:
Anaerobic exercise is a more challenging form of exercise. Read more on Explaining Aerobic & Anaerobic To Your Clients…
We have made it through the majority of the excuses that your clients will try to use to get out of training with you. After reading these last two scenarios you will be armed with what you need to help your clients overcome these obstacles. Pretty soon your clients won’t even try to get out of workouts because they know you always have a comeback that is just too good!
Let’s Go Back Home
Imagine this scenario. Your clients have scheduled a two-week vacation and have decided to drive to their favorite holiday destination. They get half way there, get a flat tire and turn around and go back home. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But this is exactly what happens when most people start exercise or nutrition programs. They are on their way to their goals and they slip up. Instead of “fixing the flat” and continuing on toward their goal, they give up and return to old habits and patterns. We know that 70 percent of people who start an exercise program drop out within a matter of months. And most people who lose 10 pounds gain them back. So how do you help your clients avoid being one of the failures? It is important to help your clients realize and accept that there are going to be obstacles, challenges or perceived failures along the way to any goal. Those who succeed learn from the challenge and get right back on the exercise track.
The Here and Now
So many of our clients fall prey to the lure of immediate gratification. The chocolate cake staring them in the face is too great a temptation compared to future weight loss. They would rather experience the pleasure now and worry about the consequences later. A binge today simply means tomorrow they will eat better or they will work out twice as long or hard. There is always a way to justify a lack of discipline. Discipline and will power are perceived as deprivation – Read more on Overcoming Obstacles & Excuses – Week 5…
Here we are at week 4 of our 5 week series on Overcoming Obstacles & Excuses.
Remember, knowing how to get your clients or potential clients past these road blocks will keep them coming back for more. It is your job to ensure that they stick to the plan!
My knees hurt so I can’t exercise
The health benefits of exercise often outweigh the risks. Certain conditions may make exercise more difficult but a good trainer can work around most problems. Consult with a health professional who can help you design a program that addresses your client’s specific concerns. For example, if a client is suffering from a knee injury, there is no reason why you can’t work on their upper body and abdominals while they are rehabilitating their knees.
I can’t see any results
One of the biggest hurdles new exercisers face is that the effort often does not match the result. They have been exercising for five weeks and jump up on the scale. Ugh, no change! They feel the program must not be working and give up. Unrealistic expectations can be a real downer. Convince your clients to stay off the scale. Monitor how many more repetitions your clients can do of a particular exercise. Read more on Overcoming Obstacles & Excuses – Week 4…
I know that you have heard these excuses from your clients before. Read this week’s addition to my series on helping your clients overcome obstacles and excuses.
Getting your clients past these excuses can be the key to getting them to invest in your services!
I Hate exercise
In the beginning, exercise may feel like a chore to your clients but eventually it will become a physical and mental health need. It is important to find activities your clients enjoy doing so that they will participate in them regularly, see the results and get hooked. Have your clients use music, try hiking or walking and add variety to their program to make it more fun. Have them exercise with friends. Studies show you tend to achieve better results that way because it will become more difficult to skip workouts. There is also 
no evidence to suggest that exercise needs to be painful. If it hurts that much, your clients may be doing too much, too soon. While exercising, they may feel some discomfort, muscular fatigue or a burning sensation near the end of a set or an exercise bout. These feelings are normal. However, while performing an exercise, they should not feel sharp pain. This is not normal and they should stop the exercise immediately and consult a sports physician or physiotherapist. All of us have experienced muscle soreness after a new activity or highly intense workout. Remember the feeling after your first day of skiing, first aerobics class or the first run of the summer? This sensation is referred to as delayed onset muscle soreness because it usually takes one to three days after the workout to kick in. Many participants rate the effectiveness of a workout by how sore they are afterwards. But it you are training appropriately, there is no need to be sore. It is okay to think “Hey, my muscles feel like they had a great workout yesterday.” However, if your clients have a problem getting out of a chair, walking, or even just moving, they are training too hard – and not very sensibly. Read more on Overcoming Obstacles And Excuses – Week 3…
Hey Fit Pros,
Here we are at week 2 of our 5 week Overcoming Obstacles and Excuses series. We hear these next two excuses over and over again! It is time to have a response that will help your clients get over these obstacles once and for all!
Read more on Overcoming Obstacles And Excuses – Week 2…
Excuses, Excuses…
As you all know all too well…Eighty percent of people still do not exercise consistently enough to enjoy any health benefits. And clients come up with a ton of excuses as to why they’re not sticking to the program. Over the next 5 weeks I am going to share the most common stumbling blocks to exercise and ways you can communicate to your clients to help them overcome them. Now there will be NO MORE EXCUSES!
I don’t have enough time.
If your clients are having trouble finding time to exercise, they are not alone. A perceived lack of time is one of the most common excuses for not starting or for quitting an exercise program. But it really does not wash. We have clients who manage large businesses, clients with 6-8 children and clients who seem to do it all. How do they do it? They make health and fitness a priority in their life. When life gets rough, exercise is usually the first thing to go when, in fact, it should be the last. Exercise is the glue to mental sanity when life becomes chaotic.
Somehow, when other people need your client, their needs tend to end up on the back burner. Someone at work asks them to complete a project, their spouse needs their attention, their kids need some quality time, their friends are asking you why they have not called, and they have got a to-do list that extends well into the next 6 months. You can see how easy it is for your clients to convince themselves that the morning workout can wait until lunch and then until after dinner. Or maybe tomorrow and finally, “I’ll get back on track next month!” Commitments, responsibilities and the demands of work, family and social life are always going to be there. When your clients allow their own needs to become second to everything and everyone else, they will end up the loser.
Read more on Overcoming Obstacles And Excuses – Week 1…
Spring is here and people start thinking about shedding body fat in time for summer. So it’s a perfect opportunity to offer a Fat Loss program or Weight Loss challenge.
At Northwest Personal Training, our Spring Weight Loss and Makeover program has been a huge winner both from a financial and a client success perspective. Here are some of the details of our program:
Read more on Group Fat Loss Program…
Last night I was helping Brianna with a project and checking her homework that was due today. As I was going through her work, it became very obvious that she put in the bare minimum and didn’t check her work because there were so many errors. So I was trying to explain to her at the young age of 10, the importance of always doing your best. I was explaining to her that you have to always do more than what is expected to impress your teacher, your coach, your boss etc. Doing the bare minimum will never lead to great accomplishments or success in any area of life. Do more than what is necessary and great opportunities will come your way.
Read more on What is your B.A.M.?…
Hey Fitness Pros,
“The harder I work, the luckier I get!”
I always related to this quote throughout my entire working career. No matter what position I held…whether I was a waitress making really good tips and all my fellow co-workers asking “How do you make such good tips?” I always thought it was so interesting that they didn’t relate to the fact that if you just bend over backwards, be extra special nice, really do whatever you could to take care of your customers’ needs, they would tip really well. Some people just didn’t get it. Once I entered the fitness industry, I would write articles for free, present complimentary seminars around the community, attend so many workshops and conferences, read as much as I could to advance my career….and as a result, my career advanced and so many incredible opportunities would be presented to me. In the beginning I had to work hard to find opportunities and recruit new clients, but then opportunities started to find me and clients started to track me down. Some might say, “Wow, you’re so lucky. You get all the good breaks.” But I couldn’t disagree more. I believe that the key to success in anything that you want in your life is “Knowing what you want and willing to do whatever it takes to get it.” Now life is a lot easier for me professionally. I don’t have to work as hard as I did when I first started my career 24 years ago. It’s the whole adage “Short term pain for long term gain”. I’m sure those of you who have been doing this for a long time can attest to what I’m saying. Those of you new to your career, put your time in and you will reap the benefits. Trust me, it works!
Read more on Fitness Pros – Do you want to get lucky?…
